by Bruce | June 18, 2012 | Articles, Finance, Leadership, Recruiting, Strategy
Three years ago I published What Laterals Need to Know: A Modest Proposal, which essayed the thought that firms had an obligation to disclose certain information about the firm in advance to a prospective lateral partner. (I owe a debt of gratitude to my friend...
by Bruce | June 12, 2012 | Articles, Finance
We don’t write about legal doctrine very much—make that hardly ever—but every once in awhile a ruling, precedent, or line of cases strikes such a discordant note that it’s irresistible to question the rationale behind it. We come to praise Jewel or to bury...
by Bruce | June 2, 2012 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Of the founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton has always been my favorite—and not because of the arcane fact that my uncle, Robert Ward McEwen (variant spelling), was the 14th President of that well-regarded upstate New York liberal arts college named for you-know-who....
by Bruce | May 25, 2012 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
The conventional wisdom has quickly coalesced around how all right-thinking folks ought to view Facebook’s IPO: It was a disaster. Some reasons for this view (NASDAQ’s humiliating meltdown, three shareholder class actions are already pending against FB)...
by Bruce | May 17, 2012 | Articles, Finance
“Follow the money?” Well, we can try. Using a combination of now-public material—the 2010 bond offering PPM being a godsend in that regard—and my own carefully constructed estimates based on other published reports including interviews with people in a...
by Bruce | May 14, 2012 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Beginning to emerge are lessons from the implosion of Dewey. I’ve believed, and written, for some time that the root causes of the failure, which is massive, spectacular, tragic, and utterly unnecessary, were self-inflicted: Unintentional suicide by drug...