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...
by Bruce | March 23, 2012 | Articles, Business Models, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Strategy
The reaction to my last column on the developments at Dewey has been as strong as to any piece I can remember writing in the near-decade Adam Smith, Esq. has been around. But for those of you who may be feeling overdosed on Dewey coverage, events are not letting the...
by Bruce | March 16, 2012 | Adam Smith Himself, Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Two firms have this week received far more press attention than, one suspects, they counted on or quite know how to cope with: Our own industry’s Dewey LeBoeuf, and of course the iconic (good and bad sense) Goldman Sachs. Goldman Let’s take Goldman...