by Bruce | December 16, 2005 | About the Site, Adam Smith Himself, Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Just Plain Interesting
Aside from law firms and the business thereof—my genuine professional passion—I must occasionally share a personal passion, but only if it touches upon economics. One personal passion is the almost unimaginable centrality of the subway system to New...
by Bruce | December 8, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Of all the "evergreen" topics we keep coming back to here at "Adam Smith, Esq." one of the ever-greenest (no pun…) is the eternal disequilibrium between lockstep and eat-what-you-kill partner compensation models. Most recently, I...
by Bruce | December 6, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
No sooner had we surveyed the prospects for a talent war for associates among the AmLaw 200 than along comes the Financial Times reporting on the release in the UK of PwC’s annual survey of law firm finances. (I’ve requested a full copy by email to...
by Bruce | December 5, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Marketing, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Some reader emails are more provocative than others, and today we have one from the first category. Actually, we have this from a few days ago and I’ve been sitting on it while I contemplated how to handle it. The sender, writing "on his own...
by Bruce | December 1, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
A few days ago I received this email from a reader, with respect to my "Optimal Partner Compensation" post: "I like your point of view, but with one question: how do you calculate/compare the 30 percent kicker [up or down] at the end of the comp cycle...
by Bruce | November 29, 2005 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Just Plain Interesting, Leadership, Strategy
And now a moment to reflect—with sincere earnestness—on what makes it all worthwhile. The text for this post comes, coincidentally, from an interview with Michael Lewis (an author so talented that, as they say, his shopping list makes...