Legal project management it involves the active management of the project participants, its scope, its risks, frame time, communications between collaborators, as well as the technology and knowledge required, in order to deliver a high quality service in a timely manner and with a specific budget.
The intention of this method is to seek the efficiency of the total process by eliminating losses, that is, activities that do not add value to the project. This is achieved by adopting a management principle that systematically eliminates waste from a process and thereby increases its productivity flow. The above can be construed in six simple steps:
1) Establish objectives focusing on the customer’s needs.
2) Define the scope of the project, that is, the budget, execution deadlines and possible risks.
3) Make a specific plan for the project: identify the ordinary and extraordinary tasks, the delegation of each of them to the team, the chronology and the route that the team must follow.
4) Execute the plan according to the frame time and budget previously established.
5) Constantly monitor the management of the participants as a human factor through active communication and feedback, as well as the management of change in applicable cases as the main variant.
6) Examine the project continuously with the intention of progressively optimizing its execution.
The advantages of adopting the Legal Project Management method are indisputably notorious in the reduction of unnecessary costs, reduction of risks due to predictable factors and in the improvement of organizations reflected in their results.
Cost reduction
Legal projects tend to be expensive, however, increasing efficiency within the project reduces expenses. By creating a Legal Project Management strategy, the necessary tools are obtained to fragment and manage the project in order to deliver the best results with a specific budget from the beginning.
Risk reduction
The planning of any project from the beginning to its conclusion guarantees that the team at all times is in contact with the client’s needs and active communication is achieved between all participants where all the necessary information is shared during the course of the project, reducing malpractice and activities that have no value to the project itself.
Better results
Being in a constant focus on deliverables and realistic time frames for its achievement, allows to predict the possible obstacles that could be faced during the project and the total benefit that will be obtained once its finished. Therefore, a clear strategy based on the careful definition of objectives, a planning process and a correct management of a project allows to deliver better results to the client.
In the field of the legal profession, the essential thing when providing services is to satisfy the client, however, if the quality of the service is not measured, it is not possible to verify if a good job is being done, or if the expectations of the client are being met.
If law firms seek to remain competitive in a market where alternative technology and sophisticated service providers are now also their competitors, then they must adapt and apply lean management as part of their services in order to use the technological tools that today’s market has to offer, in the understanding that these technologies will only continue to eliminate activities that lawyers previously carried out in areas such as legal research, drafting, management of legal documents, among others.
Today’s clients continue to demand innovation through technological approaches and in their businesses, which is why they require quality services that can be executed in a diligent and efficient way at a low cost. Being the Legal Project Management method the most effective way to achieve this, Gloria Ponce de León & Hernández is a legal firm that has successfully adapted this methodology, achieving an excellent quality of services without neglecting savings for the client, with a high rank of successful results.
María Fernanda Ortega
Gloria Ponce de León & Hernández
