Speaking Engagement

PLI’s Project Management for Lawyers 2018

Wednesday, February 07 09:00 AM EDT to 5:30 PM EDT

“Please describe your firm’s experience with project management.”“Explain how your firm will manage our matters using legal project management.”“Please provide examples of how your firm will apply project management techniques to our matters.”

These are just a few examples of language that is appearing recently in virtually all RFPs.  The implications of this language impact both law firms and legal departments.  Both in-house and outside counsel are expected to manage their matters efficiently and keep legal costs to a minimum.  The most effective way to accomplish this – while still maintaining high levels of quality and appropriate risk management – is through the use of legal project management techniques.

Lawyers today face increasing pressure to be efficient, handle matters effectively, and produce quality work product and service.  They must also utilize appropriate risk management practices and meet the ever-growing number of compliance requirements in many areas of law.  These expectations, along with the 24/7 service demand for most businesses, result in tremendous stresses on legal professionals to manage in a more disciplined manner than in the past.  Legal project management tools and approaches provide the techniques to navigate these pressures and relieve some of the stresses of managing matters effectively. 

Legal project management encompasses valuable approaches that enable lawyers to meet or exceed client expectations, while both respecting cost reduction mandates and improving profitability.   This program will offer insights and approaches for legal project management that can be implemented in legal departments or private law practices.

What You Will Learn 

• How project management techniques facilitate communication between lawyers and their clients

• How to implement legal project management tools ranging from scoping to risk analysis and end-of-matter debriefs

• How legal project management approaches and disciplines apply to all types of practices – ranging from litigation to counseling to transactional practices

• How legal project management approaches can apply to matters of all sizes

• How private practice lawyers can work effectively with legal operations and procurement professionals 

• Recent success stories in legal project management at leading law firms and legal departments

• How legal project management is evolving

Leslie Plaskon, Paul Hastings Partner, Corporate Department, will speak at the following program:

11:15 am Proactive Management of Matters: Using LPM Approaches to Enhance Efficiency, Client Satisfaction and Morale

• Using scope documents, budgets, LACI charts, communications plans and task assignment documents to keep teams on the same page and to minimize legal risk management

• The role of legal project managers

• Case studies: vignettes of matters off track

For more information, visit PLI's website.