by Bruce | May 10, 2007 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
The American Lawyer asks "Is Shedding Partners the Right Way to Improve Profitability?," which is the wrong question—albeit a nice headline for a relatively substantive article. First, what phenomenon are they addressing? The phenomenon is...
by Bruce | May 8, 2007 | Articles, Compensation, Finance, Leadership, Strategy
The American Lawyer’s famous AmLaw 100 has been out for about a week now, and it’s time to release some preliminary number-crunching. I’ll also have some more qualitatively analytic pieces in the next week or so, but here are the hot data dots for...
by Bruce | April 24, 2007 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Regular readers know that I’ve written periodically about the so-called "Clementi" reforms scheduled to take effect next year in the UK which would permit public ownership of, and investment in, law firms, as well as permitting diversified...
by Bruce | April 20, 2007 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Nobody likes to be the weatherman when the forecast is for wind-driven freezing rain, and far be it from me to aspire to that dour post. But based on some indicators such as the Hildebrandt/Citigroup Private Bank March 2007 Client Advisory, which reports that...
by Bruce | April 17, 2007 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Innovative Managing Partners, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Profiles of Individuals, Strategy
In 1999, Reed Smith’s 610 lawyers generated $168-million in revenue, from 14 offices in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states. At the start of 2007, its 1,500 lawyers are on track to do $900-million in revenue, from 21 offices across the US from California to...
by Bruce | April 13, 2007 | Articles, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Strategy
The 2006 AmLaw 100 is coming out May 1, and in anticipation of that I’d like to discuss how hard it is to achieve, and sustain, superior performance. Fortunately, I have the crutch of McKinsey studying precisely this question, at least as it relates to the...
