by Bruce | April 7, 2006 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, M&A, Strategy
Globalization of the Legal Profession Indiana University School of Law/Bloomington Thursday, April 6, 2006: 8:30am—5:00 pm As noted, I attended this conference this past week, and I wanted to summarize a few of the highlights of the presentations. Chris McKenna...
by Bruce | April 5, 2006 | Articles, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
Although the US press doesn’t seem to have picked up on it yet, Reed Smith is merging with London’s Richards Butler to create a 1300-lawyer firm with annual revenue projected to be $725-million. Richards Butler is a 75-year-old, top-30 City of London...
by Bruce | March 17, 2006 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Two weeks ago I posed the question, "Is there a natural limit to the size of global law firms?," and I invited you all to vote on various possible answers starting with "No; like global accounting firms and banks, they can grow to the sky," through...
by Bruce | March 6, 2006 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
It’s official, according to The Lawyer: For Skadden and six other firms, 2005 was indeed, as Skadden’s New York-based M&A partner Tom Kennedy put it, "a very good year." For the first time ever, seven US firms topped $1.0-billion...
by Bruce | March 3, 2006 | Articles, Compensation, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
Yesterday’s half-hour "Coast to Coast" legal talk radio show is now up at the Legal Talk Network. I’m on it as a guest on the subject of "Big Firms–Big Business," along with Eric Sinrod of Duane Morris’ San Francisco...
by Bruce | March 2, 2006 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Strategy
In my last post, I referred somewhat obliquely to "long-term threats to the privileged positions" of firms, pointedly including large and prosperous firms (not just the struggling, the stragglers, and the stagnant). What exactly might those threats be?...