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...
by Bruce | January 7, 2019 | Articles, Compensation, Finance, M&A, Question of the Month
This column is by Janet Stanton, Partner, Adam Smith, Esq. Why doesn’t $$ change hands when law firms merge or when one takes over another? (We’re not talking about solo or tiny practitioners selling their practices to a successor; that’s like buying...
by Bruce | July 16, 2018 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Recruiting, Strategy, Technology strategy
“Failure to attract and retain top talent” was the number-one issue in the Conference Board’s 2016 survey of global CEOs—before economic growth and competitive intensity. In more complex jobs, this will continue to be true as baby boomers (and their long experience)...