by Bruce | February 12, 2008 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, M&A, Practice Group Management, Strategy
By now it’s been amply reported that 55 of Anderson Kill’s 126 lawyers are leaving for Reed Smith, effective February 1. In classically hyper-ventilating fashion, the Brits (Legal Week) reported that Reed Smith "has swooped, …taking...
by Bruce | February 10, 2008 | Articles, Book Reviews, Strategy
Rarely do I review books that disappoint, but there’s a first time for everything, and I want to report that in my opinion David Nasaw’s 850+-page Andrew Carnegie (Penguin: 2007) is skippable. This is a shame. Carnegie, aside from being perhaps...
by Bruce | February 8, 2008 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
"’The issue isn’t ‘integration,’ ‘ [Barton Winokur of Dechert] says. ‘I think that’s a garbage word people use." He’s talking about integration of laterals, a key issue on which The American Lawyer has just...
by Bruce | February 7, 2008 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
It’s been nearly a decade since McKinsey published the seminal article, The War for Talent, but many of its abiding observations remain true today and indeed are worth revisiting. What they found ten years ago started from the implacable demographic reality that...
by Bruce | January 29, 2008 | Articles, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Practice Group Management, Strategy
Annually, Hildebrandt and the Citi Private Bank issue a "Client Advisory" and this year’s is just out. What will doubtless grab headlines (and already has at places like the WSJ’s Law Blog) is the downbeat forecast for 2008—the first...
by Bruce | January 24, 2008 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Practice Group Management
A potentially important new book has been published—don’t worry, I’ve already asked the author for a review copy—but it’s just now been featured on Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge. Titled When Professionals Have to Lead:...