In procurement, the public sector remains responsible for the delivery of a service but instead of producing it with its own resources, specifies contractual obligations and procures the service from the market. Procurement allows the public sector to focus on core  justice activities. Non-core activities are sourced from the market where competition, innovation and specialisation provide many benefits. For instance, courts often contract out IT services, security, archiving and building maintenance services while keeping the focus on its core service – adjudicating disputes. Lower price, higher quality, scalability and reduced or eliminated need for costly investments are some of the main benefits. Disadvantages of the procurement model are the principal-agent problems (information asymmetry and dependency), loss of capacity in the public sector and distortion in market competition. Several modalities are possible based on the type of service, the relationship between the contracting parties and other factors. Some of the most frequent modes of soliciting services from the market are contracting out, procurement, and concession. The most frequently used criteria for selecting a provider are economic and financial standings of the provider, value for money, lowest price, management and technical skills and management and quality control systems.

Particularly interesting for justice leaders is the specific case of business process outsourcing in the justice field: courts and other adjudication tribunals can bid entire court procedures to external parties. For instance, a court can solicit bids for providers of divorce procedures, money order procedures or administrative appeal procedures. In such a case, the whole process is outsourced. The role of the court changes from provider to producer of the service. There are several benefits of such a business process outsourcing: