Book Review: Legal Project Management Quick Reference Guide

Legal-project management has been getting a lot of press as the sluggish economy continues to create demand for more efficient legal services and predictable legal costs. Law firms are getting the message that to compete in this environment, they need to employ project-management best practices. The challenge is that lawyers typically do not receive project-management training. Demand is increasing for material targeted at the \"accidental\" legal-project manager who doesn't have the time or budget for extensive, formal project-management training. Jim Hassett's new Legal Project Management Quick Reference Guide (\"Guide\") addresses this need.\n\n

\nAuthor: Jim Hassett

\nTitle: Legal Project Management Quick Reference Guide: Tools and Templates to Increase Efficiency

\nPublisher: LegalBizDev

\nPublication Date: July 2010

\nISBN: N/A

\nFormat: print, spiral bound

\nSpecial Features: templates, checklists

\nPublisher's Link: http://www.legalbizdev.com/projectmanagement/quickreferenceguide.html\n

Readers of this blog will recognize the Guide's author. I frequently link to and discuss Mr. Hassett's writings on legal-project management, including his whitepapers and posts to his Legal Business Development blawg, which should be on every lawyer's blogroll. Although Mr. Hassett is the primary and listed author, other members of the LegalBizDev team contributed to the work, including Mike Egnatchik and Steve Barrett. Together, they represent over 70 years of legal-practice and legal-consulting experience.\n\n

Mr. Hassett and his colleagues have put together a very accessible project-management reference for lawyers. They pack an impressive amount of tips, tools, and templates into a very manageable 104 pages. Written for use as training material in LegalBizDev's workshops and coaching and as a resource afterwards, the Guide is designed as a ready reference, organized so that readers can look up material to help them with a specific need, rather than as a manual to be read from start to finish. Its purpose is to help law firms rapidly apply the key principles and tools of project management that will \"have the greatest impact for each individual practice.\"

The book is divided into three sections. Part 1 provides project-management tools and templates that are designed so that attorneys new to project management can put them into use on their matters immediately and with little fuss. Part 2 provides background information on project management. Part 3 discusses how applying project-management best practices can help alternative-fee arrangements succeed. Parts 2 and 3 are collected from material previously published by LegalBizDev. Part 1 is completely new material. \n\n

Part 1, \"Tools and Templates,\" is the meat of the Guide. Parts 2 and 3 are good appetizers with tasty portions of Six Sigma, Lean project management, and an alternative billing sampler. They are interesting and informative, but it is Part 1 that will attract most of the Guide's customers and it is Part 1 that most will turn to first. This book was cooked up for the lawyer hungry for project management and Mr. Hassett thoughtfully serves the main course first.\n\n

Part 1 is organized into eight key issues. While these key issues roughly correlate to standard project-management knowledge areas or process groups, and will sound a familiar ring to anyone familiar with project management, the Guide does not rigidly adhere to any particular model or methodology. The focus is on giving practical advice and tools lawyers can use now, rather than indoctrinating them in any particular standard. The eight key issues discussed are: \n

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• set objectives and define scope,
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• identify and schedule activities,
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• assign tasks and manage the team,
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• plan and manage the budget,
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• assess risks to the budget and schedule,
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• manage quality,
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• manage clients and communication, and
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• change management.
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For each key issue, a checklist and real-life examples are provided, and most sections include templates that lawyers can easily adapt to their practices and begin using today. \n\n

One feature of this guide that lawyers will appreciate is how it weaves tools, practices, and examples specific to the legal industry into the project-management framework. For example, the section on planning and managing legal-project budgets includes a discussion of the Universal Task Based Management System (UTBMS) and Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard (LEDES). These are important industry-specific standards and processes that are, surprisingly, often overlooked by project-management material targeted at lawyers. \n\n

Readers should not treat the information provided in the Guide as legal-project management etched in stone. Because this is a rapidly changing field, Mr. Hassett notes that he intends to revise the Guide from time to time with additional information and templates. This is understandable and desirable, but if updates are frequent enough, I think many customers would welcome a yearly subscription model so that they receive all updates and new material for the Guide pushed to them. I would also like to see an electronic version of the guide, at least for the templates. Having the templates in RTF format would help further the author's mission of helping lawyers rapidly employ project-management best practices.\n\n

Jim Hassett's Legal Project Management Quick Reference Guide is a welcome edition to my ready-reference shelf. While customers will get more out of the material if used in conjunction with LegalBizDev's training or coaching services, the book certainly stands on its own. It is well worth the 30 bucks for any lawyer looking for a quick and easy way to add some of project management's best practices to his or her legal practice. For more information, or to order, visit the publisher's Web site at: 

http://www.legalbizdev.com/projectmanagement/quickreferenceguide.html