Senior Legal Project Manager

Clifford Chance; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 50,000 - 90,000

Job description

Senior Legal Project Manager – Litigation & Dispute Resolution

• Full-time

Who we are

We are one of the largest international law firms in the world. With over 30 offices across the globe, we strive to exceed the expectations of our clients, providing them with the highest-quality advice and legal insight, which combines the firm’s global standards with in-depth local expertise.

Our firm, work and people span jurisdictions, cultures, and languages. We offer our clients a truly international perspective. We believe every career should be rewarding and stimulating - full of opportunities to learn, thrive, and grow. That’s why we’re so proud of our inclusive, friendly, and team-based approach to work.

Our one firm global strategy is focused on targeted growth led by the needs of our core clients, those who we can best support with the breadth and depth of Clifford Chance expertise, across the sectors and geographies, which matter most to them.

Whichever area of the business you join, you’ll become an integral part of an innovative, diverse and ambitious team of people. Clifford Chance is a place where the brightest minds and the best of colleagues meet.

Our Legal Project Management (LPM) teams sit within our global business units; Corporate, Global Financial Markets or Litigation & Dispute Resolution. The purpose of the LPM team is to ensure that we can deliver an outstanding client experience on every matter, every time. It is an established and critical strand to our Innovation change programme with far reaching global coverage.

The Role

As a Senior Legal Project Manager supporting Litigation & Dispute Resolution (L&DR) you will have impact on how we deliver high end complex legal advice to our biggest clients.

You'll be accountable for the project management function and service delivery within L&DR and you'll be responsible for strategically planning and building demand in L&DR, to deploy legal project management resources and best practices on the firm's largest and most complex mandates.

You'll be responsible for the operational management of a team of legal project managers. Your duties will include coaching and developing team members, prioritising new work requests, planning resourcing levels and acting as an escalation point when needed.

You will dedicate approximately 50% of your time to work on client matters and deals, as a core part of the client team recording time against those matters. You will help enhance the client experience and add value through efficient project management.

You will track workstreams, work with clients, monitor resourcing, manage budgets, and integrate solutions into our largest and most complex projects. You will bring new ideas and expertise to an evolving role within a rapidly changing legal market.

Who you will work with

You'll need to establish strong relationships with Practice Area Leaders, Practice Area Managers, Transformation Champions, Business Development and Transformation Directors. You'll develop sustainable relationships, understanding stakeholder needs, identifying ways to address needs and demonstrate influencing skills to deliver the business objectives.

You'll spend 50% of your time working typically on one to two projects at any one time. These multi-disciplinary teams will be made up of trainees, lawyers, partners, legal tech advisors, secretaries, business development, billing, and anyone else in the firm who forms part of a client matter or deal team. The focus of each of the teams you work with is to serve the client, and to deliver excellent legal advice and guidance, and to conclude the matter successfully.

You will collaborate with other Legal Project Management colleagues around our global network. You will also work closely with other members of the Transformation community.

What you will be responsible for

You'll support our partners working on some of the most complex matters with a chance to drive, deliver and implement outstanding project management on our largest and legal matters.

You'll be responsible for the overall service delivery of a small team of legal project managers.

You'll be responsible for developing and coaching project management best practice.

What you will do

We are the front runners of change delivery in the legal sector and everyone who joins our team becomes an integral part of shaping a rapidly developing area of law that is critical to the Firm's strategy.

Team responsibilities

• Develop a strong pipeline of business development activities to generate sufficient demand levels based on your team size.
• Develop team members through coaching, training and promoting professional development opportunities and tools.
• Carefully plan team resourcing, monitoring utilisation levels, portfolio of projects and prioritising new work requests to ensure workloads remain manageable.
• Working with members of the global Legal Project Management function, define best practice and service delivery models by work type.

Project responsibilities

• You will assist and attend client pitches, providing a compelling explanation of how the firm will effectively manage the project to time, cost and quality.
• You will assist with the preparation of all project initiation documentation – such as prepare scope, resourcing and budget proposals for relevant matters or workstreams and then track progress against those proposals.
• You will dissect problems and processes and apply logical and analytical approaches to solving them.
• You will positively influence the individuals you work with (across a range of roles and seniority) to change and adapt their ways of working.
• You will clearly explain theoretical concepts to senior stakeholders, including clients, and be comfortable amending your delivery approach and style.
• You will manage effective planning: over the short, medium and long term, then execute against those plans, such as documenting minutes, actions and tracking workstreams. Throughout each project you will:
• Continually assess and understand where issues are and how they can be addressed and then provide and implement pragmatic solutions to ensure the programme moves forward.
• Identify risks; such as conflicting deadlines, or a lack of skills, and then provide alternative solutions to mitigate the risk.
• Monitor accruals and manage the project against agreed budgets including scope change.
• Responsible for influencing and integrating new ways of working to improve service delivery.
• You will be responsible for allocating project management work and tasks for specific matters to the appropriate resources within the Legal Project Management function.
• You will advise and engage with legal technology tools available, to provide support to efficiently manage your projects.
• You will take regular feedback and direction from your colleagues, and adjust and adapt your style and plans.
• You will deliver presentations and facilitate workshops and form part of the client pitch and relationship teams as needed.
• You will work directly with Clients, positively representing Clifford Chance and as required working from Client site locations independently.
• You will build strong and deep Client relationships through your activities on Client projects and/or Client relationship teams, contributing towards delivering the firm's strategic priorities for the Client.

Your Experience

You will have either have a background in project management, ideally gained within a professional services or complex matrix environment, or you will have been a lawyer with extensive experience of matter management.

Experience or knowledge of supporting a Litigation & Dispute Resolution practice is preferable but not essential.

A qualification or industry recognised certification in project or programme management would be desirable, but is not essential, as we are happy to support team members with these qualifications.

Collaboration, influencing and internal networking are all key skills to make an impact as a Senior Legal Project Manager within the Firm.

How we will support you

As a Firm we make a significant investment in training and supporting members of the team through their careers at the Firm. We continuously develop careers structures to aid the skill development and progression of team members.

We offer assistance and funding for externally recognised training qualifications including Lean Six Sigma, Prince2, and training in change management and technology. In addition to this, the nature of the work and interaction with the team will drive continuous on-the-job learning and you'll all have access to our global training and development centre, the Academy.

The team is enriched by a wide range of knowledge and made up of people with vastly differing career backgrounds and experiences coming from the other professional services firms, within the legal industry and from corporates.

Hybrid Working

This role follows our 'balanced' hybrid working approach and as long as business needs allow, you will be supported to work in a hybrid way with the expectation of working from the office for a minimum of 50% of your time.

At Clifford Chance, we understand that our true asset is our people. Inclusion is good for our team and their families, our firm and society.

We are committed to treating all employees and applicants fairly and equally regardless of their gender, gender identity and expression, marital or civil partnership status, race, colour, national or ethnic origin, social or economic background, disability, religious belief, sexual orientation, or age. This applies to recruitment and selection, terms and conditions of employment including pay, promotion, training, transfer and every other aspect of employment.

We have a variety of flourishing employee networks. These networks are a place for colleagues to share experiences and advocate for change wherever they see an opportunity for improvement.

Our goal is to deliver an equality of opportunity, an equality of aspiration and an equality of experience to everyone who works in our firm.