by Bruce | June 2, 2006 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
A regular reader (partner at an AmLaw 25 firm and, coincidentally, a fellow Princetonian) writes: "You write about lockstep and eat-what-you-kill, but you don’t say a word about “completely black box” compensation. There are some firms in which...
by Bruce | June 2, 2006 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, M&A, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management
Early last week I interviewed Eric Sivin, a founder and principal of Sivin Tobin Associates, a legal search and recruiting firm based here in New York. (And yes, that is their ad that has been running in the right-hand column of my site for a couple of months...
by Bruce | June 1, 2006 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Marketing, Practice Group Management
In Trust-Based Selling, Charles Green (who co-authored The Trusted Advisor with David Maister), titles Chapter 7 (pp. 70—74), "Sell by Doing, Not by Telling," and relates the following story: The "Chief Counsel of a Fortune 50 company" needed...
by Bruce | June 1, 2006 | Adam Smith Himself, Articles, Compensation, Finance, Just Plain Interesting
From the Journal of Economic Education (hat tip to "Truth on the Market") comes the first study I’m familiar with examining whether the choice of undergraduate major has any effect on a lawyer’s career earnings. And guess what? If you...
by Bruce | May 30, 2006 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
An "evergreen" topic here at "Adam Smith, Esq.," because one despairs to find a durable equilibrium solution for it, is the perennial debate over "eat what you kill" (EWYK) vs. lockstep compensation systems. Each has its place in the...
by Bruce | May 20, 2006 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
When I began practicing in New York in the early 1980’s there were still vestiges of the "white shoe"/Jewish law firm divide; indeed, Breed, Abbott & Morgan, where I started, and Shea & Gould, where I also worked, were almost caricatures of...