Draft a legal project charter that sets matter objectives, phases, decision points and success criteria.
Project Management
Legal Project Management for Law Firms and In-House Legal Teams
Apply project management discipline to legal matters: scope and budget matters, coordinate legal teams and outside counsel, and report progress and cost to clients or the business.
🗓️Duration5 training days
📚Content4 modules · 8 sessions
🎓On completionAccredited attendance certificate
About the programme
Course Overview
Legal work has always been organised into matters, but not always managed as projects, which is why budgets slip, staffing is reactive and clients or internal stakeholders find out about delays only when an invoice or a deadline arrives. This course applies project management method to legal practice without turning lawyers into project administrators. Participants learn to scope a matter with a project charter that sets objectives, phases and decision points, budget it using task-based or phase-based estimating tied to alternative fee arrangements, and staff it against the skill levels each phase actually requires rather than habit. Sessions cover coordinating in-house teams with outside counsel and panel firms, tracking matter progress and spend against budget, and using standard phase and task codes to compare cost across similar matters. The course also addresses legal operations practice: matter intake and triage, legal technology for document assembly and e-discovery, and reporting that shows the business or firm leadership where legal spend and risk actually sit. Case examples are drawn from litigation, transactional and regulatory matters. Participants leave able to scope, budget, staff and report on a legal matter with the same discipline applied to any other managed project, while keeping legal judgement and privilege at the centre of decisions.
Expected Learning Outcomes
Budget a matter using phase-based or task-based estimating aligned to an alternative fee arrangement.
Staff a matter by matching task complexity to the appropriate experience level rather than default seniority.
Coordinate in-house counsel, outside counsel and panel firms against a shared matter plan and budget.
Track matter progress and spend using standard phase and task codes for cross-matter comparison.
Apply legal technology for document assembly, e-discovery and matter intake to reduce manual administration.
Report matter status, spend and risk to clients or business stakeholders in terms they can act on.
Who Should Attend
Partners and senior associates responsible for matter budgets and staffing
In-house counsel managing legal matters against a business unit budget
Legal operations managers building matter management and reporting processes
Practice management and pricing professionals structuring alternative fee arrangements
Paralegals and legal project coordinators supporting matter planning
General counsel teams overseeing outside counsel and panel firm performance
Course Modules
Select any module to see its sessions and points.
01Foundations of Legal Project Management
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Matters as Projects
- Distinguish matter phases, such as intake, discovery, negotiation and resolution, as a project structure.
- Draft a legal project charter that records objectives, scope boundaries, phases and key decision points.
- Identify the decisions within a matter that require partner or general counsel sign-off before proceeding.
- Set success criteria for a matter beyond the legal outcome, including cost, time and client experience.
Session 2Matter Intake and Triage
- Design an intake process that captures matter type, urgency, budget expectation and required expertise.
- Triage incoming matters against current team capacity before committing to timelines.
- Apply conflict and risk checks as a formal step within intake rather than an informal afterthought.
- Route standard, repeatable matters to templated processes and reserve bespoke planning for complex ones.
02Planning and Budgeting Legal Matters
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Estimating and Alternative Fee Arrangements
- Estimate matter cost using phase-based or task-based budgets built from historical matter data.
- Match estimating method to fee structure, whether fixed fee, capped fee or hourly with a budget ceiling.
- Build contingency into a matter budget for foreseeable scope changes, such as added parties or appeals.
- Present a budget to a client or business stakeholder with the assumptions behind it made explicit.
Session 2Staffing and Task Allocation
- Map matter tasks to the seniority level actually required, reserving partner time for judgement calls.
- Assign standard phase and task codes so time and cost can be compared across similar matters.
- Build a staffing plan that accounts for planned absences and competing matter deadlines.
- Agree escalation triggers for when actual staffing or hours diverge materially from the plan.
03Managing Matter Execution and Legal Teams
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Coordinating In-House and Outside Counsel
- Set outside counsel guidelines covering staffing, billing detail and reporting expectations.
- Run matter status meetings that surface risk and budget variance, not only procedural updates.
- Coordinate handoffs between in-house counsel, outside counsel and panel firms at each matter phase.
- Track outside counsel performance against budget and timeliness for future panel decisions.
Session 2Monitoring Progress, Cost and Risk
- Track matter spend against budget by phase to catch overruns before the final invoice.
- Maintain a matter risk log covering deadline, evidentiary and reputational risk alongside legal risk.
- Apply document assembly and e-discovery tools to reduce time spent on repeatable drafting and review.
- Reforecast matter budget and timeline when scope changes, and communicate the revision promptly.
04Legal Operations, Technology and Continuous Improvement
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Legal Operations and Reporting
- Build matter and portfolio dashboards that show spend, cycle time and outcomes to firm or business leadership.
- Standardise matter templates and playbooks for recurring matter types across the team.
- Use panel and outside counsel spend data to inform sourcing and negotiation decisions.
- Align legal reporting cycles with the finance or client reporting calendar they feed into.
Session 2Continuous Improvement in Legal Delivery
- Run post-matter reviews that compare actual cost, time and staffing against the original plan.
- Capture reusable clauses, templates and precedent from closed matters into a shared knowledge base.
- Identify recurring bottlenecks, such as approval delays, across multiple closed matters.
- Feed lessons from closed matters into revised estimating benchmarks for future budgets.
What the participant receives
4 course modules
A structured syllabus
8 training sessions
across 5 days
32 detailed points
Applied, detailed content
Accredited attendance certificate
On completing the programme
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