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...
by Bruce | October 17, 2004 | Articles, Finance, Globalization, M&A, Strategy
Here’s a thought experiment: What if law firms could become publicly traded companies? In the UK, it’s not going to be a thought experiment much longer. Under a proposal approved by The Law Society (more or less their ABA), non-lawyers will...
by Bruce | September 24, 2004 | Articles, Finance, Globalization, M&A
"Mergers 101" prompted some reader response curious for more detail behind my concluding observation about how the composition of the AmLaw 200 as of 2004 differed from that as of 1999. Here are the raw numbers: 11 firms were acquired 3 dissolved 8...
by Bruce | September 23, 2004 | Articles, Finance, Globalization, M&A
If you read only one article this quarter about mergers, this should be it. Not only is the author the former managing partner of Andersen Legal (until it imploded), before that he was managing partner of Clifford Chance. Sure, he comes from a UK-centric...
by Bruce | September 20, 2004 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, M&A, Strategy
"You ain’t seen nothing yet?" That’s our instinctive reaction to the news over the weekend that Boston’s Ropes & Gray may be about to acquire the venerable New York IP shop, Fish & Neave. Fish & Neave would be only...