by Bruce | February 7, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Even the reader acquainted only at the most cursory level with my perspective on the increasingly professionalized management of law firms would know I endorse that trend wholeheartedly. The question du jour is whether I endorse it without reservation. Prompting...
by Bruce | January 31, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
"Law firms are being forced to run themselves along more ‘corporate’ lines than ever before," reports the FT, summarizing a PwC report on the top 50 UK firms during 2004. This new "strategic approach" may represent a departure...
by Bruce | January 27, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
Building a genuinely trusting, collaborative, integrated culture—where one does not exist—is among the tallest of orders that a firm can face. Since control over clients is such a key source of power, client-hogging and the individualistic behavior...
by Bruce | January 5, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Marketing, Strategy
“I can’t think of a more important problem facing the profession,” Justice Breyer told Washington Lawyer, “than how to maintain a life for a young lawyer that will lead to satisfaction in his or her career, that will produce time for a family,...
by Bruce | January 4, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
In a happy confluence, two articles which are far stronger together than is either alone were pointed out to me today by two loyal readers. The first is The American Lawyer’s current "Management" column, about Customer Relationship Management...
by Bruce | December 31, 2004 | About the Site, Articles, Compensation, Finance, Just Plain Interesting, Strategy
I just finished reading Tombstone: A Lawyer’s Tales from the Takeover Decades (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: 1992) by Lawrence Lederman, former chairman of the corporate practice at Milbank-Tweed (and still a partner there), who started his career as...