by Bruce | October 2, 2017 | Articles, Branding, Business Models, Compensation, Finance, Law Schools, Leadership, Recruiting
Across the pond from New York our friend Alex Novarese, editor in chief of Legal Business, just published his commentary Associate pay smoke screen: it’s fooling no-one, which notes “the emergence over the last two years of suspiciously co-ordinated attempts by London...
by Bruce | June 2, 2017 | About the Site, Articles, Compensation
With this column we inaugurate a new and, we hope, long-running feature on Adam Smith, Esq.: A question of the month. Questions will vary, widely we suspect, and we invite readers’ suggestions for suitable future questions. We prefer them to be–and will...
by Bruce | March 28, 2017 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures
One of the things we do a lot of here—and seemingly more of in the past 24 months or so—is helping firms sort out, reform, amend, optimize, throw-away-and-start-fresh, their partnership compensation systems. And in every engagement of that sort, we try to keep two...
by Bruce | March 17, 2017 | Articles, Business Models, Compensation, Finance, Partnership Structures
This is a guest column by a very good friend of Adam Smith, Esq., Richard Rapp, who was President and CEO of NERA Economic Consulting for 18 years (1988-2005), during which time the firm grew to global scale. Richard now co-heads Veltro Advisors, a law firm...
by Bruce | September 11, 2016 | Articles, Compensation, Finance
And now we come to the main event, the poisoned chalice bequeathed to us by Steven Brill. Let us proceed from the specific to the general, or if you prefer the structural to the symbolic. Are the reported numbers accurate? Silly question. We all know the answer to...
by Bruce | August 30, 2016 | Articles, Compensation, Finance, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Strategy
As we enter strategy, planning, and retreat season in advance of 2017, a quick recap of some of the ways we help our clients that they consistently find most valuable. Strategy In today’s unforgiving marketplace, growing evidence points to the reality that firms...