by Bruce | March 6, 2005 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
To risk stating the obvious, a major downside of acquiring powerful lateral partners or small groups thereof is that they will not stay. Now The American Lawyer has a piece covering the story of same over the past five years or so, complete with a helpful and...
by Bruce | March 1, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Knowledge Management, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy, Technology strategy
Hildebrandt and The Law Firm Group of the Citigroup Private Bank, with help from Baker-Robbins, are out with their 2004 year-in-review together with some prognostications for 2005. The New York Times, in its wisdom, headlined the story, "Partnerships More...
by Bruce | February 8, 2005 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Succession planning is part of the Management 101 toolkit that law firms ignore at their peril. Too many firm leaders are reluctant to attend to it, either intentionally ("it will all work out") or simply through preferring not to take up a potentially...
by Bruce | February 7, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Even the reader acquainted only at the most cursory level with my perspective on the increasingly professionalized management of law firms would know I endorse that trend wholeheartedly. The question du jour is whether I endorse it without reservation. Prompting...
by Bruce | February 4, 2005 | Articles, Finance, Leadership, M&A, Marketing, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Roughly speaking, there are two theories of history: That people shape events, or that events shape people. As a confirmed subscriber to the former theory, this American Lawyer profile of Bingham-McCutchen’s chair, Jay Zimmerman, tells the tale to me of...
by Bruce | January 31, 2005 | Articles, Compensation, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
"Law firms are being forced to run themselves along more ‘corporate’ lines than ever before," reports the FT, summarizing a PwC report on the top 50 UK firms during 2004. This new "strategic approach" may represent a departure...