by Bruce | November 16, 2012 | Articles, Business Models, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
As we come to the final installment of the Growth is Dead series, I hope the challenge I’ve laid out for us is clear. Excess capacity Stagnant demand Cut-throat or “suicidal” discounting Unprecedented pressure on prices, from all directions,...
by Bruce | November 8, 2012 | Articles, Business Models, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
We’ll have one more installment in our “Growth is Dead” series but let’s focus today on trying to synthesize a few themes that have been pervasive topics here on Adam Smith, Esq., since at least September 15, 2008, and even before, and look at...
by Bruce | November 5, 2012 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Marketing, Practice Group Management, Strategy
In Part 8 in this series, we talked about “Now What?” in terms of three particular approaches you could take that were all, essentially, inward-focused and things you can pretty much control inside the firm’s four walls: acknowledge you have...
by Bruce | November 2, 2012 | Articles, Business Models, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Strategy
The first eight columns in this series, to state the obvious, have been all about the challenges facing BigLaw, which I believe may be mortal to some firms who don’t or can’t respond effectively. The new landscape reflects trends bubbling up under the...
by Bruce | October 28, 2012 | Articles, Business Models, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Marketing, Strategy, Technology strategy
If you’ve traveled this far in this series, you may be wondering what I think you actually ought to do. Recognizing that diagnosis is eaiser than prescription, the remaininig installments—starting with this one—will try to address that. One other caveat: Not all...
by Bruce | October 21, 2012 | Articles, Business Models, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Innovative Managing Partners, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
At the end of our last piece, I asked aloud whether we as lawyers are intellectually and emotionally capable of adapting to the new market landscape, suggested that adapting would require experimentation and—yes—failure, and noted that countries and industries that...
