Buying Legal® Council releases its sixth annual survey of legal services procurement. The annual survey, conducted earlier this year, shows that professional procurement saves companies 15 percent of legal spend on average.
The movement to professional legal services purchasing is accelerating. Legal Procurement now influences 76% of Legal Tech purchases and 62% of ancillary legal services.
“Legal procurement has never been more relevant than today. Cost savings and value are always on procurement’s priority list. With COVID-19, this is truer than ever,” says Dr. Silvia Hodges Silverstein, CEO of the Buying Legal® Council. “In large companies, Procurement now influences 57% of all legal services. In-house counsel no longer negotiate with their firms. This is Procurement’s task now. This would all have been unthinkable a few years ago. It’s a revolution that starts with analysis and ends in savings and increased value for clients.”
Sophisticated clients who use Legal Procurement today expect their firms to use innovative technology, provide business insight through root cause analysis (where do legal problems stem from?), free access to experts for quick questions, use of project managers, and pre-matter planning sessions. “Legal services providers need to be in tune with what their clients want. Otherwise, they don’t create value and instead waste a lot of money. Our 2021 Legal Procurement Survey shows that clients today have become very advanced buyers. The needs are clear. Winning firms are answering the call.”
Silverstein says that any organization with significant external legal spend that does not involve procurement in 2021 is not practicing best practice. It is about process control, measurement and employment of technology. “Legal procurement is making tremendous progress. They have increased their influence based on their achievements,” she said. “2021 will certainly be a year of continued advancement.”