Featured Article
Data? Data? We don’t need no stinkin’ data (with apologies to John Huston)
The following article is by Janet Stanton, Partner, Adam Smith, Esq.–Bruce A few years back, we were meeting with the Executive Committee of one of Canada’s Seven Sisters firms. As part of our staying current on trends in Law Land, we often meet with firms... read more +Letter from Lima
The following column is by Antonio Leal Holguin, Director of Latin America for Adam Smith, Esq. I recently spent three days in Lima. A metropolis of close to 10 million people, Peru’s capital is one of Latin America’s most vibrant cities and a famous culinary...
What is the Purpose of Your Firm?
Has our first (and really only) answer to the question, "What is a corporation's purpose?" been wrong for the last, oh, 40 or 50 years? The answer, pace Milton Friedman [see note at end], has of course been "shareholder value!" And now it's being assailed from all...
On Being a Splendid Gray
In our third and final installment of the Maroons/Grays segmentation analysis, we presented this: Here’s a simplistic way of thinking about the two types of firms and the consequences for each of strong or of weak management. Maroons Grays Superbly run Steady as she...
Do Laterals Create or Destroy Value?
Ask almost any Managing Partner or office leader this question and odds are about 98% that the answer you'll get is, "It depends." Indeed. We wish there were reliable, consistent, industry-wide data on laterals' success ratios, but we've never seen it or even heard...
Maroons & Grays: Part 3
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 usually done not well. In...
