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...
by Bruce | November 25, 2009 | Articles, Business Models, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Here the first in what I plan will be a series on Law Firm Business Models. Today’s topic is Regional Firms, and the focus of essentially every one of the columns in this planned series will be a discussion of whether the business model under examination is...
by Bruce | November 14, 2009 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
One of the more thoughtful and, frankly, creative responses to my two recent columns on lateral partners asked a simple question: What should a firm recruiting a potential lateral be obligated to tell the putative future partner? This is the kind of question that gets...
