Strategic Legal Project Manager, Outside Counsel

Google • Austin, TX

5d • $106,000 - $151,000

About The Position

As a Legal Project Manager within the Strategic Spend and Budget Advisory team, you will serve as the strategic bridge between our in-house legal counsel, external law firms, and Corporate Finance.

You will partner with attorneys at the inception of the matter, helping to define scope, drive fair and appropriate pricing through RFPs, and ensuring that we are actively and effectively managing our spend in accordance with budget. You will support our attorneys in conducting detailed and strategic invoice reviews for large invoices. You will build and manage processes around outside counsel (OC) timekeeper management, including rate review and negotiation.

This is a high-impact role requiring a blend of project management rigor, financial acumen, and the ability to navigate effectively in a fast moving highly complex organization.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Law, or a related field.
• 5 years of experience in outside counsel management, legal project management, legal operations, or a pricing, financial planning and analysis (FP&A), client value, or client relations role within a law firm or in-house legal department.
• Experience with data analysis.

Nice To Haves

• Certification in Project Management Professional (PMP) or Legal Project Management (LPM).
• Familiarity with the Uniform Task-Based Management System (UTBMS) and LEDES billing standards.
• Proficiency in Legal Electronic Billing (e-Billing) and Matter Management technology.
• Proficiency in SQL and experience building dashboards or reports that translate legal spend into actionable insights for executive leadership.
• Ability to analyze complex legal budgets and identify "scope creep" or billing inefficiencies.
• Excellent negotiation and "soft power" skills with the ability to hold external partners accountable while maintaining productive relationships.

Responsibilities

• Partner with in-house attorneys to define matter scope and assess the reasonableness of proposed budgets from OC.
• Facilitate matter-level and portfolio-based RFPs to ensure we are selecting the best fit firms and fee arrangements.
• Act as a key liaison between Google and OC to ensure matters are progressing according to plan, intervening when deviations occur.
• Review budget adjustments and escalate material shifts to GA Finance as needed.
• Manage billing cycles to ensure material arrears do not accumulate.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level