The document summarizes Mark Clark's presentation on integrating legal project management (LPM) into law firms. Clark discusses how some firms currently implement LPM in an isolated way on individual cases. However, he argues the most successful approach is to integrate LPM firm-wide by establishing a project management office (PMO) to ensure a consistent, sustainable approach. This allows LPM to provide value across client service, financial performance, professional development, innovation, and operations. Clark believes a harmonized LPM function can help firms address client demands, competition, and uncertainty if the benefits are realized across all cases, not just individually.

1. LPM
Supper Club
Welcome
Wednesday 28 August 2019
El Vino, The Old Wine Shades

2. Mark H Clark
Director Change Management
Integrating
LPM into
Law Firms

3. Agenda
LPM in Law Firms: What I’ve found so far
LPM in Law Firms: What the future could be like
Questions & Discussion

4. 1. LPM in Law Firms
What I’ve found so far

5. “Legal-project management (LPM) is the application of the
concepts of project management to the control and management
of legal cases or matters. Practitioners of legal-project management
apply it to the mechanics and business of providing legal services
rather than to the substantive legal work itself. LPM is applied to
cases requiring management of the schedule, risk, and cost in a more
rigorous and measured manner than firms have practiced in the past.”
Thank you Wikipedia, but let’s start with an introduction…
What is Legal Project Management (LPM)?

6. 6
Why deploy LPM?
Clients – Increased demand for transparency,
value for money, reduced costs, certainty and
improved communication
Competition – Big Law Firms, US invasion,
the Big 4 Consultancy firms, Alternative Service
Suppliers and In-house Self-reliance
Fear & Me Too – We’ve plateaued, how do
we grow? Other law firms are deploying LPM
Profit – Need to increase margins faster than
revenue
The Future – World economy, Brexit,
all of the above
So, excellent reasons to deploy LPM –
and the good news is a great many law
firms are deploying LPM… well, sort of!

7. Initial deployments – Lawyers asked to do
LPM, project managers asked to manage cases
Stand-alone LPM – Individuals or small groups
of LPM’s working with lawyers, limited
methodology, working in isolation, no shared
approach
Case-by-case value – Lawyers and LPM’s
working hard, not smart, on each case
Applied to big cases – Many firms think that
value only achieved on bigger cases
7
The story so far
LPM provides a consistent approach,
but if deployed in an isolated, case-by-
case manner, the achievements and
benefits are fleeting, with the learnings,
shared knowledge and experience
benefiting only a few.

8. 8
The evolving story
Team culture – Some law firms have
deployed a team ethos, with structure, a
method, shared learnings and an evolving
approach to LPM
Wider engagement – A limited number of
firms have their LPM function working with
finance, HR and IT
Change in lawyers, not to me but with me
– I’ve seen partners and lawyers wanting to
use LPM techniques and be more involved in
the process
LPM has been around for years but it’s
only now that firms seem to be asking the
important question – are we getting real
value from our LPM function?

9. 9
Where are we today?
The Good
Firms are open to change – Listening to
clients, aware of the growing threats, aware of the
opportunities, understanding the need to engage
LPM experts
Firms have ambition – Many firms want to learn,
realising that their LPM function needs to evolve,
change, be different … but do they know how?
The Not-so-Good
LPM working in isolation – Limited strategy, no holistic
or integrated approach, too many missed opportunities,
too reactive and not proactive
LPM is a ‘Way of Working’ and not a silver
bullet. Law Firms need to remind
themselves why they deployed LPM and
what they need it to deliver!

10. 2. LPM in Law Firms
What the future could be like

11. 11
How could you deploy LPM?
3 Key Stages:
1. Realise that legal cases are a form of project,
best enabled through the deployment of LPM.
2. Have the insight and belief to realise that
operating an aligned, integrated LPM function
that works in a harmonised manner with the
rest of the firm.
3. Drive LPM to operate in a sustainable,
client-focused manner, with performance
and value targets.
Many firms have focused on, and
remained in, Stage 1.

12. 12
A simple deployment of LPM
Clients
Partners, Associates
and
Legal Project
Management
Clients
Partners,
Associates and
Legal Project
Management
A member of the LPM function supports
the Partners and Associates in a very
focused isolated way.
The individual case will gain value from the
oversight of a project manager, but firm-
wide opportunities may well be missed.
Stage 1 achieved and that’s good news!
But where’s the shared learnings,
continuous improvement, increasing
value, integrated firm-wide approach?

13. 13
An alternative way to deploy LPM
The most successful businesses
balance their Client, People, Financial
and Operational needs to deliver
sustained performance and growth.
Deploy an appropriate PMO: strong and
effective leadership
Business
Intelligence
Clients
Partners,
Associates and
Legal Project
Management
Governance
& Control:
PMO
Deals: Bids &
Pitches
Business
Development
New
Products &
Services
Resource
Management
Learning
Management
System
Performance
Management
Pricing
Commercials
New Tools
AI & New
Technology
Shared
Services
Stage 2 & 3 – integrated & sustained
approach – evolving and increasing
value – Remember all these other
functions may already exist!

14. Clients:
• Transparency
• Assurance
• Client – Lawyer
engagement
Financial:
• Value for money
• Increased profit
• BI to drive
commercial
approach
14
Why integrating LPM? Meeting the firms needs!
People:
• Training – Partners,
Lawyers & Staff
• Resource
Management
• Performance
Management
Operational:
• Knowledge
Management
• Innovation – LPM
is a new tool
• Technology – AI, Apps
• Shared Services

15. The deployment of an LPM function in an integrated, harmonised manner
will help to achieve, even exceed, your original goals and targets. It will
meet your clients’ expectations, create real, sustainable, profitable growth,
while also developing people’s understanding and appreciation of the legal
process – clients, partners, associates and staff.
LPM, as with other innovations, can help manage the opportunities and
threats that face law firms today – client demands, competition, the need to
grow and an uncertain future – but only if its benefits are firm wide, not
case by case.
Real change is achieved and sustained by people.
And so…

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