Senior Manager of Client Operations & LPM

About Ropes & Gray

Ropes & Gray is a preeminent global law firm. The firm has been ranked in the top three on The American Lawyer's prestigious A-List for eight consecutive years and #1 on Law.com's UK A-List twice in the past three years—rankings that honor the "best of the best" law firms.

 

The firm has approximately 2,500 lawyers and professionals serving clients in major centers of business, finance, technology, and government in Boston, Chicago, Dublin, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Seoul, Shanghai, Silicon Valley, Singapore, Tokyo and Washington, D.C.

 

The firm has consistently been recognized for its leading practices in many areas, including asset management, private equity, M&A, finance, real estate, tax, antitrust, life sciences, health care, intellectual property, litigation & enforcement, privacy & cybersecurity, and business restructuring.

 

Ropes & Gray is an equal opportunity employer.

Overview

Under the direction of the Director of Legal Project Management, the Senior Manager, Legal Project Management is responsible for development of the firm’s legal project management (LPM) infrastructure.  This includes tool and template creation, technology initiatives, LPM knowledge management, ensuring team use of best practices and a focus on scaling of LPM support services.  A key aspect of this position is to work as a thought partner with attorneys and senior support management to impact efficiency, quality, competitive position and client satisfaction.  Together with the Director, the Senior Manager thinks strategically about ways to further the dissemination of LPM as a best practice firm wide.

The Position includes management responsibilities for Specialist and Analyst roles. 

Responsibilities

Lead LPM team infrastructure priorities that are informed by high level support of partners and associates:

Be a trusted advisor to partners, associates and business support staff on how to employ LPM in support of client relationships, alternative fee arrangements and in situations where metrics are not meeting profitability targets.

Engage as a strategic resource for partners, associates, clients and business support staff and provide client/matter specific guidance on scoping, managing all level of expectations and resources, budgeting, planning, monitoring, executing, improving metrics and deriving lessons learned.

Provide leadership and coaching to all levels of LPM team members in the use of various tools and best practices to support attorney matter management and ensure consistency in and evolution of support delivery.

Draw on experiences of Legal Project Managers, as well as own, to innovative processes and tools to enhance support of client relationships.

Collaborate with Finance leadership on executing process improvements and technology initiatives to improve partner support and client experience.

Advance LPM:

Coach, advise and support attorneys, advancing LPM as a strategic tool to manage and enhance client relationships.

Champion LPM best practices through associate trainings, targeted partner presentations, client program events, practice group lunches and other forums.

Lead strategic initiatives for LPM and the team.

Identify and incubate new support models for potential future roll out.

Develop and proliferate best practices, procedures, tools, templates, checklists and reference materials for matter management.

OTHER RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Performs other work-related duties as assigned.

Qualifications

 

• Prior experience managing legal matters and coaching team members
• Exceptional client service orientation
• Large law firm or corporate legal department experience preferred
• Bachelor's degree; J.D. or MBA preferred
• 10+ yrs of prior experience
• Financial acumen and/or understanding of law firm metrics; facility in reviewing, analyzing, reporting on and improving upon, financial reports of varying levels of complexity
• Demonstrated experience in leading teams
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Demonstrated creative problem-solving capabilities

ESSENTIAL CAPABILITIES:

• Able to maintain strict confidentiality of the firm's internal and personnel affairs and client information. Understands ethics of position including ethical rules in regards to confidentiality, billing and client representation and advocacy.
• Able to build relationships and foster a collaborative approach to working with internal clients across practice groups and with management.
• Able to navigate and influence all levels of the organization. Can effectively convey solutions to teams and r