Legal project managers are a scarce resource and in demand.

Law firms must find ways of managing the deployment of their legal project managers wisely, in ways which benefit the firm.

In this article I will explain:

• Why legal project managers are in demand
• How legal project managers are typically deployed
• How the deployment of legal project managers can be improved by using a project scorecard.

 

Why are legal project managers in demand?

Law firms continue to invest in the recruitment and skill development of legal project managers.

They do this because they know having a group of people trained and qualified in legal project management helps improve client communications, manage costs, and frees up their lawyers to do more high value legal work.  All this results in increased client satisfaction and law firm profitability.

I regularly speak to practicing legal project managers and law firm leaders and know plenty of examples which substantiate the above.

It is hardly surprising therefore that legal project managers are in demand.

 

How are legal project managers typically deployed?

Most often, the work which flows into Legal Project Management (LPM) teams results from relationships built up by team members and certain partners.

Naturally, once a partner has experienced a legal project manager working on a matter which has increased matter profitability and client satisfaction, they want to give the project managers more work to do on their, or their team’s, future matters.

This is great and will keep the legal project management team busy.

From an organizational perspective though, this many not always be the most desirable outcome.

A better outcome is for the scarce resource (i.e. the legal project manager) to be deployed where they are most needed, which may not necessarily be matters under the control of partners which have established relationships with the legal project management team.

I think a more systematic and less personal approach to legal project manager deployment would be better for everyone concerned (including clients).

Surprisingly, I have found relatively little evidence of a more systematic approach in practice.

I say surprisingly because I think most legal project managers are usually ‘systems’ people by default (I know I am) and so would naturally favour a systemised approach to resource management as opposed to a personalised one.

 

Prerequisite for a more systematic approach

A more systematic approach to the deployment of legal project managers should be easy to implement.

There is however an important prerequisite.

The prerequisite is that all the firm’s key stakeholders must accept that legal project managers will be deployed objectively, according to where they are needed most.

For this to happen the firm must have quite a high degree of legal project management maturity.  A feature of a mature project driven culture is that resources are assigned according to objective criteria, rather than reflecting personal relationships.

Currently most law firms have a relatively low level of legal project management maturity.  Over time however, increasing legal project management maturity will become a feature of the legal services sector.  With this will come a more systematic approach to resource management, including the assignment of legal project managers.

 

Project scorecards

A more systematic approach is often found in other sectors with increased levels of project management maturity, such as construction and software development.

In sectors such as these, projects are assessed and ranked according to their size and complexity.  Following assessment, decisions are then made about how those projects can be resourced appropriately.

Typically, Project Management Offices (PMOs) will create a project scorecard or matrix to help with this exercise.

The project team will ask some (often standard) questions about the project, answer those questions as best they can and then assign a score to those answers.

Then scores for each answer about the project are then totalled up.

Depending on the score assigned to it, each project can then be placed in, say, one of three categories:

Category 1 – a relatively small and straightforward project.

Category 2 – a medium sized project with some elements of complexity

Category 3 – a large and complex project.

 

Resource assignment

Resources, including project managers, are then assigned to each project according to its categorisation.

Category 1 projects may only need light touch project management.

Category 2 projects need to be managed a little more closely than category 1 projects.

Category 3 projects must be managed closely.

How each project in each category is managed will reflect each delivery organisation’s project delivery capability, which includes the project resources it has available and the number of projects it is running.

 

Scorecards for legal projects (legal matters)

To keep things simple, let’s say the maximum score any potential project / legal matter could achieve is 30.

Hence if a project scores:

0 – 10 points it is categorised a straightforward matter, not large or complex.

10 – 20 points it is categorised as a medium sized matter, with some elements of complexity.

20 – 30 points it is categorised a large and complex matter.

How might matters now be managed, and resources assigned, considering the scoring?  Some illustrative examples are given below.

 

Matter management and resourcing

Matters scoring 0 – 10 points

Light Touch LPM Only – the legal service team will be encouraged to use some basic project management tools and techniques themselves, perhaps by downloading some standard legal project management templates the legal project management team has provided on the firm’s intranet.

Matters scoring 10 – 20 points

Medium Touch LPM – a legal project manager will help the team complete, say, the legal project definition document and check in with the team regularly (at intervals agreed with the team) to make sure the matter plan is progressing properly.  The legal project manager’s time need not be charged out to the client.

Matters scoring 20 – 30 points

Intensive LPM – a legal project manager will be assigned to work closely with the legal service delivery team during the entire matter and the work the legal project manager does on the matter will be recorded and charged out to the client.

 

Foundations of a more systematic approach

Every law firm has the foundations in place for a more systematic approach to legal project manager deployment.

When a new client and new matter is introduced to the firm, the firm must conduct a risk assessment exercise.

Essentially, this risk assessment exercise is concerned with assessing the financial and regulatory risk posed to the firm by the new client and matter.  A similar, but less exhaustive, risk assessment must also be done upon receipt of every new instruction from a client.

It should be easy to build on these foundations and assess how large, complicated and complex new matters are likely to be, simply by adding a few more project based questions to the standard risk assessment question set.

Some project based questions to ask and score

Thinking of supplemental ‘project based’ questions to enhance the current risk assessment process is easy.  In practice there is likely to be considerable overlap in the information sought, and the questions asked, in the current and LPM informed approaches.

Some rather obvious project driven questions to ask when considering new matters are:

• What is the estimated project (matter) budget?
• What is the estimated project (matter) duration?
• How many fee earners are likely to work on this matter?
• Are any external resources required to deliver this matter?
• Has the team worked on matters of a similar type before?
• How confident is the team about scoping the matter?

Answering questions such as these at the beginning of new matters can be done with confidence if law firms develop models of reference class forecasting (as explained in a previous blog post).

These questions can then be represented in a scorecard like the one below.

Automating the assessment process

Client and matter risk assessment processes are usually automated as they are often driven by workflows operating from within law firm practice management systems.

Hence it should be straightforward to add further questions in the workflow and route the questions to the people in the firm best placed to answer them.

Scores can also be assigned and totalled automatically.

Best of all, the legal project management team can then be notified automatically by the workflow of every new client and matter on the system along with its project risk score.

The legal project management team can then take the proper steps to help ensure the matter is managed and resourced in the most effective way.

 

Summary

Project scorecards are a well-known project management tool.  They are popular because they are easy to use and can represent a lot of useful information.

Adopting the scorecard idea helps promote a systemised approach to project (matter) assessment and resource deployment.

Using an approach like this firm wide should help make sure legal project managers are assigned more effectively by being deployed according to where they are most needed.

This way, it is more likely the law firm as a whole will benefit, rather than only those partners with pre-existing relationships with the legal project management team.

If you would like to find out more about how project scorecards, and much else besides, can help develop your legal project management effectiveness why not sign up for one of my legal project management training and certification courses?