To register, contact Eva Booth at eva.booth@lawvision.com.


Legal Project Management Track at Running Legal Like a Business 2026
 
Session 1: Using Outside Counsel as a Force Multiplier: How Legal Project Management Aligns Departments and Outside Counsel for Better Outcomes

In an environment where legal departments face rising demand and flat resources, outside counsel can help you do more with less. This session will explore practical methods for how legal project management helps in-house teams and law firms work as one integrated system to achieve the company’s business and legal objectives. McCarter & English and PFM Financial Advisors will share how their legal and business teams built a delivery model shaped and supported by LPM. The conversation will focus on how clear scoping, assumptions, matter planning, and transparent communication strengthen trust and improve outcomes for legal matters on both sides of the relationship.

Attendees will learn how to use LPM to:
– Design predictable workstreams across a portfolio of matters, enabling more accurate budgets, clearer sequencing of work, and proactive risk management.
– Optimize resource allocation by identifying which tasks belong with in-house counsel versus outside legal service providers.
– Harmonize collaboration and minimize surprises by synchronizing communication across stakeholders.
– Support faster, high-quality business decisions by reducing the effort required to navigate change and align across legal teams and business units. 
 
This is a candid look at what it takes to make outside counsel operate as an extension of the in-house team. Legal leaders will leave with practical frameworks and tools that reduce noise, sharpen execution, and deliver measurable value in high-stakes environments.

Speakers:
Cheryl D. Maddox, Chief Legal and Compliance Officer, PFM Financial Advisors LLC
Phillip Amoa, Managing Partner, McCarter & English LLP
Jessica Davis, Director, Matter Performance & Service Innovation, McCarter & English LLP
 
Session 2: From Vision to Execution: Building a Legal Operations Function Through Strategic Partnership

Many organizations recognize the need for legal operations before they have the internal resources to build out the function. Without a dedicated legal operations function, legal teams often struggle with strategic planning, budgeting, vendor management, standardized processes, data quality, and technology use and implementation, while also operating as business partners within the organization. This session explores the real-world challenge of launching a legal operations function for BrightSpring Health Services (“BrightSpring”) from the ground up, all while legal work continues at full speed. This panel will walk through a multi-year partnership between BrightSpring and outside counsel, Barnes & Thornburg LLP, to design, launch, and mature a legal operations function. Beginning with early strategic planning support in late 2024, the engagement evolved into hands-on collaboration: creating a legal operations roadmap, supporting the hiring and onboarding of the first legal operations manager in 2025, facilitating in-person strategic planning sessions and coaching, and delivering ongoing operational support for both routine and special projects. The panel will discuss how responsibilities shifted over time, how trust was established, and how outside counsel can effectively support—without replacing—an internal legal operations leader.

Attendees will learn:
– How to perform a diagnostic assessment to determine readiness for a legal operations function and to identify and establish priorities for execution.
– How to facilitate partnership and collaboration between the in-house team and outside legal operations consultants to develop a legal operations function.
– How to design and facilitate strategic planning sessions that translate into actionable, measurable priorities.
– Lessons learned from major initiatives such as budgeting, rate setting, and matter management data cleanup.
– How a partnership can evolve once a legal operations leader is in place and planning shifts to future projects. 

Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of what an effective in-house/outside-counsel legal operations partnership looks like at various stages of maturity, as well as practical insights they can apply when building, supporting, or scaling a legal operations function within their organizations.

Speakers:
Tyler Whobrey, Legal Operations Manager, BrightSpring Health Services
Julie Johnson, Senior Manager, Client Solutions, Barnes & Thornburg
Janel Barsich, Legal Project Manager, Barnes & Thornburg
 
Session 3: Legal Program and Portfolio Management: How In-House Teams Can Manage Portfolios and Get More Value from Outside Counsel Relationships  

This session introduces Legal Program Management (LPM) as a practical framework that in-house teams can use to simplify and strengthen relationships with outside counsel. Rather than managing matters in isolation, LPM enables legal departments to oversee outside counsel as part of coordinated programs—aligning legal work with business priorities, creating predictability in spend and outcomes, and reducing administrative burden. Drawing on real-world experience supporting large, multi-jurisdictional client programs, this session will explore how in-house teams can partner with law firms to share risk, streamline operations, and extract greater value without increasing spend. 

