This is a guest post by Hajnalka Hoflinger, who is based in Hungary.

Hajnalka has investigated the state of applied project management in the European legal sector.  She conducted award winning research into the sector and kindly participated in one of my alumni meet-up sessions.

During the meet-up it soon became clear that most issues about project management faced by law firms and in-house legal teams in Europe are the same issues faced by law firms and in-house legal teams in the U.K.

I am delighted that Hajnalka has summarised her research findings below as they should interest everyone working in legal operations in Europe and the U.K.

Legal Sector Challenges

The legal sector has been compelled to confront an accelerated pace of change in recent years due to various challenges.

Legal sector clients are under pressure to reduce legal costs, operate within faster decision-making environments, and increase efficiency.

Clients have raised their expectations significantly and want their legal partners to be more responsive, transparent, and efficient to support their operations well.

To meet these challenges, applying project management techniques to legal work could be a potential answer.

My double award-winning research investigated the status of applied project management in the European legal sector.

The research results show the legal sector across Europe to be in an early phase of applying project management techniques to help with legal service delivery., and a number of barriers must be overcome before the application of project management techniques becomes more widespread.

Research Scope

For the research, I defined the legal sector broadly.

Hence, I included law firms, legal departments, ALSPs (alternative legal service providers), legal tech companies, and legal innovator companies as newcomers, excluding notaries and the public sector.

The novelty of the research method was combining legal background with project management knowledge to reveal legal sector features.

The research data was collected in response to questionnaires I sent out to legal service organisations all over Europe.

It is worth highlighting this research focuses on legal work and the whole spectrum of operations in the legal market.  This means it is broader in scale than legal project management, which is generally taken to refer to applying project management technique to help manage legal matters.

The research methods were based on a triangle of tools such as seconder data, and qualitative and quantitative analysis.  Semi-structured interviews with experts fine-tuned the findings.

The target audience was a restricted population of those with first-hand relevant information on projects in the legal industry.  It is important that not just lawyers were involved but also, for example, professionals working in business development and Information Technology (I.T.).

I also wanted to compare legal sector developments in Europe with that of my home country, Hungary.

Research Participants

The graphic below identifies the type of organisation where participants worked in at the time of the survey.

People working in law firms and in-house legal teams submitted the most responses.

The main findings from the research

Project Maturity

The idea of project management maturity is well known.

Organisations go through stages in their project management development.  Research elsewhere shows there is a direct correlation between project management maturity and organisational success.  The more mature an organisation is in its ability to deliver projects effectively, the more successful the organisation is compared to its competitors.

Organisations self-assessed their grade of project management maturity.

Most European respondents are on level one meaning they apply some project management methods and processes.

In contrast, Hungarians are on level zero – not having a formal approach or planning to implement even an informal application of project management.

Project management underrepresented in the legal sector

The reasons why project management could be underrepresented in the legal sector were found to be:

• lack of understanding of project management’s benefit to the organisation,
• lack of project management knowledge,
• being overwhelmed by actual legal work.

Drivers behind the development of project management in the legal sector

The top four drivers behind initiating project management were:

• better resource management
• better client relationship
• clear processes in plain language
• tracking work better, use metrics.

Interestingly, although the literature review suggested a demonstration of resilience as a driver, it has a low level of importance according to the survey results.  The same can be said for managing the rising cost of legal services and the need to streamline processes.

Challenges legal service organisations face when developing project management

The top three challenges the European legal sector face during the start of project management implementation are:

• lack of project management experience
• lack of defined roadmap
• lawyers were not involved.

The first two causes could be linked and mirrored the second-ranked challenge of project management in practice (defining scope).

The third might be rooted in poor stakeholder management.  It should also be noted that lawyers’ support appears as the first-ranked challenge during practising project management.

Securing executive support is not a high priority challenge in Europe.  Resource constraints and lack of technical capabilities are also found at the bottom of the order of importance.

Areas where project management most likely to be applied

The top three areas of knowledge where project management methodologies are applied:

• create workflow, standardise processes
• M&A, audits
• legal tech projects, investment in new technologies.

Skill development

As for required skills and mindset, Europe and Hungary have different orientations.

In Hungary, project management knowledge rather than legal experience are emphasised, while elsewhere in Europe the reverse seems true.

Out of 17 skills, knowledge of legal processes and legal operations received the highest score from European respondents.

Experience in legal project management has the same place in Europe and in Hungary, while speaking legalese and understanding lawyers’ needs is more important for European organisations.

In the European market, the main challenges are a lack of desired experience or legal knowledge.

One-third of organisations reported an overall problem with candidate quality as they identified four or five skill gaps.

Pros and cons of project management in the legal sector

In the European survey, respondents listed several pros and cons of project management in the legal industry, such as:

• In legal services there is a distinct culture, which differs from other sectors
• Legal projects often seem to be complex and unpredictable
• They also noted that the legal mindset is traditional, and lawyers are often paid hourly, so efficiency is not rewarded.
• While some believe that project management in the legal industry has the same principles as project management practised in other industry sectors, and can be handled accordingly, others took the opposite view.

Research Summary

The main findings of the research showed that most respondents face a lack of project management knowledge and a poor understanding of its benefits for their organisation.

Hence there is a huge need for education and knowledge sharing about the applicability of project management to legal service organisations.

To begin to remedy this, concerted effort should be taken to involve and educate lawyers about project management when starting and practising project management in an organisation working in European legal sector.