Legal procurement professionals are increasingly engaged in outside counsel and service provider selections, a Wednesday-released report from Buying Legal Council found, but their relationship with in-house counsel isn't yet perfect.

More than half of 103 respondents to legal procurement organization Buying Legal Council's 2019 Market Intelligence Report said they had at least some influence over their companies' legal service selection. An additional 40% said they “influenced the purchases of all legal services,” up from less than 10% of respondents in Buying Legal Council's inaugural annual report, according to executive director Dr. Silvia Hodges Silverstein.

“You see some companies where procurement is now a clearly established partner with the legal department and legal ops,” Silverstein said in an interview.

Legal's perception of procurement success increased with professionals' tenure. Procurement professionals with more than a decade of experience were perceived as the most successful and the most likely to implement advanced strategies.

Respondents listed some of their top procurement goals as: better managing legal work, reducing legal spend, better analyzing legal data, and implementing formal strategies and processes. These goals require cooperation from legal ops and in-house lawyers.

The overwhelming majority of respondents described their relationship with legal ops as “partners” or “collegial,” 43% and 38% respectively, though 14% said legal ops is still “reluctant.” Respondents' companies had, on average, around three professionals in procurement versus seven in legal ops. Silverstein said around 10% of procurement professionals have a legal background, fewer than legal ops, but that in her experience a law degree doesn't impact buyers' performance.

According to the report, the strength of procurement's relationship with both legal operations and in-house counsel is positively correlated with procurement's success. One-third of respondents described in-house counsel as “partners,” with an additional 43% describing the relationship as “collegial,” an improvement from previous years.

But procurement's relationship with in-house counsel still often lacks trust and inclusion when it comes to legal service selection for high-risk matters. More than 85% of respondents reported influencing “routine” work and more than 70% influenced “complex” work, while only around 50% played a role in legal service selection for “high risk” or “bet the company” type of work.

“The issue is that when some in-house counsel face high-risk [matters] they waive the exception card as legal departments have done for a long time,” Silverstein said. She added in matters of all risk levels, procurement never has the final say in who is hired, they “facilitate the decision making” with data.

Buying Legal Council's report also outlined procurement strategies for reducing spend in the long and short term. Refining outside counsel guidelines and improving time and ratekeeper management and law firm selection and management are all strategies that could offer near immediate savings, according to the report.

Panel convergence strategy is listed as the most difficult strategy in terms of change management, and the one with the longest wait time to achieve savings. But Silverstein said convergence is a key procurement strategy because it allows legal departments to build stronger relationships with firms and negotiate better pricing.

Despite this, Buying Legal Council found that respondents' companies used an average of 199 traditional law firms over the past year, up from 149 in 2018, reversing the previous trend of legal team's converging their outside counsel or using panels.

“If you spread to too many firms, that is problematic,” Silverstein said.

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