by Bruce | February 10, 2021 | Articles, Build Back Better, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Recruiting, Strategy
The following column is by Janet Stanton, Partner, Adam Smith, Esq. One of the most vexing issues for law firms is that of under-performing lawyers. And, let’s be clear from the get-go, we’re talking about chronic underperformance; not someone having, say, one bad...
by Bruce | February 1, 2021 | Articles, Build Back Better, Business Models, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Innovative Managing Partners, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
When we ended Part 2 of this series, we had discussed the data showing (1) that the conventional wisdom about the AmLaw firms growing relentlessly to the sky was, uh, Fake News (h/t to Jae Um), (2) that the real picture is one of increasing segmentation among law...
by Bruce | April 24, 2020 | Articles, Build Back Better, Client Relationships, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership
The following column was published on Thomson Reuters’ Legal Executive Institute site on April 20, 2020. We reprint it here by their courtesy. This 2-part series was written by Bruce MacEwen & Janet Stanton of Adam Smith, Esq. Over the past couple of weeks...
by Bruce | August 26, 2019 | Articles, Business Models, Client Relationships, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Has our first (and really only) answer to the question, “What is a corporation’s purpose?” been wrong for the last, oh, 40 or 50 years? The answer, pace Milton Friedman [see note at end], has of course been “shareholder value!” And now...
by Bruce | June 9, 2019 | Articles, Business Models, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
At the end of installment #1, we promised you we’d discuss what happens if you apply Porter’s famous “five forces” to the Maroons and the Grays. Shall we? Insight from Porter’s “Five Forces” In 1979, Harvard Business School Professor Michael...
by Bruce | June 3, 2019 | Articles, Business Models, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Marketing, Partnership Structures, Strategy
We have never subscribed to the belief that law firms operate in a fundamentally undifferentiated industry—that each law firm competes with every other law firm—and that given the magic alignment of expertise, cost, and personal rapport, clients’ choice of law firms...