By Justice Bid
Content
In the original story that kicked off this blog series, Procurement was able to help Legal avoid disaster from a flawed RFP process. Its knowledge of the client’s contracting, eBilling, and rate management framework was crucial. With that story as a backdrop, here are a few ways Procurement can be successful in becoming a trusted partner with Legal teams.
- Understand Legal Ops: Procurement should understand Legal Operations, including its outside counsel, technology, legal services, processes, and people. You can’t effectively negotiate an engagement letter or run an RFP if you do not understand how the client manages outside counsel.
- Be Curious & Embrace Change: A Procurement team that constantly learns and adapts to change provides better support to Legal teams. Understand new methodologies that impact costs. Understand the impact of rate changes in RFPs to enable smoother negotiations.
- Harness Data Analytics: Data is fundamental to every aspect of an enterprise’s business, including Legal and Procurement. The quality of data collected during RFXs, eAuctions, and negotiations determine project success. Analytics are helpful before, during, and after Legal procurement events. A mature Legal Ops team will manage pre- and post-event data, but in their absence, clients often turn to Procurement. Exhibiting solid competency in data analytics earns your client’s trust and adds another protective cost management layer for the business.
- Emotional IQ: In our original story, it would have been easy for Procurement to walk away from the project. But if it did, Legal would have disastrous RFP results and persistent outside counsel relationship problems. Fortunately, Procurement did not flinch. It did not run. Understanding when to focus on Legal’s concerns outside of Procurement-related issues and having the confidence to recommend different approaches is an important soft skill for becoming Legal’s trusted advisor.
