Melissa Lyon

Executive Director | Hive Legal

Melissa is an innovation specialist committed to assisting the legal industry to develop human centred design skills. She draws on many years of experience in legal practice as a commercial litigator and as a partner of a law firm. She has also held senior business development roles, including managing BD teams and leading numerous projects and programs at a top tier Australian legal firm.

Melissa is now the Executive Director & Experience Designer of Hive Legal, an innovative law firm which has changed the legal profession by introducing legal design thinking, technology based solutions for its clients, value pricing and truly flexible work practices.

Melissa has developed a very different approach to innovation programs based on a design thinking framework and the power of purpose (HiveThinkP). She is a skilled facilitator and assists clients to develop human centred projects through interactive workshops and design sprints.

Melissa has also designed and delivered numerous educational sessions and programs to a broad range of people within the legal ecosystem focussing on providing an understanding of legal design concepts and how they can be utilised to design user centred business models, products, documentation, services and processes.

She is a member of the Centre for Legal Innovation’s Advisory Board and ‘Geeky Guru’ (Legal Design Thinking). She was recognised at the Australian Law Awards as Business Development Professional of the Year 2017 and Innovator of the Year 2020.