Manager, Legal Project Management

Firm Summary

White & Case is an elite global law firm serving leading companies, financial institutions, and governments worldwide. Our long history as an international law firm means we are perfectly placed to help our clients resolve their most complex legal challenges wherever they may be.

With lawyers operating from more than 40 locations, working in virtually every country of the world, we have invested heavily in building a high-quality full-service practice competing at the top of the market. We are distinguished by our on-the-ground presence in the world's key financial markets and our strengths in handling complex cross-border work.

It's not just about our global network of offices; it's the global interconnectedness of the Firm that our people, and our clients value most. We work well together across geographic and practice boundaries. It's one of the reasons we attract and retain cross-border work, and why we attract a diverse group of people.

• In collaboration with the LPM leadership, build out the LPM capability and pipeline of work, influencing Partners and lawyers to adopt LPM on their matters
• Operational management and co-delivery of legal projects/matters by
  • arranging Kick-Off Meetings, Project Team Meetings and Steering Meetings, ensuring attendees, standing agenda, record keeping and circulation are appropriate to the meetings' purpose
  • defining and validating project scope, not simply management of scope
  • defining and tracking timelines, milestones, deliverables, assumptions and dependencies at the outset
  • financial/budget management on projects/matters
  • tracking progress and escalating changes in scope, time and/or budget to project stakeholders and ensuring effective corrective action is implemented, where required
  • implementing effective risk and issue identification and management strategies, providing options for mitigation or resolution
  • leading post project review and Lessons Learned workshops
• Use of appropriate project management tools and techniques including drafting of all project-related documents and project artefacts such as project approach, project plans, schedules, action trackers, availability trackers, correspondence trackers, risk logs, status reports
• Implement and ensure effective communication strategies are in place and acting as the interface, where appropriate, to project specific stakeholders including our Clients, lawyers in other practice areas and offices, external and opposing counsel and third party vendors
• Provide LPM guidance on best practices, tools, techniques, roles and responsibilities
• Collaborate with legal teams to identify the most cost effective and level of resources available
• Collaborate with legal teams to draft and submit budget proposals; and with support from the Finance team, track and analyse actual project costs against budget and proactively address budget variances
• Build relationships and foster a collaborative approach between project workstreams including between our lawyers and our clients
• Focused on lean principles and use of innovation and business process mapping, contribute to continuous improvement of the LPM Team's processes including project management methodology, governance, training for legal teams and LPM best practice; and support of the change management of implementing these
• Management of concurrent projects
• Management of client portfolios with emphasis on legal operations, disputes and transactional projects and management of Firm's strategic client initiatives
• Line management of junior team members, as required
• Support LPM leadership with LPM collateral for bids, tenders and pitches to portray LPM as an innovative way in which to deliver legal services
• Contribute to the development of LPM training and deliver same to clients and lawyers
• Identify opportunities to cross-sell LPM services in our global business
• Be seen as a key contact point for Partners and senior stakeholders for LPM globally and build relationships and foster a collaborative approach to working with clients and across all departments.

• Experience of Legal Project Management required
• Significant experience of managing project teams and supporting complex, multi-jurisdictional matters in a dedicated project management capacity including experience of working with global legal teams
• Experience of change management
• Knowledge and proficiency in extranets, online data rooms, collaboration tools, legal tech and SharePoint sites; proficiency in the use of Microsoft Office products including Excel, Powerpoint, Visio, Project and Power BI
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills
• Ability to manage multiple priorities with "can do" attitude, work cross-functionally, and meet tight deadlines
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, able to interact at all levels including with senior business stakeholders to negotiate and persuade in order to achieve successful outcomes
• Understanding of law firm financial and performance metrics and ability to analyse financial reports of varying levels of complexity, providing financial analysis with a focus on delivering value to clients
• Problem solver
• Willing to challenge and question assumptions
• Ability to work well under pressure and manage/prioritise workload
• Advanced organizational and time management skills
• A project leader
• Flexible and resilient with ability to change and adapt in a fast moving, detail oriented environment
• Sensitivity to cultural differences across project teams

• A strong academic record, preferably of graduate level (Law Degree or other relevant Post Graduate Degree an advantage)
• Formal project management qualification essential, for example APMQ or PMP
• 3+ years relevant work experience including client facing roles

• This is a permanent position based in New York City, NY.
• This role reports to Senior Manager