by Bruce | October 16, 2004 | Articles, Finance, Marketing, Strategy
"Marketing" a law firm, to many partners (and some burned marketing directors, I can only imagine), remains in too many circles a dirty word. Why is this, and what, if anything, can be done about it? As someone married to a senior marketing and...
by Bruce | October 14, 2004 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization
Can a UK firm crack the New York market without bending its lockstep partner compensation model? No, at least not if you’re Clifford Chance. CC has a global lockstep for its equity partners except some "super-pointers" in New York. This anomaly...
by Bruce | October 8, 2004 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership
"The few, the proud, the Marines?" I would make that, "The few, the proud, the lockstep-compensation firms." I’ve opined before that partnership compensation at many firms is in disequilibrium: While lockstep has its merits...
by Bruce | October 7, 2004 | Articles, Finance, Just Plain Interesting, Strategy
Stories that provide real-world confirmation of our core beliefs are all but irresistible—even if fundamentally intellectually unchallenging. Two of my core beliefs about analyzing policies at the intersection of law and economics are: a "static"...
by Bruce | October 3, 2004 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Partnership Structures
The American Lawyer’s annual associates satisfaction survey is here (full version) and here (summary ranking), and I’ll have some deeper analysis coming up. But for now, my initial reaction as an armchair statistician and amateur student of market...
by Bruce | October 1, 2004 | Articles, Finance, Leadership, Strategy
Rare is the law firm that goes through the hard, nay soul-searching, work of developing a strategic plan. The good news is that for the huge majority of firms none is needed: They’re small, local shops; or they pursue the specialties and interests of...