Join the CLOC Legal Project Management (LPM) Committee for new insights, updates on current workstream projects, and to offer community perspectives and feedback to inform these workstream projects being pursued by committee working groups.

The CLOC LPM Committee will meet from 12pm – 1pm ET on the 3rd Wednesday of every other month in 2025.

2025 Meeting Dates

• January 22
• March 19
• May 21
• July 16
• September 17
• November 19

Our upcoming CLOC LPM committee meeting is set to deliver invaluable insights into a critical area for legal operations: effective project management. We’re thrilled to welcome Travis Zimbelman, Freelance Consultant, and Strategic Advisor (Aline, Stealth Startups) as our guest speaker, ready to tackle the complexities of working with Project Management Offices (PMOs) outside the traditional legal function.

In today’s fast-paced legal landscape, collaboration with cross-functional teams is essential. But what happens when the PMO leading the efforts resides within another department, like IT? How do you bridge the gap and ensure legal projects are executed with precision?

Our speaker will delve into these crucial questions and more, including:

-Decoding the PMO Dynamic: Learn practical strategies for seamlessly working with PMOs located outside of legal, specifically within IT.
-Strategic Project Selection: Discover which types of law department projects and initiatives truly benefit from dedicated project management or PMO support.
-Building a Foundation for Success: Uncover the essential PM practices that drive successful legal projects and initiatives.
-Championing Project Management: Gain actionable tips on how to effectively communicate the value of PM practices and resources to your management team.

This is a can’t-miss opportunity to gain practical knowledge and engage in meaningful discussion with a seasoned expert. Prepare to leave with actionable strategies to enhance your legal operations and streamline your project execution.

The CLOC LPM Committee will meet from 12pm – 1pm ET on the 3rd Wednesday of every other month in 2025.

2025 Meeting Dates

• January 22
• March 19
• May 21
• July 16
• September 17
• November 19

Join the CLOC Legal Project Management Committee for new insights, updates on current workstream projects, and to offer community perspectives and feedback to inform these workstream projects being pursued by committee working groups.

Associated with LPM Committee

Strategies and insights from our white paper, “Turning Legal Into a Value Center” 

Controlling costs is an evergreen concern for corporate legal departments. One incredibly important aspect of cost-saving projects is change management. In fact, a December 2023 survey showed that after cost containment, implementing business process improvements was the second highest priority for legal departments, with 46.7% of legal departments ranking it among the top three challenges they’re facing. 

Priori and CLOC recently partnered on a white paper, “Turning Legal Into a Value Center,” which looks at different strategies that legal departments use to achieve cost savings. Unsurprisingly, change management was a key concept that underpinned many of the strategies discussed. 

Below you’ll find some tips for handling change management—a key component of executing successful projects that optimize legal spend. To learn more, download the full white paper. 

Packaging the Value Story – Change Management & Communication 

Whether you’re launching a new internal initiative, implementing new legal technology or having conversations about spend with your outside counsel, clearly communicating your goals and expectations is necessary for success. Just about every task your legal department undertakes to drive business value and optimize legal spend contains elements of change management, and implementing change management well starts with communication.  

There wasn’t one legal operations professional who we talked to that didn’t emphasize the role of communication. Here is some advice for approaching conversations and getting buy-in from stakeholders for your next project. 

Start From the Top Down 

When you’re launching a new initiative, it is important to get the top-level stakeholders on board from the beginning. If you don’t have the support of the people at the top, it can be hard to get other stakeholders and the teams that will help you execute to come on board and follow through with the vision.  

Build Relationships 

Starting with buy-in from the top sounds great, but how do you get there? Often, successful project management (in the legal operations space and elsewhere) is a long game. You want to show the stakeholders in your company that you understand where they’re coming from and what motivates their decision-making. Communicate throughout the year so you’re not just talking when something has reached a boiling point. The more you can empathize with and show respect for the work they do, the more they will be willing to trust you when the time comes to make a change.  

Know Your Audience 

Getting to the point where stakeholders trust you means learning about their roles: What their priorities are, the type of work they do, the pain points they experience related to legal, etc. Interview your business partners and get their perspective. When combined with metrics like projected cost or time savings, anecdotes about how a given project will help team members do their job better bring the narrative you’re trying to sell together. 

Make the Business Case 

Come into discussions with an inventory of what the situation is now, where you hope to get to upon completion of the project and recommendations for how to get there. This likely includes current data and projections about the project will affect those metrics (e.g., How much time does a task take now? How and why will this initiative reduce that time spent?). Show how the solution you’re recommending brings you from the current state to that desired end state. 

Ultimately, getting buy-in for a project is about telling your value story. You want to bring your stakeholders along with you on this journey. The more you can get them involved and make them feel like they are a part of it, the more likely it is you’ll get approval and find success. Nobody should feel blindsided by the change you’re recommending, they should feel the opposite—that they had a say in how the project came together and are as much responsible for its success as you are. 

For more cost-savings best practices, strategies and insights, download the white paper, “Turning Legal Into a Value Center.” 

The members of the CLOC Legal Project Management Committee are excited to play an active part in the CLOC Community.  Our intent is to provide educational opportunities (through regular Committee meetings) and tangible industry work product (through  Workstream workshops).  Whether you desire to just “be in the loop” or help problem solve, there is a place for you as a member of the LPM Committee.

Attend this meeting to learn more about workstream development for LPM Committee projects and to provide your insights and input to further refine the scope of the committee’s work.