It's always a delight to talk to people who are passionate about what they do. Dr. Silvia Hodges Silverstein is such a person. She researches, teaches, and speaks on purchasing decisions and change in the legal industry. Silvia is the CEO of Buying Legal Council, which supports professionals tasked with sourcing legal services and legal tech through education, research, and advocacy. Their mission is to advance the field of buying legal services and legal tech by sharing intelligence and best practices on how to buy and manage supplier relationships. Silvia is the editor of The Definitive Guide to Buying Legal Services and has authored two Harvard Business School case studies on legal procurement and the legal industry. She has also taught management at Columbia Law School and Fordham University School of Law.
Our conversation covered a number of interesting topics. We talked about how Silvia's journey in marketing for an Italian law firm led to her interest and expertise in procurement, the evolution of procurement's role in buying legal services and the ongoing struggle between lawyers and procurement professionals, and her view on which pricing model is least used by in-house counsel and the reason why.
