by Bruce | January 25, 2005 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
While skeptical of mergers (see below), I’m also of the view that "chance favors the prepared," and that: having a clearly articulated and fundamentally sound strategy going in; recognizing and confronting with clear-eyed vision the issues surrounding...
by Bruce | January 23, 2005 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
Is there anything interesting to be said of the potential Pillsbury/Shaw-Pittman merger? Regular readers will know that I approach mergers with a jaundiced eye, given their frankly embarrassing track record of destroying rather than creating value in...
by Bruce | December 7, 2004 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
More on the Piper Rudnick/DLA deal again courtesy of The Financial Times. Nigel Knowles, managing partner of DLA, tosses out the unnecessary comment that "Piper Rudnick’s reasons [for the deal] may be slightly more defensive, while ours may be...
by Bruce | December 6, 2004 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
So it’s official: DLA is merging with Piper Rudnick (which has already, more or less, merged with Gray-Cary). The resulting firm, whose name will not long remain "DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary," will be the second largest globally by revenue,...
by Bruce | December 3, 2004 | Articles, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
The American Lawyer is out with its annual survey of AmLaw 200 leaders and they are, as Aric Press succinctly puts it, "a confident bunch." And why shouldn’t they be? The heck with 9/11 and the heck with the 2000 bubble melt-down: 88%...
by Bruce | November 8, 2004 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Strategy
"The Industrialization of the Law Firm" is the ambitious, but fair, title of a piece by A. Harrison Barnes, Esq., founder of BCG Search. His conclusion?: "Today’s law firm environment is, in a sense, now being controlled by Adam...