by Bruce | December 17, 2024 | Articles, Leadership, Practice Group Management, Strategy
This column is by Janet Stanton, Partner, Adam Smith, Esq. One of the most enduring and vexing problems we all face (almost all the time) is how to sort through the myriad competing (conflicting?), shifting priorities that arise minute-by-minute and pull us in all...
by Bruce | October 15, 2024 | Articles, Business Models, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management
Comes word that Cleary Gottlieb is abandoning its increasingly rarefied “single tier” status and will begin naming Non Equity Partners “with immediate effect.” The intrepid Roy Strom of Bloomberg Law has the story: Cleary recognizes the “innovation and adaptation”...
by Bruce | September 8, 2024 | Articles, Branding, Business Models, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Strategy
Few brands are more prominent in our daily lives (well, at least if you’re a Western world urban dweller) than Starbucks. Its rise to prominence has become standard-issue corporate lore: From its single Seattle store founding in 1971 to Howard Schultz’s...
by Bruce | June 6, 2024 | Articles, Branding, Business Models, Client Relationships, Finance, Leadership, Marketing, Strategic Client Management
This column is by Janet Stanton, Partner, Adam Smith, Esq. At far too many law firms, client or matter intake consists of a perfunctory credit and conflicts check, and you’re off to the races. This forfeits the opportunity to intentionally and purposefully manage the...
by Bruce | May 8, 2024 | Articles, Business Models, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Sometimes it’s the quiet, seemingly unremarkable, things that ultimately rear up and bite you. Here may, or may not, be one. Let’s start with this chart from Thomson Reuters redoubtable annual Report on the State of the US Legal Market (here, the 2024 edition...
by Bruce | February 1, 2024 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy, Technology strategy
When it comes to partner pay, the first thing everyone salaciously wants to know is “how high is up?” And second by a nose is probably “Who’s on top and by how much, especially compared to me?” Please, people, we can do better than this. (You have to admit it sounds...