by Bruce | October 18, 2008 | Adam Smith Himself, Articles, Just Plain Interesting
Not every day do we get a new Nobel Prize winner in Economics, not to mention one whose name, Paul Krugman, might actually be familiar to more Americans than the few of us who are poor closet economists. Krugman is of course not only a Princeton professor (we pause to...
by Bruce | October 14, 2008 | Articles, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Practice Group Management
Making the rounds is a presentation by Sequoia Capital on "startups and the economic downturn," which constitutes a sort of come-to-Jesus meeting for that storied VC firm’s portfolio companies. It tells a tale of radical gloom, with...
by Bruce | October 10, 2008 | Articles, Globalization, Leadership, Strategy
Today’s Wall Street Journal profiles H. Rodgin “Rog” Cohen, Chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell. Here at “Adam Smith, Esq.,” we’re not into gossip and we’re not into profiling celebrities (well, celebrities in our world,...
by Bruce | October 7, 2008 | Articles, Finance, Globalization, Strategy
A few weeks ago I posed the question to you all: Will the realignment of the top financial services institutions fundamentally alter the long-term demand for legal services? Here’s how you voted: A couple of aspects of these seem worth commentary: ...
by Bruce | October 4, 2008 | Articles, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Strategy
With all the body blows the New York City financial services industry and its attendant handmaidens (BigLaw, that would be you) have taken in the past couple of months, it may be time to remind ourselves that for the past two centuries or so, ever since New...
by Bruce | October 1, 2008 | Articles, Finance, Strategy
Analogies are imperfect (that’s why they’re called analogies), but here’s an interesting thought experiment tying together the wild rides investment banks have had on Wall Street during the past few weeks and the potential impact of the Legal...