s/o lawyer becoming a project manager

[Anonymous]

I read the thread about the DOJ litigator who is burned out, and I could have written it. Someone suggested project management as a career path. I’m intrigued because that’s the part of litigation I enjoy the most (managing a large team and keeping all of the trains running). I don’t want to actually do trial work anymore. I’m not OP.

Can someone talk more about what being a PM entails? What’s the day to day like? Do I need to get a PMP certification if I want to make the switch? What is hard or annoying about it versus what is enjoyable? Do you have to travel?

[Anonymous]

If you have a law degree why don't you apply for Government Relations in a trade association? How much are you looking to make?

[Anonymous]

I hope you get responses from actual PMs. I wanted to jump in as a former lawyer who understands burnout. I looked as switching to a PM track in my federal agency. There were some specific reasons I didn't make the switch, but I will say my experience with PMs is that they are very methodical, find it difficult to work outside their system, and have a hard time adjusting to ambiguity. Some of those things are also what makes them very effective at what they do, and overall they seem to have nice personalities.

[Anonymous]

If you can run a household, you can be a PM.

You come up with a plan. Everyone has a job and a timeframe to do it within a budget. Then someone gets sick, figures out that they can’t do what they said in the timeframe, the budget changes, the client changes the scope or the delivery date. And with each ball thrown at you, you rearrange the chess pieces to make it all work. Then you make presentations to tell everyone how great you’re doing.

Think of it like running your house, getting all the kids to their activities in different parts of town at the same time, and then DH calls to tell you he’s going out of town tomorrow night so you start trying to figure out who can help you out. Then you figure out dinner and are just sitting down to relax when someone comes downstairs to tell you that they remembered they have a project due tomorrow. So off you go to Michael’s at 9pm and you help with a new to you project. In setting your kid up to do the project, you realize they have done none of the necessary research so you’re going to have to help them step by step. This all would be fine if you knew about this last week when the assignment came out but now you have 2hrs to get it all done. In the morning you post a picture of one kid scoring a goal, another kid with their poster, and a picture of a perfect meal on the table

[Anonymous]

I'm a lawyer with a PMP who mostly works with PMs, and my DH is a PM. A lot of law involves project management. Getting the PMP was not hard and it has helped me a bit.

DH really enjoys his job but it doesn't pay as much as law, and he's always overhead never profit center. Right now he is fully remote and travels less than once a year, but in a past job he was in a secure facility all day and traveled a lot. It's typical to have a ton of meetings. You need to be personable and willing to maintain relationships. The most annoying thing about PMing is that you're responsible for the schedule but you can't do much to actually make people meet it.

PMs often have a secondary expertise like tech, engineering, food safety. If you are thinking about managing litigation at a firm, that may be its own niche and they may not value a PMP, I don't know.

[Anonymous]

I’m an IT PM.

I’d recommend learning the PMBOK and Agile processes. Likely, you perform PM functions already but it is much easier to get the terms right and tools at hand when you need them. It sort of crystallizes things and puts words to what may have been intuitive. I have taken a lot of training and I think it helps me but I don’t know that it’s necessary…..I do think it is valuable. Not like a PMP Bootcamp, which is just a cram of information, but longer courses in the discipline itself.

Day to day, you manage the project schedule, scope, and cost. You negotiate workload and resources. You handle communications and ensure appropriate documentation. You liaison between groups (this is a lot of the work). You make project level decisions unless it’s business based (you’d have a POC for that) or money based (like you’re going over budget, that’s up to a project sponsor).

You keep it running. I consider my job well done when no one is complaining and they all feel part of the team.

[Anonymous]

I’m a lawyer who does PM. You could do it but do yourself a favor and DON’T come in with the attitude of “I’m a lawyer so this will be easy.” There will still be many things to learn and I see that attitude far too often.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read the thread about the DOJ litigator who is burned out, and I could have written it. Someone suggested project management as a career path. I’m intrigued because that’s the part of litigation I enjoy the most (managing a large team and keeping all of the trains running). I don’t want to actually do trial work anymore. I’m not OP.

Can someone talk more about what being a PM entails? What’s the day to day like? Do I need to get a PMP certification if I want to make the switch? What is hard or annoying about it versus what is enjoyable? Do you have to travel?

As a PM you don’t manage anyone. You manage processes, projects, timelines and expectations. That is very different than managing a team of people that you have control over. As a PM, you won’t have any control or authority over the people, but you’ll have to convince them to do what you’re asking within the timeframe and budget you lay out for them.

It’s like herding cats sometimes. I can’t imagine an attorney finding a PM role enjoyable, as they are each different core skillsets.