by Bruce | May 1, 2012 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
The unfolding Dewey story has surprised people only with its apparently inexhaustible capacity to continue surprising us, and with its reliable pattern of consistently surpassing our own worst fears about how many things can go wrong at one and the same law firm. With...
by Bruce | March 30, 2012 | Articles, Compensation, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Recruiting, Strategy
A Wharton School professor has analyzed the performance, and pay levels, of external hires vs. internal staff promotions. He used personnel data from a division of a major US investment bank for 2003—2009, and the characteristics of that talent market are remarkably...
by Bruce | March 23, 2012 | Articles, Business Models, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Strategy
The reaction to my last column on the developments at Dewey has been as strong as to any piece I can remember writing in the near-decade Adam Smith, Esq. has been around. But for those of you who may be feeling overdosed on Dewey coverage, events are not letting the...
by Bruce | March 16, 2012 | Adam Smith Himself, Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Two firms have this week received far more press attention than, one suspects, they counted on or quite know how to cope with: Our own industry’s Dewey LeBoeuf, and of course the iconic (good and bad sense) Goldman Sachs. Goldman Let’s take Goldman...
by Bruce | February 13, 2012 | Articles, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
The preliminary Citi 2011 report is out and it’s time for a bit of reading between the lines. In particular, we like to focus less on what’s said than on what is studiously elided. Here’s the top line: For law firms, 2011 was a tale of two years....
by Bruce | January 27, 2012 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Lots of ink has been spilled lately about how M&A activity in the legal sector has picked up. Let’s stipulate that’s true. I for one believe it to be the case, and have been involved in more conversations along those lines in the last several...