Important elements to know and utilize when sourcing legal services

April 27th, 2010 at 07:58am David Bush - Iasta

OGCs everywhere are finding that their budgets are not immune to the economic downtown. Concurrently, the evaporation of hundreds of millions of dollars in “deal” fees on Wall Street has many of the law firms scrambling for new business in other practice areas. It’s a great time to be sourcing legal. However, you have to be careful in the way you approach this category and the players involved.

The relationships and confidence your General Counsel has with all of the firms they work with has a higher value to them than simply saving a few bucks. In order to be successful in this category, you have to earn the confidence and trust of your OGC.

By that, I mean the Office of General Counsel (OGC) needs to have a high level of confidence that the insertion of Strategic Sourcing will not, in any way, materially impact the relationships that office has with outside counsel – particularly their “A-Team” of law firms.

So what is the best method to approach this category?

The most successful strategy is to spend 75% of your time on building relationships with the OGC and his team to understand their needs and firm relationships. From that, you will have a better understanding of what they value and will not change. A General Counsel’s level of comfort that you “get it” is directly correlated to how deep into the spend you will get. So, after thorough relationship building, you are left with 25% of the project or areas of spend that you can begin to do tactical sourcing projects. Take a look at litigation support service as a good starting category to source and begin building that bridge to strengthen the confidence and relationship with your OGC.

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Entry Filed under: Functionality, Supplier Performance, Supply Management Best Practices, e-RFx