Attendees will learn how to: 
– Use programmatic thinking to simplify and centralize outside counsel relationships 
– Create clearer points of accountability and communication across firms and matters —
– Gain portfolio-level visibility into spend, risk, and performance 
– Align legal work to business outcomes—not just individual matters 
– Encourage efficiency and innovation from outside counsel without sacrificing quality 

Takeaways 
– Attendees will leave with practical guidance, sample frameworks, and best practices they can apply immediately, including: 
– A clear mental model for managing outside counsel at the program level 
– Examples of governance and communication structures that reduce friction 
– Practical strategies for sharing risk with law firms through staffing and fee design 
– Actionable ideas for streamlining outside counsel management under budget constraints

Speakers:
Deepa Zavatsky, Assistant General Counsel and Vice President, Legal Strategy, Innovation and Administration, Wells Fargo Legal Department
Kevin O’Sullivan, Director of LPM, Baker McKenzie
Kayla Quijas, Senior Manager, Legal Project Management, K&L Gates
 
Session 4: Reimagining Discovery: Integrating Expertise, Process Innovation, and AI for Portfolio Litigation

In today’s complex litigation landscape, managing discovery across hundreds of cases and outside counsel can overwhelm even the most sophisticated in-house legal teams. This panel brings together in-house counsel from [TBD], leading law firm practitioners, and a representative from the AI solution LegalMation to explore how centralizing discovery as a back-office function—powered by advanced AI—can transform outcomes. This panel addresses the challenges of coordinating consistent discovery responses, the inefficiencies of traditional local counsel models, and how re-engineering processes with technology unlocks new value. Attendees will gain practical insights into building a centralized discovery team, integrating AI tools for automation, and leveraging portfolio data to drive strategic decisions. 

Five Key Audience Takeaways 
– How to Transition Discovery from Local Counsel to a Centralized Back-Office Model: Understand the operational and strategic benefits of centralizing discovery responses for large litigation portfolios. 
– Leveraging AI for Discovery Automation: Learn how LegalMation and similar tools can streamline and standardize discovery responses, reducing cost and risk. 
– Ensuring Consistency and Quality Across Hundreds of Cases: Explore methods to maintain oversight and control when managing responses across a broad network of outside counsel. 
– Integrating Technology and Process for Maximum Efficiency: Discover best practices for combining legal expertise, process re-engineering, and technology to optimize discovery management. 
– Unlocking Strategic Value from Discovery Data: See how capturing and analyzing portfolio-wide discovery data enables better decision-making and continuous improvement.
 
Speakers:
Whitney Stefko, Director and Senior Counsel, Policy and Legal Ops, Ford Motor Company
Jennifer Cooper, Shareholder, Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz PC
David Rueff, Chief Client Solutions Officer and Shareholder, Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz PC
Thomas Suh, Co-Founder, LegalMation
 
Session 5: Reimagining Legal: How a New CLO Transformed a Global Function for Strategic Impact

When a new Chief Legal Officer joined a company undergoing a major enterprise transformation, she partnered with Seyfarth Lean Consulting to help reinvent how the legal function could operate with greater clarity, consistency, and sharper, more focused business alignment. Through global interviews, surveys, benchmarking, and collaborative RACI sessions, the team uncovered the underlying dynamics that shaped how legal support was delivered worldwide. Those insights informed a comprehensive change management journey—one that required equal parts strategic design, facilitation, and cultural realignment. The final design introduced global centers of excellence and restructured market-unit support to better align with the organization’s strategic priorities. The project is a model for how a legal department can reimagine itself to deliver greater impact, integration, and partnership across the business. 

This session will explore the strategic levers, tools, and facilitation methods used to guide a global legal function through a complex transformation—one that balanced vision-setting with practical execution. Attendees will walk through the key phases of stakeholder engagement, design, and change management that enabled the CLO to reset expectations, clarify operating models, and enhance the alignment between legal and the business. The session will also highlight how Centers of Excellence (CoEs), improved governance, and redesigned communication pathways created a more connected and consistent global function. 

