by Bruce | February 15, 2006 | About the Site, Articles, Compensation, Finance, Partnership Structures
We pause for a time-out to consider a metaphysical question: Is blogging journalism, and whether or not it is, to what standards of accuracy and precision should it be held? Actually, I have no intention of trying to answer these questions as posed. What I...
by Bruce | February 13, 2006 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Strategy, Technology strategy
When you see—or when I see, at any rate—sustained outperformance by a firm over a five-year span, I cannot help but ask myself: "How did they do that?" What follows has a dusting of speculation at the end, but I think it’s a path worth...
by Bruce | February 10, 2006 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Partnership Structures
Professor Bainbridge compares an article from The Economist showing a steady increase in Americans’ leisure time over the past 40 years with a story from the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin reporting on how over-worked lawyers are: "The survey showed that how...
by Bruce | January 27, 2006 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
David Maister confesses: "I have spent twenty years trying to say all professions look similar and can learn from each other, but I’m finally prepared to concede that lawyers are different – and it has nothing to do with economics." In a piece...
by Bruce | January 27, 2006 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
Questions for your managing partner, executive committee, and executive director: Is your firm as profitable as it could be? How does it measure up vis-a-vis its peer group? And what defines that "peer group," precisely? Do you...
by Bruce | January 18, 2006 | Adam Smith Himself, Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Just Plain Interesting, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Seventeen years before The Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith published his Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), nowadays a relatively neglected work which, to my mind, is nearly as astute, deserves far greater current recognition, and which not-incidentally puts pad...