Suppliers of support goods and services often regard law firms as a soft touch. The suppliers’ margins have been eroded in other sectors, such as financial services, so to maintain their overall profitability they have to make high margins where they can – and the legal sector is a shining example.
On assignments with major law firms we regularly encounter high levels of cost reduction potential, generally 10%-40% at the individual spend area level. This situation is largely the result of a failure among law firms to adopt professional procurement practices with respect to their bought-in support goods and services, which together account for about 20% of UK law firms’ revenues.
