by Bruce | April 9, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Sometimes it’s not the worst thing to confess bafflement—OK, perhaps "bafflement," which implies total cluelessness, is too strong, but I will at least cop a plea to not being confident how to truly explain something. That something is, as...
by Bruce | April 1, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Practice Group Management, Strategy
This Just In: Results of "Savvy Blawgers" Query #2 The second query to this august group concerned the future of the billable hour. My original email to the Savvy Blawgers reads in pertinent part: You should also know that I’m going to be a...
by Bruce | March 23, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
"From pace-setter to basket case in the United States?" Shall we all guess what firm got stuck with that donkey-tail over at law.com? Alas, of course, it was Clifford-Chance. The questions du jour are (1) what went wrong? (not so we can...
by Bruce | March 19, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Partnership Structures, Strategy
I have often written on the tension between lockstep compensation and eat-what-you-kill, and I’m coming to the view that a nuanced, subjective, and openly ad hoc approach is probably the best, all things considered. Each of the polar end-points on that...
by Bruce | March 17, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Lockstep vs. eat-what-you-kill: Joined at the hip? Legal Week argues, using the apparently unending saga at Clifford-Chance as a journalistic "hook," that the boundary zone between the two models is wide and flexible, not narrow and bright. Now at one...
by Bruce | March 9, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Finance, Leadership, Practice Group Management, Strategy, Technology strategy
In my last post I noted at least anecdotal evidence about the cost of losing existing talent, and today The National Law Journal reports that firms are taking steps to make it harder for headhunters to poach associates, primarily by removing information about...