by Bruce | April 1, 2015 | Articles, Globalization, Leadership
Just back from a week of meetings with law firms in Sao Paulo, and a few impressions are worth reporting. First of all, everyone—no surprise—has the political situation in Brazil on their minds front and center. President Dilma Rousseff’s approval ratings are...
by Bruce | February 25, 2015 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Strategy, Technology strategy
“Innovation” seems to be on everyone’s lips these days. Among other things, the problems are: Many people, lawyers in particular, are stumped when it comes to describing what “innovation” actually is; Business history proves to a...
by Bruce | January 26, 2015 | Articles, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Strategy
Across my desk last week came US Trust’s 2015 Investment Strategy Overview, a 40-page publication laying out their view of the year ahead for investors, including their highlights and overall perspective as well as a global macro overview, their views on...
by Bruce | January 21, 2015 | Articles, Business Models, Client Relationships, Leadership, Strategy
Newish to many lawyers, rarely to their delight, is a growing realization that when clients start talking about the price for legal services, they don’t (really) care whether that price is arrived at by summing a whole lot of billable hours, a negotiated...
by Bruce | January 14, 2015 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
The widely experienced and catholically curious Lee Pacchia (formerly of Bloomberg Law, now at his own Mimesis Law) asked me to stop by his studio last week and talk about the role of culture in law firm combinations. I also touch on the issue of “deal...
by Bruce | December 30, 2014 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
To paraphrase the gone-but-not-forgotten E.F. Hutton campaign (I did work on Wall Street—I’m allowed these memories), when a Director Emeritus of McKinsey, who founded and led the firm’s global practice supporting mergers and acquisitions, speaks about...