by Bruce | November 14, 2010 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Strategy
As has been widely reported (for example, on law.com), Proskauer and SJ Berwin announced shortly before the weekend that they had called off their merger talks, which were originally disclosed over half a year ago. The predictably anodyne statement, issued jointly,...
by Bruce | September 22, 2010 | Articles, Business Models, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, M&A, Marketing, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
Attentive readers will know that I’m in Sao Paulo this week, where the talk of the town (well, at least the talk of The Bar) is this story which was reported yesterday morning in The Latin Lawyer:Any affiliations between international and Brazilian law firms...
by Bruce | September 15, 2010 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Partnership Structures
A few days ago The New York Times ran a story about how partners at Goldman Sachs “are made, and unmade,” with a fair amount of hyperbole about how the “secretive process” results in a small number of people being “chosen to receive this...
by Bruce | July 26, 2010 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Wouldn’t you suppose that inarguable goals are, well, inarguable? Welcome to law-firm land. This is a story about how we let our firms be knee-capped in fealty to principles of individual autonomy. Consider a hypothetical firm: It might be a boutique and it...
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...
