Legal Project Manager

Katten is a full-service law firm with approximately 700 attorneys in locations across the United States and in London and Shanghai. Clients seeking sophisticated, high-value legal services turn to Katten for counsel locally, nationally and internationally. The firm’s core areas of practice include corporate, financial markets and funds, insolvency and restructuring, intellectual property, litigation, real estate, structured finance and securitization, transactional tax planning, private credit and private wealth. Katten represents public and private companies in numerous industries, as well as a number of government and nonprofit organizations and individuals.

Legal Project Manager

The Legal Project Manager (LPM) supports client-facing engagements to ensure successful implementation of legal service delivery models and plans. This position provides support for all practice groups and will affect efficiency, quality, profitability, competitive position, and client satisfaction. This position will interact with legal and business professionals internally and externally and will help structure and scale the Pricing and Legal Project Management team’s capability to provide direction, analytics, and coordination to the legal engagements being executed by the firm’s attorneys. The Legal Project Manager maintains professionalism and strict confidentiality in all client and firm matters.

Katten offers a hybrid work model, allowing the flexibility to work both on-site and remotely on a regular basis (KattenFlex). The Legal Project Manager can be located in either our Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, or Washington, D.C. office. 

Essential Duties and Responsibilities include, but may not be limited to, the following. Other duties may be requested and/or assigned. Essential functions are primary job duties that an individual must be able to perform successfully with or without a reasonable accommodation. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Assist legal teams with the delivery of legal services for complex, high profile client engagements employing project management methods and tools.
• Provide project management oversight, principles, methodologies, and tools as defined by legal teams and practice groups for internal and client-facing projects across a variety of subject matter areas.
• Establish and implement legal project management best practices for scoping, budgeting, monitoring, and communicating throughout the lifecycle of an engagement.
• Provide training and guidance on the principles and benefits of legal project management to all key stakeholder groups, including clients, the firm, and the attorneys.
• Manage assigned projects and associated activities to ensure resources are channeled to produce planned deliverables on time and within scope and budget.
• Work closely with attorneys to support and guide the entire project team in their effort to define and achieve business goals subject to the client’s needs and requirements.
• Monitor the project scope management process to ensure key stakeholders are apprised of scope change requests and impact to project.
• Coordinate with the Pricing team to ensure all learnings and efficiency opportunities are integrated into ongoing pricing efforts.
• Collaborate with team resources to plan for custom solutions and oversee the design, plan, and implementation for client-facing technical or process solutions.
• Follow policies, procedures and documentation created for the Pricing and Legal Project Management departments.
• Manage multiple projects concurrently.
• Train legal teams and clients on the implementation and fundamentals of the LPM.
• Perform other duties as assigned by the Director of Pricing and Legal Project Management.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Bachelor’s degree is required; J.D. M.B.A. or PMP certification is preferred. A minimum of 5 years of law firm or legal operations experience is required and three years of formal project management experience is strongly preferred; or equivalent combination of education and work experience.
• Must have an understanding of project estimation and management approaches, tools, and phases of the project lifecycle.
• Capacity to learn new technology, tools, and platforms.
• Advanced knowledge of the Microsoft Office suite, including Excel, Access, and PowerPoint. Must be proficient with advanced Excel analytical functions for data analysis.
• SQL & Microsoft SharePoint experience a plus.
• Demonstrate ability to work across functional teams.
• Excellent interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills. Ability to communicate with courtesy, diplomacy, and discretion, efficiently follow written and verbal instructions, provide information, and maintain effective relationships with a diverse group of attorneys, firm management, clients, staff, and outside contacts.
• Excellent organizational, planning and project management skills including record keeping, data collection and system information. Ability to compile and analyze data and furnish concise, detailed information in report format, written correspondence, e- mail or verbally.
• Highly motivated, strategic focus: ability to understand and support firm goals, services, culture, and strategy to present self and the firm in a positive, professional manner. Understand and stays up to date on current legal market trends, news, and innovations.
• Exhibit high degree of initiative in managing multiple priorities simultaneously in a fast-paced, deadline-driven, high-stressed, detail-oriented work environment. Ability to work with frequent interruptions and adapt to changes in workflow.
• Dependable team player with high energy, creativity and vision who works collaboratively and cooperatively with others in a team-oriented environment. Ability to act independently within scope of the position’s responsibilities as a decision-maker and contributor on all levels.
• Excellent analytical and technical skills requiring an aptitude for detail, precision, and logic with knowledge of all aspects of the business development process in order to perform the essential duties of the position. Proactive with excellent troubleshooting, problem resolution, and follow-through skills.
• Work occasionally requires more than 37.5 hours per week (35 hours per week in New York) to perform the essential duties of the position.

We offer an outstanding benefit package which includes: medical/dental/vision, 401k with employer contribution, parental leave, transportation fringe benefit program, back-up care option, generous paid time off policy, and long-term and short-term disability policies.

Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP is an Equal Opportunity Employer/AA-M/F/SO/Disability/Veteran.

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