Project Management for Business Lawyers (2020)

This program is designed to familiarize business lawyers with the process of legal project management (LPM), the benefits many firms have achieved through the implementation of the process, the difficulties many other firms have run into during the implementation and the actions and steps necessary to help address these difficulties to ensure that LPM is implemented in the best possible fashion within your firm or legal department. 

Among the questions that will be addressed in this program are:

• What are the components of “Project Management” as they apply to “Case Management” vs. “Change Management” 
• What benefits are firms realizing from the successful implementation of LPM 
• How do you develop a Project Management Plan? 
• What are the components of such a plan including the objective to be achieved, plan, assignment of roles, responsibilities and accountabilities, schedules and milestones and monitoring and evaluation of results 
• How to implement this process in your law firm. 
• What difficulties can you expect to encounter as you implement LPM and how are they best addressed? 

Program Faculty



Gary Richards | Principal | LegalBizDev | Certified Legal Project Manager

Gary Richards is a Principal at LegalBizDev, where he coaches lawyers in Legal Project Management and is a contributing author of the Legal Project Management Quick Reference Guide. He has presented to and coached lawyers in the US, Canada, Australia, and Luxembourg. He is a Certified Legal Project Manager and designs and conducts CLE programs, and tailored workshops for individual law firms and legal associations. He has also taught Project Management to corporate executives in, England, Holland, Germany, Belgium, Brazil, and Egypt. He also conducted workshops for bar associations in eight Canadian provinces, and has conducted tailored workshops for entire law  firms, including their paralegals and clerical staff as well as corporate legal departments.

Gary Fiebert | Managing Principal | GBF Management LLC

Gary Fiebert has been the Managing Principal of GBF Management, LLC since early in 2012 and brings a unique combination of skills to his management counsel to their clients. During this time, through the middle of 2018, he also served as a Partner in Smock Law Firm Consultants. He originally spent seven years in industry applying his education in industrial and management engineering in corporate positions and then 16 years as a general management consultant, first with Touche Ross & Company (now Deloitte), then with a general management firm (focusing on profit improvement and operational effectiveness) that he co-founded, and finally as the President and Chief Operating Officer of a leading executive search firm. For the next 20 years, he served as Executive Director/Chief Operating Officer of three major New York-based law firms (Schulte Roth & Zabel, Rosenman & Colin, and Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander & Ferdon) – responsible (as the primary non-attorney manager and leader) for strategic business planning (firm and practice), finance, general firm management, organizational change, human resources, and marketing/ business development. Mr. Fiebert is a regular speaker at legal management conferences and seminars, focusing on the development and implementation of innovative solutions to achieve long and short term strategic objectives and operational improvements.

Jessica D. Parker, Esq. | Regulatory Project Manager | Credit Suisse 

Jessica Thaler is an experienced corporate-transactional generalist, representing individuals and companies in their formation, counseling them in their business operations and in connection with various types of corporate transactions, helping to ensure their growth and stability. She has worked with for-profit and not-for-profit, public and private entities, understanding the nuances involved with their businesses and operations. After 15 years of practice, Jessica moved over the business side, utilizing her legal skills as a regulatory project manager for Credit Suisse where she collaborates with business and legal partners as well as tax and IT professionals to implement and manage regulatory projects. This position is a continuation of her prior role as a contractor for the asset management department's legal team.