by Bruce | October 4, 2007 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Some of you may have seen the piece that ran in The Recorder about 10 days ago with the attention-getting headline, "In Salary Twist, Firm Pays More–and Less." (It was also picked up by the WSJ’s Law Blog, as the "Associate...
by Bruce | October 1, 2007 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
My firm does/does not have a mandatory retirement policy. I do/do not believe we should have one. Discuss. This comes up because of the near-even split in the industry between firms that have such policies and those that don ‘t—57% of all firms...
by Bruce | September 27, 2007 | Articles, Finance, Globalization, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Profits Per Partner troubles me. As I’ve written before, it has (at least) the following defects: It’s extraordinarily manipulable, with especially toxic consequences for firms whose approach is to hack away at the denominator while taking few or no steps...
by Bruce | September 24, 2007 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Marketing, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
The annual "Adam Smith, Esq." Reader Survey is actively in progress, and I sincerely urge those of you who haven’t taken the two to three minutes it takes to complete it to do so right now. The point of the survey? Two-fold: I want to...
by Bruce | September 15, 2007 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Globalization, Leadership, Marketing, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
Now that marketing has become an ingrained function at firms and no longer either an exotic foreign import or an isolated archipelago, it might be time to re-examine how the world’s most sophisticated marketing organizations—consumer packaged goods...
by Bruce | August 22, 2007 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Innovative Managing Partners, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Profiles of Individuals
A few days ago after reading about Working Mother magazine’s recognition of programs in diversity and work/life balance, I had a chance to catch up with the Managing Partner of Dorsey & Whitney, Marianne Short. Now, the list of "Best Law Firms for...