Over the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring how Legal Project Management (LPM) helps with scoping and pricing work, especially if you’re transitioning to flat fees. But what if you want to go further? What if you’re ready to apply LPM across your entire practice?

Legal Project Management isn’t just a pricing tool. It’s a powerful, firm-wide approach to improving how you deliver legal services, from intake to invoice.

Here are three key benefits of using LPM consistently across your practice:

1. Smoother Team Collaboration

When every matter follows a shared structure, scope, timeline, and responsibilities, your team knows what’s expected, when to act, and who owns what. It reduces confusion, prevents duplication, and keeps matters moving.

2. Faster Onboarding and Training

LPM gives you repeatable processes and clear documentation. That means when new lawyers, clerks, or assistants join your team, they can get up to speed faster and start contributing sooner, with less hand-holding.

3. Better Data, Better Decisions

Applying LPM systematically gives you insight into how long tasks take, where bottlenecks form, and what your real costs are. That’s gold when it comes to pricing future work, refining workflows, and identifying high-value clients or practice areas.

A Global Standard for LPM

Legal Project Management is no longer optional—it’s becoming the norm around the world. According to the International Institute of Legal Project Management (IILPM), LPM is now being adopted across law firms, corporate legal departments, and government agencies in over 50 countries.

“Legal Project Management improves the delivery of legal services by bringing discipline and transparency to legal work. It’s about delivering client value, managing risk, and improving efficiency.”
— International Institute of Legal Project Management

As global advisors to the IILPM, we’re proud to support this movement and to teach legal professionals how to apply LPM and legal process improvement in real-world practices.

The 4-Stage LPM Framework

Whether you're managing a litigation file, drafting contracts, or onboarding a new client, the LPM framework gives you a structured way to approach any legal matter. The IILPM’s 4-stage framework includes:

1. Define – Clarify objectives, scope, stakeholders, and success criteria
   
2. Plan – Set timelines, allocate tasks, identify risks, and build your roadmap
   
3. Deliver – Execute the plan, manage progress, and communicate proactively
   
4. Close – Wrap up the matter, reflect on outcomes, and capture lessons learned
   

Want to Learn How to Do This?

You’re probably doing some of this intuitively already, but LPM will give you a consistent, repeatable, and structured approach. We teach Legal Project Management and legal process improvement to lawyers, paralegals, and legal professionals around the world. Our online LPM certification program is launching soon. If you’re interested in joining a live course, click here and let us know. As soon as we have enough people, we'll find a date for a live course.

Already putting LPM into practice? Submit your best project for an IILPM Legal Project Management Award! Submissions are now open. Check out the IILPM Awards page for details. 

- Karen and David