by Bruce | July 7, 2017 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Ineffable, Leadership
Unknown to me was that Chief Justice John Roberts’ son has been attending, and just graduated (9th grade) from Cardigan Mountain School in New Hampshire. Dad delivered the commencement address. An excerpt: Now the commencement speakers will typically also wish...
by Bruce | July 4, 2017 | About the Site, Adam Smith Himself, Articles, Just Plain Interesting
“You have a republic, if you can keep it.”—reliably attributed to Benjamin Franklin, at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. With that as our text in mind for this parlous and yet inspiring Independence Day celebration, two threads tying our...
by Bruce | June 29, 2017 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Coming to the fore more prominently these days across a large portion of firms we work with and the industry overall is the issue of succession planning. It comes up in one or both of two contexts, (a) transitioning key client relationships from incumbent partners to...
by Bruce | June 25, 2017 | Articles, Business Models, Leadership, Strategy
A brief follow-on to the earlier column on Amazon, GE, and Whole Foods. The typically worthwhile Greg Ip, writing in The Wall Street Journal on “The Economy Needs Amazons, but it Mostly Has GEs”, gives us the following chart: The point? For 20+ years,...
by Bruce | June 22, 2017 | Articles, Question of the Month
This column written by Janet Stanton, Partner, Adam Smith, Esq., Quick reprise: Earlier this month we launched a new feature on Adam Smith, Esq.: The question of the month. The inaugural question was: Is “origination” just a nicer term for “sales commission?” If so,...
by Bruce | June 19, 2017 | Articles, Business Models, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
Jeff Immelt’s stepping down as head of GE after 16 years was the odds-on favorite to be the big business story of the week until of course the Amazon/Whole Foods acquisition sucked all the oxygen out of the building. Any lessons in here for Law Land? Bear with...
