Legal Project Manager

Gibson Dunn is a leading global law firm, advising clients on significant transactions and disputes. Our exceptional teams craft and deploy creative legal strategies that are meticulously tailored to every matter, however complex or high-stakes. The firm’s work is distinguished by a unique combination of precision and vision.

Based in New York or Washington, D.C., the Legal Project Manager will be responsible for enhancing our client service delivery, driving operational efficiency, and supporting our legal teams across matters to deliver excellence. This position will be instrumental in managing high-value legal matters within a defined portfolio of work, coordinating resources, managing timelines, and ensuring that matters are completed on time and within scope.

This role reports to the Director of Legal Project Management.

Responsibilities include:

• Overseeing and managing a defined portfolio of matters, ensuring alignment across timelines, budgets, resources, and priorities.
• Providing consolidated visibility and identifying opportunities to improve performance and efficiency.
• Serving as the primary point of contact for clients on legal matter portfolio delivery, including providing consolidated updates and strategic insights across the portfolio.
• Developing and implementing detailed matter plans, including timelines, milestones, and deliverables, to ensure successful matter execution.
• Collaborating with internal and external stakeholders, including legal teams, clients, and third-party vendors, to ensure seamless matter progress and effective communication.
• Managing resources across matters within the portfolio, balancing workloads and forecasting demand to optimize delivery and efficiency.
• Identifying and assessing potential risks and proactively developing mitigation strategies to address matter and portfolio-level risks.
• Tracking, analysing, and reporting on matter and portfolio-level budgets, including forecasting, trend analysis, and financial performance.
• Preparing regular matter and portfolio-level reporting, including dashboards, performance metrics, and executive summaries.
• Identifying opportunities to streamline processes, reduce inefficiencies, and implement best practices in matter and portfolio management.
• Working closely with various internal departments such as Finance, Legal Operations, Business Development, Technology, and others to ensure effective coordination and alignment on matter requirements, resources, and objectives.

Qualifications:

• Demonstrated ability to work effectively under pressure in a fast-paced, high-stakes environment.
• Strong interpersonal skills with experience managing relationships and expectations with various stakeholders, including the ability to influence high-value stakeholders.

Experience:

• A minimum of 5 years in matter and/or portfolio management within a law firm, with experience managing multiple concurrent matters within a defined client or practice portfolio.
• Advanced Excel skills with a proven ability to analyze data, create financial models, and produce insightful reports.
• Familiarity with project management methodologies (e.g., Agile, Waterfall) and tools (e.g., MS Project, Asana) is a plus.

Gibson Dunn will consider for employment qualified Applicants with Criminal Histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of local law.

Compensation & Benefits:

The annual compensation range for this position is $160-180k. The salary offered within this range will depend upon qualifications and other operational considerations.

Benefits offered for this position include health care; retirement benefits; paid days off, including sick time, and vacation time; parental leave; basic life insurance; Flexible Spending Accounts; as well as discretionary, performance-based bonuses.