by Bruce | June 25, 2012 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Globalization, Leadership, Strategy
The one question I’m asked most frequently these days, in the aftermath of Dewey, is "Who’s next?" Even if I had an answer to that—which is, as one apocryphal job applicant replied when asked his greatest weakness, "for me to know and...
by Bruce | May 25, 2012 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
The conventional wisdom has quickly coalesced around how all right-thinking folks ought to view Facebook’s IPO: It was a disaster. Some reasons for this view (NASDAQ’s humiliating meltdown, three shareholder class actions are already pending against FB)...
by Bruce | May 14, 2012 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Beginning to emerge are lessons from the implosion of Dewey. I’ve believed, and written, for some time that the root causes of the failure, which is massive, spectacular, tragic, and utterly unnecessary, were self-inflicted: Unintentional suicide by drug...
by Bruce | May 5, 2012 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Strategy
OK, so we’re not quoted in the New York Times every day, and today we were, at not inconsiderable length, about Dewey. Here’s the The New York Times piece published on the front page of today’s Business section, by James Stewart. The photo is of...
by Bruce | May 1, 2012 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
The unfolding Dewey story has surprised people only with its apparently inexhaustible capacity to continue surprising us, and with its reliable pattern of consistently surpassing our own worst fears about how many things can go wrong at one and the same law firm. With...
by Bruce | March 30, 2012 | Articles, Compensation, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Recruiting, Strategy
A Wharton School professor has analyzed the performance, and pay levels, of external hires vs. internal staff promotions. He used personnel data from a division of a major US investment bank for 2003—2009, and the characteristics of that talent market are remarkably...
