by Bruce | June 14, 2019 | Articles, Business Models, Client Relationships, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Marketing, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Let’s open this third and final installment with the #1 question we’re most frequently asked about this model: Can one firm excel at being both a Maroon and a Gray? No. Or in the very best of circumstances, it’s extremely hard to do and it’s...
by Bruce | June 9, 2019 | Articles, Business Models, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
At the end of installment #1, we promised you we’d discuss what happens if you apply Porter’s famous “five forces” to the Maroons and the Grays. Shall we? Insight from Porter’s “Five Forces” In 1979, Harvard Business School Professor Michael...
by Bruce | June 3, 2019 | Articles, Business Models, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Marketing, Partnership Structures, Strategy
We have never subscribed to the belief that law firms operate in a fundamentally undifferentiated industry—that each law firm competes with every other law firm—and that given the magic alignment of expertise, cost, and personal rapport, clients’ choice of law firms...
by Bruce | July 6, 2021 | Articles, Build Back Better, Business Models, Finance, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy, Technology strategy
We’ve written at fair length about our “maroons/grays” model for segmenting the law firm industry. Essentially, the model rejects customary or traditional dimensions of “compare and contrast” including: Size (revenue or headcount) Type of firm (litigation boutique,...
by Bruce | January 27, 2021 | Articles, Build Back Better, Business Models, Client Relationships, Finance, Leadership, Strategy
What will differentiate winning firms from “mere” survivors is adaptability. As the Organization for Economic Development wrote in 2019: Resilience centers on the ability not only to resist and recover from adverse shocks, but also to “bounce back” stronger than...