You will learn:
– How to structure and sequence a legal department transformation during broader enterprise change.
– Methods for conducting global stakeholder interviews, surveys, and functional diagnostics to uncover organizational pain points
– Techniques for facilitating RACIs, design sessions, and leadership workshops that build alignment and shared ownership
– Frameworks for introducing Centers of Excellence, clarifying scope, and embedding governance.
– Practical change management strategies that enhance clarity, adoption, and cultural reinforcement across regions 

Attendees will receive a set of practical takeaways—including a sample communications plan, a change management plan, a change champion framework, and an overview describing the purpose and value of functional Centers of Excellence. These tools will help participants immediately apply lessons from the case study to their own legal transformation initiatives.

Speakers:
Kristen Cook, Chief Legal Officer, The Brinks Company
Tanya Hampton, Senior Legal Project Manager, Seyfarth Shaw LLP
 
Session 6: To Pay or Not to Pay: The Great Legal Project Management Debate

The Great Debate is a mock appellate-style argument examining whether Legal Project Management (LPM) activities should be billed to clients or absorbed as a cost of doing business. Two advocates argue opposing positions before a panel of “judges,” who actively question the impact on profitability, client expectations, pricing strategy, and lawyer autonomy. 

Through structured arguments and rebuttals, the session challenges assumptions about how firms define value and structure billing. Attendees leave with a sharper perspective on how LPM intersects with economics, strategy, and the future of legal service delivery. 

The Session Will Cover
– Defining LPM: Scoping, budgeting, forecasting, communication cadence, and risk management — and whether these functions are legal work, overhead, or value-added advisory services.
– Billing & Economics: How hourly billing, AFAs, realization, and margin pressure influence whether LPM is priced separately or embedded.
– Client & Market Expectations: Whether clients see LPM as table stakes, a premium service, or an unjustified charge — and how procurement teams respond.
– Culture & Incentives: How compensation models, autonomy concerns, and firm culture shape internal resistance or adoption.

What Attendees Will Learn
– How to distinguish between legal work, operational overhead, and project management value.
– When LPM activities may be billable for commercial and ethical purposes.
– How billing structure affects behavior, realization, and profitability.
– How to articulate a defensible LPM pricing position within their own organization. 

Key Takeaways
– The billing question is strategic, not administrative. It reflects how a firm defines value and positions itself in the market.
– LPM creates measurable value — but value must be framed and priced intentionally. Different practice areas and clients may justify different approaches.
– Incentives drive behavior. Compensation structures and billing design directly influence whether LPM is prioritized or ignored.
– There may not be one universal answer. Firms must intentionally decide how LPM fits within their broader service delivery model.

Debaters:
Sarah McCormick, Director of Legal Service Delivery, Honigman LLP
David Rueff, Chief Client Solutions Officer and Shareholder, Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz PC
Judges:
Kimberly Williams, Executive Director, Head of Legal Operations, SMBC Group
Jill Warren, Director of In-House Counsel, QEO Group, LLC
TBD
Moderator: Susan Raridon Lambreth, Principal, LawVision, Founder, LPM Institute
 
Session 7: Building End-to-End Financial Controls for Corporate Matters: AFAs, Billing and Forecasting
AFAs in transactional matters are on the rise, yet many legal teams still lack sufficient end-to-end financial controls. Billing is often reactive, leading to invoice disputes, budget surprises, and limited alignment between in-house and outside counsel.
This session shows how AFAs can improve cost efficiency, reduce risk, and increase predictability. It also explores how, even without AFAs, billing data can be used as a strategic tool for forecasting, risk control, and coordination between in-house teams and outside counsel. Using real-world examples of in-house and law firm implementations, panelists will cover practical templates, early-warning signals of scope change, and the governance needed to balance enforcement with commercial flexibility on deals.
You will learn:
How to build oversight workflows
How to advise outside counsel on designing billing playbooks
How to structure regular checks that cut down on invoices that need to be rejected, and ensure compliance with Outside Counsel Guidelines
How to convert data into forward-looking matter reports
Attendees will receive templates for billing playbooks, matter tracking, and oversight workflows.
Speakers:
Matthew Washburn, Associate Director of the Center of Excellence for Continuous Improvement, Proskauer
TBD