by Bruce | July 15, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Aren’t you relieved that you don’t have wolfpacks of Wall Street analysts and the multimedia, 24/7 business press breathing down your neck to deliver "the numbers" every quarter? Isn’t it great living in private-firm land and having...
by Bruce | July 12, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Dick Tyler, managing partner of CMS Cameron McKenna (with the coolest law-firm URL I’ve yet encountered), sounds a defense of the firm’s reversion from its foray into merit-based partnership compensation to its lockstep roots, combined with an all-equity...
by Bruce | July 11, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures
“As a profession, if we are to be taken seriously, we need to move to a sensible reporting regime that is based on real figures, and not on those stage statistics that appear.” The words of an impractical academic? A frustrated journalist...
by Bruce | June 19, 2005 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Strategy
When the Financial Times speaks, people listen, so try this on for size: "The old model of partnership between lawyers alone has its drawbacks for large law firms, which are complex businesses – the biggest are multinationals in their own right. Yet...
by Bruce | June 16, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures
Cue the applause, please: Albeit somewhat cryptic, this strongly suggests Clifford Chance is making a concerted effort to return to something much closer to its traditional lockstep partner compensation model. Called "actively managed"...
by Bruce | June 13, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
The first post-Clementi shoe is about to drop in the UK, and it’s a fascinating one indeed. [For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, the "Clementi Commission" proposed fundamental reforms of the way UK law firms are governed,...