AGILE — A NONTRADITIONAL APPROACH TO
LEGAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT
by Kim Craig and Jenny Lee of Seyfarth
Shaw LLP
"Make it bend — trees are flexible, so they don't snap.
Scar it, give it a twisted branch — perfect trees don't
exist. Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the
tree."
— Labsurie Halse Anderson
AGILE
A Nontraditional
Approach to Legal
Project Management
Project management is considered to be a fairly
new area of focus by most in the legal profession.
And with anything new, people look to case studies,
authoritative sources and bodies of knowledge
from which to model and shape the new paradigm.
Just a few short years ago, there was little to be
found on the study of legal project management
(LPM). That has since changed, and LPM is all the
rage, taking many shapes and dimensions. Most
law firms are "trying LPM on for size" with no one
approach proven as the holy grail. Seyfarth is no
different. Through trial and error, we've had our
successes and failures, but one thing was obvious
early on, we were going to have to be open-minded
and extremely flexible.
Legal practitioners and experienced project
managers can often be at odds, even if they have
the same goal in mind. Project managers usually do
not want to start a project until clear scope, end-to-
