by Bruce | December 8, 2004 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Practice Group Management, Strategy
Perhaps the single most challenging question to answer cogently—from both the economic and intellectual perspectives—is what can law firm managers actually do to increase profitability? You imagine rightly, dear reader, that I have sacrificed...
by Bruce | December 7, 2004 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
More on the Piper Rudnick/DLA deal again courtesy of The Financial Times. Nigel Knowles, managing partner of DLA, tosses out the unnecessary comment that "Piper Rudnick’s reasons [for the deal] may be slightly more defensive, while ours may be...
by Bruce | December 6, 2004 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
So it’s official: DLA is merging with Piper Rudnick (which has already, more or less, merged with Gray-Cary). The resulting firm, whose name will not long remain "DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary," will be the second largest globally by revenue,...
by Bruce | December 3, 2004 | Articles, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
The American Lawyer is out with its annual survey of AmLaw 200 leaders and they are, as Aric Press succinctly puts it, "a confident bunch." And why shouldn’t they be? The heck with 9/11 and the heck with the 2000 bubble melt-down: 88%...
by Bruce | December 1, 2004 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures
I’ve said it before, but it appears to be a source of chronic pain, so I will re-state my firm belief that, like pregnancy, you cannot be "half" lockstep and half not. The logical universe of choices is: Pure Lockstep: Fabulous if you can...
by Bruce | November 29, 2004 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Strategy
Rees Morrison, a longstanding observer of all matters law and business, opines that vis-a-vis in-house law departments, at least, there is no such thing as management by following "best practices," because they simply do not exist. To buttress his thesis, he...