by Bruce | November 29, 2017 | Articles, Business Models, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management
More so of late, but for some time, we’ve been harboring the suspicion that the glory days of the high-leverage model are over. Could we be seeing the end of leverage? Of course, many management fads fashions tend to come and go, which is why we at Adam Smith, Esq....
by Bruce | October 24, 2017 | Articles, Business Models, Client Relationships, Finance, Leadership, Practice Group Management, Strategy
Over the past year or two, we’ve been working with what struck us as a high number of litigation boutiques, and we decided to pause and gather our thoughts for, we can always hope, the benefit of a wider audience. Semantics first: By “litigation boutique,” if it’s...
by Bruce | October 11, 2017 | Articles, Business Models, Cultural Considerations, Globalization, Latin America, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy, Technology strategy
The following article is reprinted by kind permission of Thomson Reuters, where it first appeared in their Forum magazine. It was written by Antonio Leal Holguin, Director, Adam Smith, Esq. The Colombian case. Twenty years ago, Colombian lawyers were still artisans....
by Bruce | October 8, 2017 | Articles, Business Models, Partnership Structures, Question of the Month
This column is by Janet Stanton, Partner, Adam Smith, Esq. Let’s start at the source. Here is the most salient part of Rule 5.4 “Professional Independence of a Lawyer” regarding law firm ownership for most of the US (Washington, DC and Washington state are exceptions...
by Bruce | October 2, 2017 | Articles, Branding, Business Models, Compensation, Finance, Law Schools, Leadership, Recruiting
Across the pond from New York our friend Alex Novarese, editor in chief of Legal Business, just published his commentary Associate pay smoke screen: it’s fooling no-one, which notes “the emergence over the last two years of suspiciously co-ordinated attempts by London...
by Bruce | September 19, 2017 | Articles, Business Models, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Strategy
Most readers are familiar with our habit of writing a “letter from…” when we have spent some time in a particular market. We spent last week in Toronto among other things delivering the keynote and moderating breakout sessions at the annual meeting of Interlex, an...