by Bruce | February 12, 2008 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, M&A, Practice Group Management, Strategy
By now it’s been amply reported that 55 of Anderson Kill’s 126 lawyers are leaving for Reed Smith, effective February 1. In classically hyper-ventilating fashion, the Brits (Legal Week) reported that Reed Smith "has swooped, …taking...
by Bruce | January 29, 2008 | Articles, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Practice Group Management, Strategy
Annually, Hildebrandt and the Citi Private Bank issue a "Client Advisory" and this year’s is just out. What will doubtless grab headlines (and already has at places like the WSJ’s Law Blog) is the downbeat forecast for 2008—the first...
by Bruce | January 16, 2008 | Articles, Finance, Leadership, M&A, Practice Group Management, Strategy
I previously asserted that corporate America teaches that firms that treat recessions as opportunities rather than threats could steal a march on their more conservative brethren and emerge into the post-recession recovery as more powerful competitors. Today I’d...
by Bruce | January 13, 2008 | Articles, Finance, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
Regular readers, or simply those with good memories for the jovial Cornell University economist Alfred Kahn, who briefly served as Jimmy Carter’s czar over wage-price controls, as well as the last head of the unlamented Civil Aeronautics Board (where he...
by Bruce | December 20, 2007 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
Why do law firms merge? The fact is, I wonder sometimes myself. More seriously, there is typically an array of stated and unstated reasons, among them: Growth for the sake of growth: Inadvisable. Size alone doesn’t guarantee anything particularly...
by Bruce | November 17, 2007 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Strategy
As we’ve known since October 19, Reed Smith reached agreement to merge with Richards Butler Hong Kong, nearly a year after completing its merger with Richards Butler (UK) in London. The agreement will add about $60-million in revenue and a little over 110...