by Bruce | November 19, 2006 | Articles, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Strategy, Technology strategy
Today we visit the prosaic topic of conflicts-checking. I’ve come to believe it’s not so prosaic after all. Consider: The highly-publicized referral to the UK’s Law Society Regulation Board of two senior Freshfields partners, announced last...
by Bruce | November 9, 2006 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Strategy, Technology strategy
Within 24 hours of each other, both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times wrote pieces on "then and now" re the dot-com bubble. Surely unintentional as it was, I think they provide nice counterpoints to each other, and also give us a small...
by Bruce | November 6, 2006 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy, Technology strategy
Every once in awhile, you see an individual at a firm make a tremendous difference, and I’ve tried to make it a custom to celebrate the situations when I think I’ve identified such exemplars. Today I offer John Alber of Bryan Cave’s St. Louis office,...
by Bruce | October 30, 2006 | About the Site, Adam Smith Himself, Articles, Finance
Courtesy of a UK reader comes word that Adam Smith will adorn the new £20 banknote to be issued by the Bank of England next spring. In The Guardian’s coverage, the headline is "Adam Smith becomes first Scot to adorn an English banknote."...
by Bruce | October 30, 2006 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Strategy
In 2003, according to the National Association for Law Placement, the attrition rate among associates by their fifth year was 53.4%. (The universe of law firms sampled was not disclosed.) In 2005 (hopefully among the same universe of firms), it was (pick...
by Bruce | October 22, 2006 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management
Associate retention/attrition may have always been a chronic problem for the industry, but is it only me or is the situation actually deteriorating? Annual attrition rates of 25% at AmLaw 50 and UK 50 firms are now widely reported, and as I previously noted one...
