Senior Project Manager

Senior Project Manager

New York, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Washington DC, Seattle

Summary

Our Finance department has an opening for a Senior Project Manager who will lead and manage the legal project management process for the litigation practice group.  The manager will also collaborate with the Director of Pricing and Legal Project Management and administrative departments on firmwide projects. This position provides leadership, direction, and support to the firm on project management tools, checklists and processes for the assigned clients and matters. They will work with partners, matter teams, and clients to scope work and manage budgets for a portfolio of matters across multiple practices for one or more firm clients. This position can be based in any of our U.S. offices with the flexibility to travel to the Bay Area, CA and/or NYC office at least once per quarter as needed.

Responsibilities

• Initiate and lead cross department initiatives to implement technology or process improvements that enhance the project management of matters, acting as a change agent to ensure new systems of work are adopted.
• Manage one or more members of the pricing and legal project management team, including setting goals, providing feedback on performance, and conducting ongoing training.
• Create project plans, estimate the resources needed to achieve project goals, and lead the budget-creation process.
• Manage matter budgeting/forecasting and comparison against actual time and billing, as well as project calendaring, timeline and milestone development.
• Facilitate communication within matter teams to ensure the appropriate effort is expended on tasks.
• Review staffing arrangements and collaborate with partners and practice management to determine optimal staffing levels.
• Lead the pricing and legal project management response on client requests for proposals (RFPs) to competitively price legal work based on best practices, including efficient work allocation and achievability.
• Design and develop fixed fee and other alternative fee arrangements (AFAs).
• Interface with clients regarding budget creation and monitoring, scope changes, and improvements in service delivery methods.
• Develop project management tools, templates, checklists and forms.
• Oversee matter closing documentation, including gathering relevant matter intelligence for use in knowledge management, pricing, project budgets, and analysis.
• Liaise with outside vendors to ensure cost effective and efficient delivery of services.
• Help ensure adherence with client outside counsel guidelines.

Requirements

• Excellent Excel, PowerPoint and other presentation and knowledge management tools.
• Strong interpersonal skills including the ability to work seamlessly with high level executives and as part of a team.
• Advanced communication and writing skills in order to convey and explain various budgeting scenarios, to report progress against the budget and to make recommendations to better manage the engagement.
• Must be organized, self-motivated and able to work independently.
• Reporting to the Director of Pricing and Legal Project Management, the ideal candidate will have 10+ years of project management, law or finance experience with an emphasis on designing and analyzing pricing and legal project management systems. Legal industry experience with litigation required. Bachelor’s degree in business or finance related area required, J.D. or M.B.A degree preferred.