Legal Project Manager

LEGAL PROJECT MANAGER

Hinshaw & Culbertson is seeking a Legal Project Manager (LPM) based in any of its offices. The LPM will be responsible for supporting the delivery of the full matter lifecycle, from pricing and inception through to the completion of post-closing activities, for a portfolio of significant matters (or work streams within those matters) to ensure that they are delivered in accordance with the client's needs, efficiently, on budget, and within agreed upon time frames. The ideal candidate is a confident, collaborative leader with extraordinary analytical skills, exceptional soft skills, excellent professional speaking and writing ability, strong consultative abilities, a high client service orientation, and a record of delivering impactful results to the business.

This role reports to the head of Practice Management.

Responsibilities and Duties

• Help the firm’s lawyers adopt Legal Project Management tools and techniques.
• Confer and prepare scope, resource, and budget proposals for relevant matters and work streams. Prepare Statements of Work, Matter Plans, and Responsibility Matrices, where needed.
• Track progress against plan timetables and milestones, ensure that internal and external clients are receiving prompt, accurate, and professionally polished budgets and progress reports.
• Arrange kick-off meetings and send communications to ensure that the internal teams are adequately briefed about the matter and the client's expectations, and arrange for proper communication channels and resources, including identifying and facilitating reporting needs.
• Track issues through resolution and documents lessons learned.
• Manipulate and analyze data using advanced Excel skills or other data analysis and reporting tools to present information.
• When appropriate, function as the interface to the client, external vendors, and internal stakeholders.
• Proactively identify any risks and issues that arise, provide options for their mitigation or resolution, and take or coordinate the appropriate responsive actions.
• Assist partners and associates with the billing process and provide status reports for the client as required.
• Arrange post-closing matter reviews and lessons learned exercises.
• Partner with Pricing, Financial Planning & Analysis, and Marketing and Business Development groups to provide project support and contribute to process improvement.
• Perform research to evaluate and compare matter related data, and aggregate to create a decision grade knowledge base for future proposal and pricing matters.
• For clients with multiple matters, manage the entire portfolio to ensure seamless and efficient client service.
• Collaborate with Practice Group Leaders and Practice Group Managers to ensure that the relevant matters are appropriately resourced at all times.
• Apply understanding of financial concepts, problem solving skills, and a strong client service orientation to navigate and apply systems and data in productive ways.
• Use strong planning skills to ensure client matters are resourced, monitored, and progress in accordance with client expectations and within deadlines.
• Assist with department projects as needed, and perform other work-related duties as assigned.

Minimum Education, Experience and Qualifications

The ideal candidate will have:

• 3 years of legal project management experience, specifically including matter management. Alternatively, 1-2 years of legal project management combined with project management experience in a professional services environment. Insurance and/or litigation matter management a plus.
• Bachelor’s degree, Certified Legal Project Management, PMP, or JD (preferred).
• Working knowledge of MS Excel.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills at all levels, internally and externally with clients.
• Experience in change management and/or training.
• Experience in cross-functional team settings.
• Demonstrated understanding of law firm financial and performance metrics and the link between effective matter management, profitability, and delivering value to clients.
• Ability to work under pressure, multi-task, and prioritize appropriately.