by Bruce | May 30, 2009 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
According to data published by Citi Private Bank, covering the vast majority of large US-based firms, the compound annual growth rate of yearly revenues from 2001–2007 was 10.6% and that of profits per partner was 9.3%. Put differently, the average...
by Bruce | March 15, 2009 | Articles, Cultural Considerations
Time for a time-out. In all the obsessiveness and compulsiveness about the impact that this little economic interregnum we’re gamely marching through is having on our firms, our P&L’s, and even our personal balance sheets, let us pause for a moment to...
by Bruce | March 13, 2009 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
Well, that’ll teach me… The volume of commentary following my publication earlier this week of “The Great De-Leveraging” has been unprecedented. Depending on your attitude, that is either deeply gratifying or almost overwhelming. As one who...
by Bruce | March 8, 2009 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Just as I was thinking it was about time to publish a column on the topic of "leverage" at law firms (roughly speaking, the associate to partner ratio, although there’s more than one way to calculate something that people will call...
by Bruce | February 27, 2009 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Strategy
The Latham news is of course all over the place: The WSJ Law Blog, Above The Law, The AmLaw Daily, LegalWeek, and etc. The figures are, frankly, grim: 190 associates laid off, or about 12%; 250 paralegals and staff, or about 10%; but As of this writing, no...
by Bruce | February 23, 2009 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Strategy
America has been through many crises and challenges before, far worse than what we’re experiencing today. Need I mention (keeping it to economics and not including wars), the hardships and deprivations brought on by the Civil War, the long depression of...