Featured Article
Janet on Bloomberg Law re the Non-Equity Tier
Recently Janet was invited to participate in a Bloomberg Law podcast on the topic of Ropes & Gray remaining a single-tier partnership despite the industry’s overwhelming movement towards the two-tier (equity and non-equity) partnership model. Her fellow... read more +Who Will Be Your Successor?
Succession planning is part of the Management 101 toolkit that law firms ignore at their peril. Too many firm leaders are reluctant to attend to it, either intentionally ("it will all work out") or simply through preferring not to take up a potentially...
Sidley-Austin, the EEOC, and Unintended Consequences
Even the reader acquainted only at the most cursory level with my perspective on the increasingly professionalized management of law firms would know I endorse that trend wholeheartedly. The question du jour is whether I endorse it without reservation. Prompting...
The Power of One
Roughly speaking, there are two theories of history: That people shape events, or that events shape people. As a confirmed subscriber to the former theory, this American Lawyer profile of Bingham-McCutchen's chair, Jay Zimmerman, tells the tale to me of what a...
Law Firm Management, 1984–2004
One of the most promising and optimistic pieces I've read in awhile comes courtesy of John Smock, co-founder of Smock Sterling Strategic Management Consultants outside Chicago. Essentially a look-back at his twenty years of experience being a strategic...
The Market’s Competitive. Which Market?
"Law firms are being forced to run themselves along more 'corporate' lines than ever before," reports the FT, summarizing a PwC report on the top 50 UK firms during 2004. This new "strategic approach" may represent a departure from how things...
