by Bruce | April 19, 2010 | Articles, Finance, Partnership Structures
As has been widely reported on law.com and Bloomberg, Dewey raised $125-million in a private placement of bonds, reportedly sold to institutional investors (mostly insurance companies) with maturities of 3–10 years. Rates paid were not disclosed. The firm was...
by Bruce | March 19, 2010 | Articles, Compensation, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
A few days ago the juxtaposition of two articles, one in The Wall Street Journal and the other in The Times (UK), struck me as too rich not to point out. The WSJ wrote, in “Gap Widens Between Tech Richest and the Rest,” that: A handful of cash-rich...
by Bruce | March 4, 2010 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Partnership Structures
When is a story not a story? (This is not a trick question.) Well, when, for example, it reports on a development so small as to be trivial–but inflates its import and meaning greatly out of proportion. Or when it is premised on statistical analysis but...
by Bruce | February 19, 2010 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
The Law Society of England & Wales recently published Nick Jarrett-Kerr’s Strategy for Law Firms: After the Legal Services Act, and Nick was kind enough to send me a copy for my perusal. (Disclosure: I’ve known Nick for years, although we have never...
by Bruce | February 5, 2010 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Fourteen years ago, Greenberg Traurig wasn’t in the AmLaw 100, and today it’s #10. Their CEO during this entire period–until he stepped down lastweek–was Cesar Alvarez, now age 62. When he became CEO of the firm, it was a “small but...
by Bruce | December 17, 2009 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
In the 1980’s and 1990’s, one often heard the only semi-facetious phrase that “investment bankers are short-term greedy, but lawyers are long-term greedy.” One of the few exceptions to “short term greedy” on the I-Bank side of...