I started by listening. Dozens of calls with law students and alumni last summer showed me how they actually studied, and where legal education needed more attention than existing tools gave it. That research shaped everything that followed.

The brand needed to feel grounded in that world, so I pulled the palette from what a student already lives in: a crimson borrowed from law textbooks, a warm orange like a late night study lamp, paper white, and a soft willow green to tie it together. The result felt less like software and more like something already on their desk.

On those same calls, one thing stood out: how a professor taught and tested a subject mattered more to a student's grade than the subject itself. That's the gap most flashcard and exam prep tools missed, and it became Cubby's edge.

I designed the product around a format law students already trust, the "law school outline", and made it the spine of Cubby, with every point interactive: quiz yourself on a topic, read deeper, or sit a practice exam. To make every part of the product actually reflect a student's professor, Cubby read the content a student uploaded and learned the specific patterns in how their professor taught and graded, building something close to a profile of that professor, then shaped every quiz, exam, and insight around it. Just as important, students could see the exact patterns the AI noticed which were often things they hadn't noticed themselves. I made it a point of importance to surface the technicalities of AI learning in a way that felt visually digestible.

Readings, case briefs, quizzes, and exams were all woven into that one outline, tuned to how their own professor actually taught and graded.