Senior Project Manager - Legal & Litigation Operations

Job Description

Job Description

CFI Consultants is seeking an experienced Senior Project Manager to lead complex projects across litigation operations, insurance claims, legal technology, AI implementation, investigations, trial support, analytics, and consulting.

This is a full-time, in-person position based in our West Orange, New Jersey office. We are looking for someone who can take ownership of complex and sometimes loosely defined projects, coordinate sophisticated stakeholders, adapt when circumstances change, and drive work from concept through delivery.

This is an individual-contributor position with no direct reports. However, the Senior Project Manager will serve as the engagement lead for assigned initiatives and work directly with CFI leadership, attorneys, claims professionals, investigators, consultants, technology resources, internal team members, and outside vendors.

We do not expect the successful candidate to arrive as a subject-matter expert in every CFI service area. We are looking for someone who understands complex professional-services environments, asks good questions, learns unfamiliar subject matter quickly, and knows how to organize people, information, technology, and resources around an objective.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Lead assigned CFI consulting projects from initial intake through completion, including scope, timelines, milestones, responsibilities, budgets, and deliverables.

• Coordinate attorneys, insurance claims professionals, investigators, consultants, technology personnel, internal team members, and outside vendors.

• Lead project kickoff, preparation, status, implementation, and post-project meetings while maintaining clear client communications and project documentation.

• Identify risks, dependencies, and obstacles early and take ownership of resolving issues so projects continue to move forward.

• Manage multiple engagements across different service lines while balancing competing priorities, deadlines, and client needs.

• Monitor project expenses, internal time, vendor costs, resource utilization, and profitability.

• Work directly with team members during implementation, training, and operational changes. Adapt communication to the audience and help ensure new processes are understood and adopted rather than simply documented.

• Support litigation and insurance claims initiatives, including case-evaluation projects, litigation analytics, reporting, complex or high-exposure matters, mediation preparation, trial preparation, and trial support.

• Coordinate investigative programs, including case intake, recurring searches, social-media and online-presence investigations, deliverables, escalation processes, workflows, and process improvements.

• Participate in CFI’s implementation and evaluation of artificial intelligence, legal technology, workflow automation, prompting, testing, and repeatable technology-enabled processes.

• Coordinate trial-preparation and trial-support engagements, including schedules, exhibits, demonstratives, vendors, technology resources, and related logistics.

• Manage controlled virtual litigation focus-group engagements, including project intake, participant and vendor coordination, technical preparation, session logistics, polling, recordings, and client-debrief support.

• Use reporting, data, templates, checklists, SOPs, dashboards, and quality-control standards to improve client delivery and internal operations.

• Help develop and implement new CFI services, products, workflows, and capabilities as the company grows.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

We are seeking candidates with approximately five or more years of relevant professional experience.

Strong candidates may come from backgrounds including litigation operations, legal operations, insurance claims operations, legal project management, litigation support, insurance defense, corporate legal departments, insurance carrier litigation-management teams, trial support, legal technology, investigations management, or professional-services consulting.

Experience working with insurance carriers, claims organizations, insurance-defense litigation, legal operations, or litigation support is strongly preferred.

Familiarity with claims evaluation, reserves, settlement strategy, defense-counsel reporting, litigation budgets, mediation, outside counsel management, and trial preparation is valuable.

The successful candidate should be highly comfortable with technology. Experience with Microsoft 365, SharePoint, Excel, Power BI, project-management platforms, legal AI tools, matter-management systems, survey tools, or litigation-support technology is useful. Specific platform experience is less important than the ability to quickly learn and effectively use new systems.

Experience involving AI implementation, workflow automation, vendor management, analytics, or trial technology is a plus.

PMP, CAPM, Agile, Scrum, or comparable project-management training or certification is helpful but not required. Practical experience managing complex legal, insurance, technology, or professional-services projects is more important than any particular methodology.

A bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience is expected.

A law degree is not required.

THE TYPE OF PERSON WHO WILL SUCCEED HERE

The right person will be versatile, organized, technologically curious, and comfortable operating across different types of projects.

You should be able to take an unclear problem and help turn it into a structured project. You should know when to escalate an issue and when you are expected to independently solve it.

You should be comfortable communicating with attorneys, claims professionals, executives, investigators, technologists, consultants, and vendors.

Most importantly, we are looking for someone who takes ownership of outcomes rather than simply maintaining schedules and task lists.

WHY CFI

CFI is at a stage of growth where talented people can influence how we work rather than simply execute an established playbook.

This role will have exposure to sophisticated litigation, insurance, investigative, technology, AI, analytics, and consulting projects while working directly with CFI leadership, clients, and outside professionals.

For the right person, this is an opportunity to help build processes, improve service delivery, develop new capabilities, and take on increasing responsibility as CFI grows.

LOCATION, TRAVEL & WORK ENVIRONMENT

This is a full-time, in-person position based in CFI’s West Orange, New Jersey office. It is not a remote position.

Some trial-support, consulting, or client-facing projects may require travel or work outside traditional business hours. The nature of CFI’s work also requires flexibility as client needs, litigation deadlines, and project priorities change.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

Over time, a successful Senior Project Manager should become a versatile consulting and operating counterpart who can independently lead projects across CFI’s service offerings.

The expectation is not that this person will personally be the subject-matter expert in every area. The expectation is that they will understand the objective, ask the right questions, engage the appropriate expertise, exercise judgment when the path is not obvious, organize the work, adapt as circumstances change, and take ownership of delivery.

Success will also be measured by the ability to bring people along with the work: communicating effectively across different audiences, building buy-in, helping team members understand new processes, and maintaining momentum when priorities, personalities, or client needs change.

CFI Consultants is a growing consulting firm supporting insurance carriers, law firms, and litigation teams through litigation operations, investigations, technology, analytics, artificial intelligence implementation, trial preparation and support, and customized consulting services.

Company Description

CFI Consultants is a growing consulting firm supporting insurance carriers, law firms, and litigation teams through litigation operations, investigations, technology, analytics, artificial intelligence implementation, trial preparation and support, and customized consulting services.