Building Change, Project, and Programme Management Capability in the Legal Sector: A Blueprint for Leaders
Building robust capability in both change management and project/programme management is a strategic imperative for law firms. Investing in and developing this capability to bring people, process and technology together is more important than ever for client and staff retention. With mounting client expectations, regulatory shifts, and technological disruption, law firms must deliver complex internal transformations efficiently while adapting to continuous shifts in the sector. Notably, less than 10% of leaders have the right capabilities and experiences required to successfully lead transformations (PWC) and 57% of projects fail due to a breakdown in communication (IT Cortex). For leaders in transformation, investing in these capabilities is essential for long-term success, profitability, and resilience.
The Strategic Case for Capability Building
The legal sector faces continued and growing complexity, from adapting and evolving their tech landscape and fixing technical debt to getting strong adoption of new tools to aid team collaboration, productivity and efficiency. Traditional approaches – where projects were managed separately and the change impacts from each of these projects across practice areas and geographies were not well understood or communicated – often led to unpredictable costs, missed deadlines, and failed transformations. Embedding both project/programme management and change management capabilities allows legal teams to better deliver internal change initiatives on time, within budget, but most importantly to actually deliver on the promises made in the business case. The challenge lies not just in investing in new roles, but importantly in building centres of excellence, particularly in change and organisational design. This investment can be the difference between making sure new ways of working are adopted and sustained beyond the project delivery deadline or old ways of working and behaviours quickly re-surfacing.
9FT Drive Legal Change
9FT engages in a tailored approach, helping legal organisations not only deliver complex change on time and within budget, but also by building lasting internal capability. This Legal capability build work empowers teams to adapt, innovate, and operate in change confidently in a rapidly evolving sector. Tiggy McCool, Partner and Professional Services Sector Lead at Nine Feet Tall says…
“Firms who are forward thinking and invest in building project and change capability soon reap the rewards. Developing one skill set without the other just doesn’t work. You need to get solutions ready for your people, and people ready for your solutions. Project and Change professionals who are nurtured and see their career can progress within the sector will add huge value to your business – but you need to give them development and show them there is a pathway to leadership, just as you do with fee earning roles. Otherwise, you will lose them to other firms and sectors, who do appreciate the value they deliver”
9FT’s Core Principles for Building Capability
Leading from the Front
Change and project management aren’t innate skills – they require deliberate development. Leaders must not only champion structured methodologies but actively participate in capability building, by effectively sponsoring the projects and changes that the firm is trying to deliver and talking about why these skills are important to delivering the firms strategy.
Strategic Investment in Time and Money
Building these capabilities requires investment in training, tools, and dedicated resources. Organisations that treat this as a ‘nice-to-have’ rather than a strategic imperative consistently underperform in their transformation efforts. Prosci state in their 2025 Overview of Change Management that initiatives with excellent change management are six times more likely to meet objectives than those with poor change management.
Building Understanding at All Organisational Levels
Successful capability building extends beyond senior leadership to encompass partners, associates, and business services teams. Each level requires tailored development that matches their role in transformation delivery and change adoption.
Don’t Forget Supervisors and Team Managers
Mid-level managers and supervisors are critical success factors often overlooked in capability building. They’re on the front lines, directly communicating with teams and managing day-to-day resistance. Without proper training and support, it is harder for them to be t advocates and enablers of the change you are trying to deliver.
Data-Driven Management
Leveraging data is critical for informed decision-making in both disciplines. Analytics help track milestones, budgets, resource allocation, adoption rates, and readiness for change, enabling proactive management and evidence-based reporting to leadership. Tracking these areas will better enable leadership to realise the benefits of the transformation and assess its success. So, it is worth thinking about what tools and technology you are providing to your Project and Change teams, to support them in delivering your change portfolio.
How to Integrate Project, Programme, and Change Management
While project management focuses on delivering defined outcomes within scope, time, and budget, change management ensures that people embrace and sustain the changes to deliver the outcomes you want to see. The diagram below clearly illustrates this distinction: Project Management manages the technical side (tasks, timelines, budgets) while Change Management manages the people side (adoption, engagement, realisation of benefits). Both are essential for transformation success. See figure one below for an integrative approach model by Prosci.
Figure 1: A unified value proposition (Prosci)
Key integration strategies include:
- Involving change management professionals in major projects from the outset to address people-related risks and drive adoption. Prosci recommend at least 10% of project budget should be allocated to adoption and change management activities. Source here.
- Using standard frameworks and toolkits that incorporate both project and change management best practices.
- Providing joint training and development opportunities for project managers and change champions.
For leaders, building internal change and project management capability is about better project delivery enabling organisational transformation that drives competitive advantage. Firms that master these capabilities consistently outperform peers in profitability, client satisfaction, and market responsiveness. The upfront investment in building these capabilities will determine which firms lead the legal sector’s evolution and constantly shifting market. Get in touch today.
