by Bruce | July 19, 2016 | Articles, Business Models, Compensation, Finance, Leadership, Strategy
With the release a bit earlier this month of Legal Business’s annual “Global 100,” we have more data to scrutinize, should we care to. I’ll give you the highlights of the numbers here but even the most innumerate among us could not exactly...
by Bruce | June 9, 2016 | Articles, Business Models, Finance, Leadership, Strategy
“Something looks wrong.” So begins Greg Ip’s most recent column in The Wall Street Journal. What exactly “looks wrong?” Well, the economy, stupid. Specifically, as Ip points out, consumer spending has been rising strongly recently but...
by Bruce | May 31, 2016 | Articles, Book Reviews, Business Models, Strategy
I recently finished reading George Beaton’s and Imme Kaschner’s Remaking Law Firms: Why & How (ABA Press: 2016) (George, who I’ve known for years and count a friend, was kind enough to have the ABA provide me a pre-publication copy) and I’d...
by Bruce | May 7, 2016 | Articles, Business Models, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Back in New York from a solid week of meetings in London (17 in five days) and a few observations, reflections, musings, and speculations come to the fore. And no, these will pointedly not include whether the US or the UK’s version of being seized by political...
by Bruce | February 24, 2016 | Articles, Business Models, Leadership, Strategy
We now come to our fifth and final installment: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death. “Irrelevance” is a subtle touch. It’s a fair bet that not too many readers of Adam Smith, Esq. see themselves as, or would be content to be, spending their working...
by Bruce | February 22, 2016 | Articles, Business Models, Leadership, Profiles of Individuals, Strategy
We now come to Stage 4, Grasping for Salvation. Illustrative is the contrast between how HP and IBM responded in terms of choosing new CEOs when each company’s growth slowed dramatically in the 1990’s. HP first: It faced a choice as it sought to replace...