Legal Operations and Project Manager - London/Bristol/Glasgow

The Legal Operations & Project Management team works with both the lawyers and core business services to help the business manage matters more effectively, from pricing and scoping through to evaluation.

About CMS

CMS is a Future Facing firm. With 75 offices in 43 countries and 4,800+ lawyers worldwide, we combine deep sector understanding with a global overview, giving us the ability not only to see what's coming, but to shape it.

CMS is well equipped to help our clients face the future with confidence. We are driven by technology and readily embrace the possibilities it opens up for developing new and better ways of delivering legal services. Our bold approach to a changing future ensures that we nurture our employees and recruit top talent.

About the Role

This role is focused on identifying and delivering necessary changes to working practices and utilising technology to improve efficiency and effectiveness. The ability to drive sustainable change through facilitation, training and promoting benefits is an important part of the value of the team.

One of the exciting opportunities of this role is the breadth of exposure you gain from implementing project management, process improvement and change management disciplines across the different practice groups. We promote a consultancy approach to provide solutions to meet internal and external delivery needs.

Underpinning our approach is the ability to facilitate change and imbed project management behaviours to support best practice. This lends itself to a several process improvement opportunities where we work alongside our Commercial Finance, Knowledge and Legal Tech teams to promote continuous improvement and deliver operational efficiencies within the business. The ability to multi-task, build relationships and evidence strong communication skills are fundamental to the role.

Typical responsibilities will include:

Project & Change Management

• Scoping and budgeting of the matter (impact on different fee arrangements)
• Planning and setting up projects utilising tools and considering different resources options.
• Strategic reporting to support financial and progress reporting for teams and projects
• Highlighting potential issues around progress, profitability, and billing
• Facilitating structured communications within the delivery team
• Facilitating lessons learned
• Ensure effective governance, processes and defined outputs are in place
• Generating LPM tools and resources to support specific work types
• Lead of process improvement/operational efficiency projects
• Implement and embed changes to ways of working and processes
• Analyse data and communicate value to key stakeholders for key projects

Team and Client

• Facilitating and delivering training across the firm and to clients
• Promote and encourage engagement with the LOPM team and our proposition
• Support and contribute to pitches to sell LOPM services and products to support the firm
• Providing consultancy support and recommendations on possible delivery/implementation solutions for internal and external clients.
• Proactively contribute to team initiatives that build our profile, client engagements and support our mandate

About You

We are looking for candidates with a background in professional services or the legal sector, with an understanding of a partnership culture and in particular has:

• A management / business consultancy approach
• Successfully delivered business change projects, from initiation to completion
• Strong ability to build credible relationships at all levels of seniority
• Strong ability to translate objectives into tangible outputs to meet specific needs
• Ability to manage different stakeholder types confidently and diplomatically
• Ability to confidently sell value, benefits and results to improve buy-in/engagement
• Extensive project management experience and a proven understanding for behavioural considerations involved
• Strong facilitation skills and is a confident presenter
• Ability to confidently advise, consult and influence in all situations
• Comfortable with ‘unknowns’ and assertive when necessary
• Able to prioritise quickly, often in busy periods, in a calm manner
• Invested team player and confident to collaborate
• Strong ability to multi-task and maintain excellent attention to detail
• Flexible in traveling across the region and to the UK periodically

Education/Qualifications

• Degree (or equivalent)
• PRINCE 2 (or equivalent)
• Lean Six Sigma (or equivalent)

Office Skills

• Excellent working skills of MS office applications (Word, Outlook, Power point etc)
• Strong Excel skills, including using Excel to carry out analysis and reporting
• Experience of process mapping tools would be an advantage
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills and presentation skills

Commercial Skills

• Strong business acumen
• Financial awareness
• Market and client insights in the LPM and Ops space
• Experience managing and measuring profitable projects

Equal Opportunities

At CMS, a next-generation mindset is woven into all we do. We're diverse, supportive and inclusive, embracing our corporate social responsibility and creating a culture of sustainability in which every one of our people, whatever their background, can maximise their potential and thrive. For further information about CMS' diversity initiatives and programmes, please view the Diversity & Inclusion pages on our website.

Please apply online or contact a member of the Talent Acquisition team if you have any questions. For information regarding our competitive range of benefits please visit our Rewards & Benefits page on our website.

Please note that CMS have a preferred agency panel in place. Only applications submitted via the portal at the point of instruction will be accepted.