by Bruce | August 7, 2006 | Adam Smith Himself, Articles, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
We all negotiate: Some of us for a living, others of us just in order to live. Most of us, I suspect, approach a negotiation without much of a coherent view or approach on what distinguishes a successful and effective negotiation, that leaves both parties...
by Bruce | August 3, 2006 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
Although the jury may still well and truly be out on whether the consolidation wave among AmLaw firms: (a) is just getting started; (b) has already crested; (c) is the smartest thing firms could possibly do in our increasingly globalized and client-centric world; (d)...
by Bruce | August 1, 2006 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management
My friend Rich Gary has a valuable piece on Law Firm, Inc. about "managing the unmanageable"—managing lawyers, in other words. Rich’s piece, in turn, builds on David Maister’s famous (to my mind, anyway) April essay in The...
by Bruce | July 30, 2006 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Practice Group Management, Technology strategy
The latest issue of CIO Insight features a lead article called, "Most Companies Struggle to Measure the Value of IT," and headlines: "No right way has emerged to measure IT value, and the most common measures fare the worst." To hear them...
by Bruce | July 27, 2006 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
My friend Prof. William Henderson of Indiana University Law School/Bloomington has diligently worked on an analysis of the profits-per-partner of single-tier vs. two-tier law firms, which was just published in the North Carolina Law Review (Indiana Legal Studies...
by Bruce | July 26, 2006 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
Legal Week argues that "ensuring the best individuals make it up the partnership ladder has never been harder." They (properly) cite the landmark McKinsey study of nearly ten years ago, The War for Talent, which surveyed 6,000 executives from the "top...