by Bruce | November 8, 2006 | Adam Smith Himself, Articles, Book Reviews, Globalization
James Buchan, The Authentic Adam Smith (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.: New York, 2006) has recently come out and it is an irresistible selection for this month’s "Adam Smith, Esq." Monthly Book Review. I hope you understand. Buchan, a Brit,...
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 | 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 8, 2006 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Strategy
New York, London, Hong Kong. Silicon Valley/San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Seattle, Boston, Washington, DC. These are special places in the world, all would reasonably acknowledge, but I’m fascinated by the question, "Why?" Why these places, why...
by Bruce | October 5, 2006 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization
The "Global 100" is out, presented jointly in The American Lawyer and in The Lawyer. Like the AmLaw 100, the "Global 100" ranks firms by revenue (as opposed to, say, lawyer headcount or profits per partner), and here are some of the...
by Bruce | September 29, 2006 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Globalization, Knowledge Management, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy, Technology strategy
I’ve written before about "social networks," and how they can be far more important than any relationships specified on your firm’s organizational charts, but "social network analysis" (SNA) is still an emerging field, with its...