New findings from the 2018 “Buying Legal Services Survey – Insights into Legal Procurement” reveal latest impacts of legal procurement on the business bottom line. According to the US-based publisher of the report Buying Legal Council, procurement is having a “profound and lasting impact” on the purchase of legal services for the world’s largest companies.

Changing habits
The Council examined the purchasing behaviour of 153 legal procurement professionals, focusing on purchasing decisions, cost control, analyses and trends. The survey results showed that legal procurement is changing the way companies do business. With procurement’s involvement, companies save 14.6 per cent of legal spend, and when procurement is well-aligned and works in tandem with the in-house legal team, companies save an average of 21 per cent. Commenting on the survey results, Council executive director Dr Silvia Hodges Silverstein said, “When procurement teams pair with the general counsel and legal department, the costs go down and the effectiveness goes up.” She added, “The survey shows the savings can be measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Procurement under review
The survey also states that legal procurement “is no longer an unchartered territory,” with the majority of legal spend now under some form of review and active spend management. The council noted that relationship-only business approaches to buying and selling legal services is now a minority approach. For law firms and in-house legal teams, the pressure is now greater than ever. It is both a threat and an opportunity for the legal profession, according to the Council, which explained that “Legal procurement professionals contribute the most after five years of buying legal services.”

The Buying Legal Council survey can be downloaded here