Ari Kaplan went to the Buying Legal Council’s 2018 Legal Procurement Conference and found remarkable alignment of procurement and the provision of legal services.
Six years ago, I wrote an article for Law.com called “Procurement Process Embraces Legal Services” and concluded that “procurement professionals have become much more active and influential within their corporate legal departments because the general counsel is under tremendous pressure to reduce costs in the economic downturn.” While chief legal officers still bear that weight, the conversation around law department management is a much richer one, as evidenced by the themes of innovation, value, client service, and transparency, which the Buying Legal Council’s 2018 Legal Procurement Conference showcased on September 5 and 6.