by Bruce | September 29, 2009 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Strategy
Regular readers know that among the many demigods in my polytheistic pantheon is the subaltern who stands guard to keep the faculties of Critical Thinking from being waylaid by cant or derailed by sensationalism. This brings us to our two seemingly far afield and...
by Bruce | September 8, 2009 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Practice Group Management
How could the SEC have missed all the warning signs about Madoff? Understand that I don’t have a dog in this hunt. Although I’m a securities lawyer by training, I never worked at the SEC and, so far as I know, I’m not close to anyone who lost serious...
by Bruce | September 2, 2009 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Practice Group Management
Results are in from our poll of a few weeks ago in Where Have You Gone, Work-Life Balance? and here are the results (multiple answers were permitted): Since it’s hard to read, here are the results in order of popularity. The question, again, was...
by Bruce | August 28, 2009 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management
Pop quiz: Which of these would be worse: Learning that, based on economic performance, lawyers in your practice group (including yourself) would be getting year-end raises smaller than average across the firm; or Feeling that you, individually, are being...
by Bruce | August 24, 2009 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Law Schools, Practice Group Management, Strategy
When on the same day both the WSJ and Corporate Counsel publish feature articles heralding that the time has come for alternatives to the billable hour, it’s time to step back and ask if they might actually be right this time around. (It doesn’t hurt...
by Bruce | August 13, 2009 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Practice Group Management
Among the phrases, and phenomena, that now seem so hopelessly “last August” is that of the fabled Work-Life Balance. (“So last August” has been a phrase around town for several months now, referring especially to examples of wretched...