by Bruce | April 4, 2005 | Articles, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Practice Group Management, Strategy
The American Lawyer’s cover story this month is about how the corporate/transactional deal market "is back," five years after it went away. Equity offerings nearly tripled in value in 2004 (to $43-billion, famously including Google) and an...
by Bruce | April 1, 2005 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Strategy
A new blog, Legal Ethics + Legal Technology, put together by Ben Cowgill, has invited guest authors, including me, to post their thoughts this week, on issues related to professional ethics. While I have often said that "Adam Smith, Esq." is all about...
by Bruce | April 1, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Practice Group Management, Strategy
This Just In: Results of "Savvy Blawgers" Query #2 The second query to this august group concerned the future of the billable hour. My original email to the Savvy Blawgers reads in pertinent part: You should also know that I’m going to be a...
by Bruce | March 23, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
"From pace-setter to basket case in the United States?" Shall we all guess what firm got stuck with that donkey-tail over at law.com? Alas, of course, it was Clifford-Chance. The questions du jour are (1) what went wrong? (not so we can...
by Bruce | March 19, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Partnership Structures, Strategy
I have often written on the tension between lockstep compensation and eat-what-you-kill, and I’m coming to the view that a nuanced, subjective, and openly ad hoc approach is probably the best, all things considered. Each of the polar end-points on that...
by Bruce | March 17, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Lockstep vs. eat-what-you-kill: Joined at the hip? Legal Week argues, using the apparently unending saga at Clifford-Chance as a journalistic "hook," that the boundary zone between the two models is wide and flexible, not narrow and bright. Now at one...