The Special Project Management station addresses how the legal department supports and delivers high-impact, non-routine legal work such as acquisitions, disposals, capital markets transactions, restructures, and major strategic initiatives.

In these scenarios, legal is rarely just a passive advisor. While there may be a commercial or business lead, much of the complexity, coordination, and execution burden sits with legal. The quality of legal project management therefore has a direct bearing on cost, speed, risk, and outcome.

This station on the Internal Client Line is about recognising that important legal work is still project work — and that applying disciplined project management principles to special legal matters unlocks substantial efficiency and value.

The Special Project Management station should enable legal to:

◼️ Structure Complex Legal Work: Break large matters into manageable workstreams.

◼️ Plan Legal Delivery: Define milestones, dependencies, and timelines.

◼️ Coordinate Stakeholders: Align internal teams and external advisors.

◼️ Manage Legal Risk: Track and escalate issues systematically.

◼️ Support Commercial Leadership: Provide visibility into legal progress and constraints.

◼️ Control External Counsel: Manage scope, cost, and output expectations.

◼️ Sequence Legal Inputs: Ensure the right advice is delivered at the right time.

◼️ Support Decision-Making: Provide timely information to decision-makers.

◼️ Maintain Momentum: Prevent legal work from becoming a bottleneck.

◼️ Capture Lessons Learned: Feed insight into Knowledge Harvest.

The Special Project Management station is considered a Specialist resource within the GLS Legal Operations model.

A Foundational Resource: Is responsible for determining the overall performance capabilities of a “critical” legal function. If it is not optimised, the function can never be optimised. 

A Repeater Resource: Supports the performance of multiple "critical" legal functions and as such represents a "ripple effect" productivity intervention point. 

A Specialist Resource: Is responsible for driving the performance of a very specific part of an individual legal function. Its productivity contribution is limited to that single legal function. 

The best practice features of effective Special Project Management include:

◼️ Clear Legal Ownership: Accountability for legal delivery is explicit.

◼️ Defined Workstreams: Tasks and responsibilities are clearly segmented.

◼️ Integrated Project Planning: Legal plans align with broader project plans.

◼️ Milestone Tracking: Progress is monitored against agreed checkpoints.

◼️ Risk Registers: Legal risks are identified and actively managed.

◼️ External Counsel Governance: Scope and outputs are tightly controlled.

◼️ Decision Support: Legal insights are surfaced at the right time.

◼️ Escalation Discipline: Issues are escalated early and appropriately.

◼️ Communication Cadence: Stakeholders are kept informed.

◼️ Post-Project Review: Lessons are captured and reused.

Effective Special Project Management delivers business value by:

◼️ Improving Speed: Complex matters move faster.

◼️ Reducing Cost: External spend is better controlled.

◼️ Lowering Risk: Issues are identified and addressed early.

◼️ Improving Coordination: Fewer hand-offs and misunderstandings.

◼️ Supporting Better Decisions: Leadership has clearer information.

◼️ Maintaining Momentum: Legal does not stall strategic initiatives.

◼️ Improving Outcomes: Deals and projects close more cleanly.

◼️ Enhancing Predictability: Fewer surprises late in the process.

◼️ Supporting Governance: Decisions are documented and defensible.

◼️ Building Confidence: The business trusts legal on critical work.

For the legal department, Special Project Management provides:

◼️ Better Control: Legal work is structured and planned.

◼️ Reduced Firefighting: Fewer last-minute crises.

◼️ Stronger Authority: Legal is seen as a delivery leader.

◼️ Improved External Counsel Management: Clearer expectations and oversight.

◼️ More Efficient Use of Senior Lawyers: Expertise applied where it matters.

◼️ Clearer Prioritisation: High-impact work is properly resourced.

◼️ Improved Collaboration: Legal integrates better with the business.

◼️ Knowledge Capture: Insight feeds future projects.

◼️ Enhanced Reputation: Legal is trusted on the biggest matters.

◼️ Transformation Enablement: Project discipline supports scale.

Special Project Management is essential for:

◼️ Senior Executives

◼️ Business Unit Leaders

◼️ Strategy & Corporate Development Teams

◼️ Finance Teams

◼️ Project & Transformation Teams

◼️ Legal Operations Teams

◼️ In-House Legal Teams

◼️ General Counsel

◼️ External Counsel

◼️ Board-level Stakeholders

Where Special Project Management is weak or absent, organisations experience:

◼️ Delayed Deals: Transactions drag unnecessarily.

◼️ Cost Overruns: External legal spend escalates.

◼️ Late Risk Discovery: Issues surface too late.

◼️ Poor Coordination: Workstreams clash or stall.

◼️ Escalation Chaos: Problems reach leadership too late.

◼️ Decision Bottlenecks: Legal becomes a blocker.

◼️ Reputational Damage: Projects fail publicly.

◼️ Burnout: Legal teams operate in crisis mode.

◼️ Lost Learning: Insight is not captured.

◼️ Reduced Credibility: Legal loses influence on major initiatives.

Supporting Special Project Management requires:

◼️ Project Planning Tools: Milestones and dependencies tracked.

◼️ Workflow Integration: Legal tasks linked to project plans.

◼️ Collaboration Platforms: Seamless coordination with stakeholders.

◼️ Document Management: Controlled access to key materials.

◼️ Risk Tracking: Visibility into legal risk issues.

◼️ External Counsel Oversight: Scope and cost monitoring.

◼️ Dashboards: Real-time visibility for leadership.

◼️ Knowledge Capture: Lessons fed into repositories.

◼️ Scalability: Works across multiple projects.

◼️ Change Enablement: Easy refinement of approaches.