by Bruce | October 28, 2016 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership
As regular readers know is my custom, when I return from a trip to London I typically endeavo(u)r to distill my reactions in a brief report. As my trip this week was especially brief (shy of 72 hours), this report will be too. By way of background, I had 10 meetings...
by Bruce | October 17, 2016 | Articles, Business Models, Finance, Just Plain Interesting, Strategy
In connection with an ongoing research/whitepaper project, further about which affiant sayeth not, I had occasion to look at the Original AmLaw 50 from 1985. Here are the first three columns: Rank, firm, and gross revenue: Aside from the historic time warp we...
by Bruce | September 11, 2016 | Articles, Compensation, Finance
And now we come to the main event, the poisoned chalice bequeathed to us by Steven Brill. Let us proceed from the specific to the general, or if you prefer the structural to the symbolic. Are the reported numbers accurate? Silly question. We all know the answer to...
by Bruce | August 30, 2016 | Articles, Compensation, Finance, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Strategy
As we enter strategy, planning, and retreat season in advance of 2017, a quick recap of some of the ways we help our clients that they consistently find most valuable. Strategy In today’s unforgiving marketplace, growing evidence points to the reality that firms...
by Bruce | August 17, 2016 | Articles, Finance, Leadership, Strategy
Last year The American Lawyer introduced a new metric into its annual reports, “Profit per lawyer,” or PPL. Briefly, here’s what they said about it back in April, the second year they calculated it: Introduced last year, this metric is an alternate way of looking at...
by Bruce | July 28, 2016 | Articles, Business Models, Finance, Leadership, Strategy
This is the first part in a series I will audaciously and perhaps misguidedly and at the risk of over-promising call “Metrics that might matter.” It’s prompted, as many new creative efforts in human life, by frustration with the status quo. Our...