The emergence of the forensic and legal project manager

The worldwide emergence of the distinct legal project manager role is symbolic of the evolving shifts in the management structure of legal projects within all legal service provider entities and brings a new career path for legal environments.
This context statement offers a self-reflection of my vision, journey and contribution to global public works delivered through the establishment of the ‘International Institute of Legal Project Management’ (IILPM) that I founded in 2017. The IILPM has become the first and only professional global community of certified legal project management (LPM) practitioners worldwide. It has achieved graduates in fifty-two countries of the world, supported by a global network of accredited training providers in fourteen countries and university partnerships in six countries. It has established practice models for legal matter management, legal process improvement and investigation case management, underpinned by project management principles and practices.
An analytical autoethnographic approach was used to explain my thinking, approach and methods to achieve the public works and to overcome the key challenges that I have personally experienced and overcome. It reflects on how the public works has influenced the legal profession worldwide and helped transition the emergence of the legal project manager role from a state of flux to a more defined position. It covers my contributions to research, developed industry standards and frameworks, competency assessment models, training programmes, a multi-tiered credentialing system, workplace practice tools, and other publications, as well as providing a platform for the annual international conference regime, and the innovation-based professional awards programme. This qualitative-based self-reflection considered the ‘interdisciplinarity’ makeup of legal project management, the ‘post-bureaucracy’ managerial influences within the legal profession that has enabled changes in legal practice changes that has recognised the role, and the ‘post-professionalism’ influence on the traditional legal practitioner role that has help supported the emergence of the legal project manager that is now occupied by both lawyers and non-legally qualified allied legal professionals.