Successful Law Firms Use Legal Project Management. Should You?
Most law firms have teams of professionals helping them run their law firm 'like a business.' But in-house legal departments have been slower to adopt best practices for operations management. A new book looks at the reasons for this – and how legal departments can catch up.
Most law firms have dozens, if not hundreds, of professionals helping them run their law firm “like a business.” But in-house legal departments have been much slower to adopt best practices for operations management. A new book looks at the reasons for this – and how legal departments can catch up.
Co-authored by seasoned “legal ops” experts Connie Brenton, of NetApp, Inc., and Susan Raridon Lambreth, a founding Principal at LawVision and founder of the LPM Institute, Running Legal Like a Business: The Fundamentals of Legal Operations for Law Departments, published by PLI Press, provides practitioners with valuable (and profit-enhancing) insights. The book includes chapters on legal technology, budgeting, and using metrics and data, among other trends and tools. We spoke with Lambreth about one of these useful tools – legal project management (LPM) – and how it can benefit legal departments.
What was the impetus behind your interest in legal project management?
Over the past three decades, I have consulted law firms on various aspects of change management and lawyer behavior change. From the early ‘90s on, I advised many Am Law 200 firms on implementing new practice group management structures. I helped firms adapt to new ways of operating in groups and teams at the practice level, moving away from an individual lawyer orientation so they could achieve the benefits of collaboration and critical mass.
In the mid- to late 2000s, as pressures for improved efficiency increased for both firms and in-house legal departments, I saw LPM as part of the evolution from managing at the practice level to also managing down at the matter or project level. Implementing LPM brought the same challenges I had already encountered, in getting lawyers to change their ways of operating to managing more proactively and less autonomously at the matter level.
My LawVision colleague, Carla Landry, began her career in the Big 4 environment, where project management was just the approach you used to manage your projects. They didn’t even call it “project management”; they just utilized the approaches without putting a label on it. To her, it was a natural way to plan and execute on matters. As I looked at the growth and evolution of legal organizations over that time and from working with Carla, it became obvious how these techniques made sense in any industry.
It has been very rewarding helping individual lawyers, law firms, and legal departments achieve the benefits of LPM – both financially and in terms of enhanced morale, teamwork, and client satisfaction. More recently, we have been exploring how LPM can even lead to improved diversity and equity within firms and legal departments, as it creates transparency of roles and responsibilities across the matter team.
What is a common misperception lawyers and legal departments have about implementing LPM strategies and principles?
One misperception is that LPM is somehow complex and doesn’t apply to legal work – that it only makes sense in a manufacturing, technology, or similar company making products that are identical. As the CLOC LPM Initiative stated, “LPM is what lawyers already do, just more systematically and using the language of business.” It is a simple process of defining a matter upfront, planning the matter at various points, managing the matter proactively and evaluating/reviewing it at the end. It is a more proactive approach than some lawyers have taken historically, consisting of simple “tools” or approaches to enhance communication with the matter team and the client and to clarify and manage expectations. Everyone on the matter team knows what they should be doing and how their work fits into the matter overall. This not only helps to keep everyone engaged in the bigger picture, but also allows more time for the higher-value advice.
What is the biggest lesson law firms and legal departments should draw from LPM?
LPM is not primarily about applying technology. Technology tools can facilitate and complement LPM, and are very helpful for capturing information and mining data. But, as some legal organizations found out the hard way, tech is not the “magic bullet.” Rather, LPM is really a program for relationship management and communication – managing matters in a way that enhances communication within matter teams and with clients, both internal and external. For in-house lawyers, it can help manage legal risk and spend more effectively and ensure compliance. It can improve law firm profitability significantly by reducing write-offs and improving client satisfaction. For both kinds of organizations, it can enhance teamwork and morale of matter teams and improve professional development for junior lawyers.
What has most surprised you as you have gone about implementing LPM principles?
Simple techniques that are widely used in the corporate world and that can improve relationships and profitability and enhance risk management are resisted by some lawyers who see it as just a fad or something threatening to their practice. On the other hand, I have been pleasantly surprised by legal organizations that have implemented LPM with strong leadership support, good training, and tech tools – it has quickly become a way of operating throughout the organization and resulted in positive ROI.
Click here for a free sample chapter from Running Legal Like a Business. To learn more, register for PLI’s Legal Project Management 2022, an in-person and live webcast program co-chaired by Lambreth.
Practising Law Institute is a nonprofit learning organization dedicated to keeping attorneys and other professionals at the forefront of knowledge and expertise. PLI is chartered by the Regents of the University of the State of New York and was founded in 1933 by Harold P. Seligson. The organization provides the highest quality, accredited, continuing legal and professional education programs in a variety of formats which are delivered by more than 4,000 volunteer faculty including prominent lawyers, judges, investment bankers, accountants, corporate counsel, and U.S. and international government regulators. PLI publishes a comprehensive library of Treatises, Course Handbooks, Answer Books and Journals also available through the PLI PLUS online platform. The essence of PLI’s mission is its commitment to the pro bono community. View PLI’s upcoming live webcasts here.
