Product in Motion

I’ve always been drawn to the messy middle — where user needs meet technical constraints, and ideas take shape through collaboration. These projects reflect not just what I built, but how I build: with care, clarity, and a deep commitment to making work better for the people doing it.

Rebuilding from the Inside Out: Launching a Cloud-Based MVP in Legal Tech

Project Type: B2B SaaS | Legal Tech
Role: Product & Project Lead (Contract via Motion Recruitment, for an IP Legal Tech client)
Timeline: 8 months

When I joined the team, the app technically existed — sort of. A previous version (V1) had been developed as part of an internal tech suite, but it never made it past stakeholder review. Before it could launch, leadership made a strategic pivot: rebuild the product as a modern, cloud-based SaaS offering that could scale across clients and teams.

That’s where I came in.

I was hired as a Project Manager, but quickly stepped into a full product leadership role. The backlog was a mess — hundreds of reopened Jira tickets from V1, minimal documentation, and no clear product ownership. I had to reverse-engineer the original intent of the application, untangle conflicting decisions, and start making calls that would bring the product to life.

The design also needed a complete overhaul. The original UI was built to mirror outdated internal tools, and we were transitioning to a React frontend using Material UI within Azure Cloud. I worked closely with developers to redesign nearly every component, balancing usability with speed. We avoided custom components where possible to reduce long-term support needs and meet a tight delivery timeline. A few were built when absolutely necessary, but simplicity was the goal.

Throughout the build, I ran point on sprint planning, stakeholder reviews, and cross-functional coordination — navigating resource constraints, backend bottlenecks, and shifting team rosters. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was foundational work that set us up for a stable MVP.

When we started onboarding users, it became clear the original design hadn’t accounted for broader workflows beyond a single team. I began meeting directly with internal clients, gathering feedback, mapping user pain points, and proposing design solutions that better reflected real-life use cases. I led UAT, helped build Power BI dashboards for adoption tracking, and stayed embedded with our users long after launch to continue improving the experience.

By the end of 8 months, we had gone from a dormant prototype to a functioning, client-ready MVP — built on modern infrastructure, shaped by user feedback, and aligned with the workflows of actual legal ops teams.

This project deepened my belief that cross-functional input and clear documentation aren’t just “nice-to-haves” — they’re essential, even in fast-paced Agile environments. While I stepped in after foundational decisions had already been made, I saw firsthand how building around the needs of a single team created gaps downstream. With more intentional discovery across teams and shared documentation from the start, we could have saved time and avoided rework. Tight timelines don’t preclude collaboration — they make it more important.

Pivoting to Retain: Embedding AI and Future-Proofing Legal Ops

Project Type: B2B SaaS | Legal Tech
Role: Product & Project Lead (Contract via Motion Recruitment, for an IP Legal Tech client)
Timeline: 6 months

Shortly after launching our MVP, shifting federal funding and the potential loss of a major client triggered an urgent roadmap pivot. Automation and AI features—originally planned for a future phase—suddenly became critical to retaining business and scaling operations.

I led product discovery for this new phase, working directly with internal users to understand their workflows, legal requirements, and the jurisdictions they operated within. The immediate need was to parse incoming emails, classify them by jurisdiction and action type, and route key details into third-party IP tracking tools—with long-term plans to support integrations across both internal and external platforms.

This required deep legal nuance. We committed to eventually supporting seven action types across eight jurisdictions, each with their own regulatory quirks. I gathered requirements from scratch, collaborated closely with our architect and AI team, and helped translate everything into actionable tech specs.

The first proof of concept—covering one action type in a single jurisdiction—was completed successfully. Due to the confidential nature of this work, I can only share that the proof of concept—built for one action type in one jurisdiction—was successfully completed before my contract ended. Given the private nature of the application, I can’t speak to its final evolution—but I’m proud of the foundation we built.

Even under pressure, thoughtful product work is possible. Listening to users, aligning with engineering early, and focusing on real-world value helped us move fast without losing clarity. That mindset—fast but grounded—is something I carry with me into every project.

Healthcare Ops at Scale: Implementing a Complex SaaS Solution for Compliance-Driven Teams

Project Type: SaaS Implementation | Healthcare Operations
Role: Implementation & Product Lead (while serving as Senior IRB Coordinator at Jaeb Center for Health Research)
Timeline: 6 months

We were told it couldn’t be done in six months. But with the entire team’s future on the line, we did it anyway.

I was brought onto this project because the initial implementation had stalled. The original lead was struggling to navigate the complexity of the vendor’s platform, and we were falling behind on critical milestones. I took over ownership of the tool’s implementation, learning the system inside and out, aligning with the SaaS provider, and building the site myself—while ensuring we met strict regulatory and data privacy requirements along the way.

This platform needed to support dozens of clinical studies, each with its own workflow logic, approval chain, and compliance guardrails. I collaborated with stakeholders to gather nuanced requirements, designing automated workflows with complex if/then logic and tailored form behaviors. I built custom dashboards, crafted scalable approval structures, and led testing and QA from end to end.

Despite the complexity, we launched the system on time—six months, start to finish—and transitioned the organization away from outdated tools that couldn’t keep pace. Our implementation reduced administrative delays, increased operational transparency, and set a new bar for what internal tools could do.

This project is where I first saw how powerful the right tools can be. I’d been on a healthcare operations path, but leading this work deepened my interest in tech—especially in building systems that make people’s jobs easier. It taught me how to drive product forward without a formal title, how to navigate constraints, and how to translate complexity into clarity. That’s the kind of work I want more of.

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