Senior Manager of Legal Project Management

Overview

Cleary Gottlieb is a pioneer in globalizing the legal profession. We have 16 offices in major financial centers around the world, but we operate as a single, integrated global partnership and not a U.S. firm with a network of overseas locations. The firm employs approximately 1,100 lawyers from more than 50 countries.

Since 1946 our lawyers and staff have worked across practices, industries, jurisdictions and continents to provide clients with simple, actionable approaches to their most complex legal and business challenges, whether domestic or international. We support every client relationship with intellectual agility, commercial acumen and a human touch.

The Senior Manager of Legal Project Management (LPM) (“Senior Manager”) will lead the development, growth, and development of the LPM function at Cleary Gottlieb. This global role is responsible aligning LPM initiatives with the firm’s overall business strategy to elevate legal service delivery across all practice groups and jurisdictions. The Senior Manager will lead a team of Legal Project Managers and work collaboratively with partners, attorneys, finance, pricing, and business operations teams worldwide to embed project management discipline into legal workflows—driving efficiency, risk mitigation, client satisfaction, and profitability throughout the matter lifecycle.

Responsibilities

• Provide senior leadership and oversight setting the vision and direction for advancement of legal project management best practices firm-wide. Utilize extensive technical knowledge and experience to plan, lead, and coordinate complex deliverables through written communications (e.g., global workstream trackers, budget forecasts), and facilitate high-level meetings with lead partners, matter teams, and clients globally.
• The Senior Manager will be actively involved in shaping LPM strategy and providing expert guidance and mentorship to the LPM team across regions, including:
  • Defining global scope and developing and overseeing budgets, monitoring legal spend, alternative fee arrangements, and matter profitability in close collaboration with the Firm’s global Financial Reporting team and Practice Development Lawyers (PDLs).
  • Establishing and leading LPM performance metrics, benchmarking frameworks, and reporting dashboards to evaluate the function’s maturity, effectiveness, and return on investment across regions and practices.
  • Leading global project and matter staffing and communications strategies.
  • Ensuring the integrity and strategic use of time entry data firm-wide, as well as compliance with diverse client requirements for timekeeping.
  • Overseeing global service delivery standards for clients.
  • Leading task and time management protocols.
  • Driving matter closure processes and gathering substantive feedback on team and matter performance.
  • Documenting and disseminating key learnings to enhance future global matters.
  • Overseeing the collection and analysis of global client satisfaction data.

• Continuously monitor, evaluate, and incorporate market trends and innovations in legal project management, bringing external best practices to internal operations.
• Serve as the senior LPM representative and strategic advisor for global initiatives focused on legal operations excellence. Lead complex diagnostics, cross-regional process reviews, and partner on technology implementation strategies that advance matter delivery capabilities.
• Act as the firm’s lead subject matter expert across a broad spectrum of legal project management disciplines, including global process optimization, project planning, scoping, fee estimating, budget oversight, fee and scope management, and status reporting.
• Develop and maintain global budgeting tools, project management templates, and best practice frameworks to support active and incoming matters as well as business development efforts (including pitch materials). Collaborate closely with PDLs and the global Financial Reporting team to maximize impact.
• Foster strong collaboration with PDLs to ensure seamless communication and knowledge transfer between the LPM team and PDLs across all offices and practice groups. Maintain awareness of upcoming matter stages and support teams both from a legal project management and knowledge management perspective.
• Design and deliver global LPM training programs including intranet resources, departmental sessions, partner coaching, and cross-office workshops.

Qualifications

Ideal Experience:

• Minimum of 7+ years of legal project management experience within large, complex, multinational law firms.
• Bachelor’s degree required, preferably in finance, accounting, business, or related fields. Advanced degree (JD, MBA, or Master’s) strong