Corporate Lawyer’s Top 10 List of Successful Outside Counsel Habits: #4 Making Our Lives Easier with a Game Plan

4. You make our professional lives easier and use project management.

I often get asked what is the greatest value add that a law firm can give to a client to encourage a deeper and more meaningful relationship. The answer is not Continuing Legal Education seminars (CLEs), lunch and learns, client hotlines, or other typical value adds. Those are all valuable and important, but not the most valuable. ?The answer is simple: ?project management.?

?To obtain a stellar brand with your client, you want to make our work easier and not harder. Some lawyers work in a way that makes our work harder. You never want that reputation. You can help avoid it in part by understanding my job and what it is like to work in a corporation. See List #9. But if you really want to?knock it out of the park on a large and complex piece of legal work, hire a project manager?and show them and their work to the client.?

I am always surprised that law firms have not bought into project management more thoroughly or effectively. I was first exposed to project management when I joined a company as an in-house lawyer. I was quickly convinced that it is game changing in delivery of client services for a law firm. To help me explain the power of project management, I asked the person who taught me effective project management: Meghan Dolezel. She has helped me on countless projects and here is our email interview on the subject.?

?Meghan, what is project management?

Project Management is both the tools and techniques applied in a disciplined yet flexible approach to enable anyone to deliver an outcome on time and at the right cost. At its most obvious, it’s the creation and execution of a project plan. More broadly, it’s the support structure that creates confidence in a team that they can successfully deliver. ?

?What is the greatest impact it can have?

It provides clarity to every stakeholder involved in the project as to what they need to do, when they need to do it, and to identify and mitigate the risks that could stand in their way.?

?Why do lawyers need project management?

Everyone who wants to demonstrate strategic value needs project management. Leveraging project management tools and techniques is the fastest and most efficient way to create and execute a plan and ensure that what you deliver is what was expected.?

?What is the best example of project management impacting a project in your career?

That’s tough! Obviously, all of the projects are my best projects. If I had to pick one, I would say the largest corporate transaction that we did given the level of complexity, the number of workstreams, and the timeline discipline required.

There are so many moving parts to large transaction deals, large litigations, large projects like embedding a new privacy framework and addressing AI opportunities and risk, and all the other complex work that we do. A great pain point for client is THE CHASE. The constant chasing of deadlines, work product, and mini-steps required to take the large step of succession completion. If you really want to stand out to a client on a big case or deal, then offer the value add of project management. In the end, it will only add value to your future success.?

?-Brennan