Buying Legal Council Appoints Jason Winmill as New Chair

The Buying Legal^® Council (BLC), the international professional organization for legal sourcing and procurement, has announced the appointment of Jason Winmill as Chair. Dr. Silvia Hodges Silverstein is transitioning from her senior leadership role, in which she served for many years.

Winmill, managing partner at Argopoint, brings more than 25 years of legal sourcing expertise to the role and is known as one of the foremost practitioners in the field. Winmill architected groundbreaking law firm and legal services management programs for some of the world’s largest legal departments and companies, pioneering many of the standard practices used in legal sourcing and supplier management today. His innovative work has earned recognition in the Wall Street Journal and the Harvard Business Review, and became the subject of a Harvard Business School case on efficiency in legal sourcing in 2013. Winmill is recognized as a thought leader in legal procurement, legal operations and legal department management. His views have been covered by NPR, Bloomberg Law, The American Lawyer, and Corporate Counsel, among other publications.

“It is vital to have a seasoned practitioner lead the BLC, which has long focused its programming on supporting in-house procurement professionals,” said Dr. Hodges Silverstein. “Jason is an ideal successor to help launch BLC into an exciting new chapter given his deep knowledge of legal sourcing, legal operations, and legal department management. His established history with the BLC, as both a participant and educator, make for a great fit.”

Dr. Hodges Silverstein founded the Buying Legal Council in 2014 and has since served as the Council’s CEO. Under her leadership, BLC has grown significantly in membership, evolving into the leading global organization in legal procurement. She is an authority in the field of legal sourcing, having published several books, including The Definitive Guide to Buying Legal Services (2021), Winning Proposals (2017), and Legal Procurement Handbook (2015). She is stepping down to pursue related business and academic interests.

“The community of legal procurement professionals organized under the BLC today would not exist without Silvia,” said BLC Advisory Board Member Dr. Orazio Difruscolo in a statement. “We express our immense gratitude to Silvia for her commitment to the organization over the past decade. Her leadership and guidance have been instrumental to BLC since its founding, and we are excited to follow her in her next endeavors.”

“Silvia has done more than perhaps any other person to create the legal sourcing and procurement profession,” Winmill shared. “She set the standard towards which so many of us, myself included, aspire.”

In his role as Chair, Winmill will work closely with the BLC Advisory Board to lead the organization’s broad set of professional and educational offerings, including its annual conferences in New York and London, and webinar series held throughout the year.

“I am excited to see how Jason will take BLC to the next level,” said Andie Lam, BLC Advisory Board Member. “He is an expert in this field and thought leader on a lot of what has become legal procurement gold standards of today. I am confident he understands what makes this organization great, and what is needed to carry it into the future.”

Buying Legal Council, established in 2014, is the world’s leading organization dedicated to supporting professionals with responsibilities for legal sourcing. The Council has led educational events in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia. BLC serves professionals tasked with sourcing legal services and managing supplier relationships through enhanced professional training, dedicated legal procurement resources, and a community of legal procurement peers. Its members support in-house legal departments across a wide range of industries, including pharmaceuticals, financial services, insurance, technology, retail, and consumer goods, among others.

Jason Winmill is the Managing Partner of Argopoint, a leading legal department consulting firm dedicated to helping corporate legal departments with their management challenges. He has advised across a range of industries including healthcare, pharmaceuticals, retail, consumer products, financial services, media, manufacturing, insurance, education, travel and leisure, non-profits, and utilities. Winmill has been an active member of BLC since 2015, including his contributions as an author to BLC publications The Definitive Guide to Buying Legal Services (2021) and Legal Procurement Handbook (2015).  Winmill is an honors graduate of Harvard College and received his MBA from the Harvard Business School.

For more information on The Buying Legal Council, visit buyinglegal.com.

For questions, please contact Doria Delgado-Thompson at [email protected]