Law Department Management Blog
Sharp Legal Brands – Global Elite (2009) from Acritas at 37, summarizes some of the results of a question about procurement’s involvement when a law department selects law firms. Notably, in most of Asia, involvement of procurement is significantly higher than in the rest of the world, Japan excluded.
Second, Europe and its law departments march with procurement considerably more than in North America. Third, there are differences between industries that are quite significant. For example banking clients use procurement quite a bit more than do manufacturing clients
These findings add to my commentary about legal departments and the support they obtain from the sourcing function. I have previously collected blog posts on that topic (See my post of March 1, 2008: procurement with 17 references.) and have accumulated several more since then (See my post of Aug. 15, 2008: four uses of procurement by law departments; May 22, 2009: specialized blogs on procurement/sourcing; July 4, 2009: seven suggestions for sourcing and procurement to get legal on-board; Aug. 10, 2009: eight myths procurement professionals harbor about US legal departments; Oct. 7, 2009: procurement may bring negotiating skills to the table; Dec. 6, 2009: procurement needs to team with the legal group; and April 13, 2010: procurement stays away if your costs are under control but they can help on ancillary services.).