Legal Project Manager

Baker McKenzie•Washington, DC

4d•$136,000 - $197,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Legal Project Manager (LPM) works independently or alongside Senior LPMs to secure, design, and lead project-control processes. The role delegates and manages work performed by Legal Project Coordinators and supports successful delivery of client-facing and internal projects by applying established and new tools and processes. The position supports the project management of strategic matters and matter portfolios, improving quality, profitability, speed, tractability, and transparency while emphasizing repeatability, scalability, and pace. It also extends project-management discipline to matters not actively staffed by LPMs through consultations, training, templates, workflows, checklists, and automation. The role works with practice areas, service lines, internal stakeholders, clients, and external parties, and contributes to the Firm’s innovation, LegalTech, and service-delivery initiatives. Some regional and global travel is required, driven by client needs and internal or external events related to the Professional Business Services function. The role reports to the Associate Director, LPM Americas and works with regional LPM leaders and teams across the Services function.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree; a law or business degree is preferred.
Prince2 Practitioner or equivalent formal project-management qualification is required.
At least 4 years of experience in project-management roles.
Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously.
Understanding of or experience working in large, complex organizations, ideally a law firm or professional-services firm.
Knowledge of relevant IT packages, such as document-management systems, project extranets (e.g., SharePoint), or other collaborative project-management tools.
Advanced knowledge of Microsoft Office, including Visio and Excel, and of financial systems and reports.
Outstanding communication and relationship-building skills.
Ability and desire to work collaboratively with senior-level professionals to support their business-development objectives.
Ability to work independently and willingness to work hands-on in a relatively flat organizational structure.
Ability to analyze matter-level performance, including profitability.
Advanced knowledge and experience with data-manipulation tools such as Excel, and experience with visualization tools such as Tableau.
Ability to compile executive summaries and status reports for attorneys and clients.
Ability to identify and secure future internal project-management opportunities, including process-improvement analysis or follow-on client work.
Ability to work across a wide range of subject matter and task difficulty, from strategic thinking to detailed troubleshooting.
Ability to understand how matter-finance decisions affect profitability and independently calculate key financial metrics.
Ability to organize and prioritize work in a dynamic, complex environment and meet deadlines and daily requirements.
Strong competency in continuous improvement and change management, a flexible approach, and a commitment to exceeding expectations.
Some regional and global travel as required by client needs and relevant internal and external events.
Demonstrate integrity, sound judgment, initiative, self-reliance, diligence, composure, adaptability, collaboration, discretion, and respect for others.

Nice To Haves

A law or business bachelor’s degree.
LSS Green Belt qualification.
Prince2 Agile, Management of Portfolios (MoP), or PMP qualification.
Experience influencing or coaching in a professional-services environment.
Knowledge of other LegalTech tools.

Responsibilities

Manage multiple projects with competing deadlines, including scoping and managing client-facing projects.
Manage the role’s own caseload and that of more junior legal project management resources.
Liaise with clients, the Firm’s client project team, specialist departments and offices worldwide, and external stakeholders.
Use pricing tools, assist others in using them, analyze outputs, and involve the Pricing Strategy Team as needed.
Support the Principal/Lead Associate in defining matter scope and tracking and managing changes.
Capture explicit and implicit client requirements and preferences and design project approaches accordingly.
Identify, quantify, record, and manage project risks and issues, including mitigation strategies.
Prepare, manage, and report on detailed project plans for internal and client matter teams.
Support whole-project budgeting and monitor and report on costs and fees internally and externally.
Prepare internal and client status reports and provide team leaders with timely updates about potential risks and issues.
Support matter reviews for key matters and identify practice-area process improvements through discussions with fee earners.
Develop creative solutions, solve problems, and improve standard project-delivery approaches.
Identify opportunities and future needs for new service delivery and lead analysis and design workshops.
Work with the Global LPM Leadership Team to define, enhance, and integrate project-management standards, processes, methodologies, and tools.
Roll out improvements and solutions through attorney coaching and training sessions.
Work with internal stakeholders to secure and define the LPM role on projects and move matter work into or out of the LPM team where appropriate.
Set priorities across large task lists, identify and communicate dependencies, and capture work in project timelines.
Disaggregate routine tasks and reassign them using Alternative Legal Services and other non-traditional resourcing models.
Clarify and communicate project-team and stakeholder roles and responsibilities.
Contribute to the Firm’s Innovation and LegalTech strategy, localize and apply these capabilities to projects, and encourage team adoption.
Become a subject matter expert on assigned technology and standardized processes; advise, train, apply them to projects, and support their refinement.
Lead portions of LPM training for internal audiences.
Design end-to-end, matter-specific portals for small to medium projects.
Integrate with allocated practice areas and service lines and develop familiarity with legal concepts, terminology, and principles.
Build professional relationships across Professional Business Services teams, including Knowledge Management, Business Development, Finance, and IT, and legal teams; establish an LPM role on new projects.
Build client relationships with in-house lawyers and Legal Operations professionals and contribute to business-development opportunities using client knowledge.
Provide project-management expertise to non-LPM initiatives.
Support strategic matters and portfolios to improve quality, profitability, speed, tractability, and transparency.
Extend project-management discipline to matters without assigned LPMs through consultations, training, templates, workflows, checklists, and automation.
Maintain an agile approach to localization, technology, and process improvement.