by Bruce | September 12, 2006 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
It’s not our wont to try to "cover" late-breaking news—that’s not an arena where I care to compete, nor is it why I think you come to "Adam Smith, Esq."—but just as every rule has exceptions, so today’s word of merger...
by Bruce | September 11, 2006 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Practice Group Management, Strategy, Technology strategy
In kicking off the core/required course "Strategic Technology & Innovation" that I’m teaching as an adjunct professor at SUNY/Stony Brook’s Graduate College of Business—a two-year program leading to an MBA for senior law firm managers...
by Bruce | September 5, 2006 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
My piece about "Superstar Economics" and laterals has produced an unusually heavy volume of reader response, so it deserves a follow up. Herewith its desserts: The original piece, as I hope you recall, posed the question: Assume for...
by Bruce | September 3, 2006 | Articles, Compensation, Finance, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
Back on August 20th, I posed the question to you, "How do partners fund their capital contributions to the firm?" The votes are now in: So the "winner," by a reasonable margin, is "a portion of my compensation is retained by the firm...
by Bruce | August 30, 2006 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
As a leader, would you rather be loved or feared? We borrow both from Machiavelli and from Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge, which has a piece contrasting the antipodal approaches of basketball coaches Bobby Knight, the hot-tempered, iron-willed...
by Bruce | August 28, 2006 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
Using as a "hook" the dismissal of Tom Cruise from Paramount Pictures by Sumner Redstone, today’s NYT has a piece in the Business Section (also here for those of you not members of the obnoxious "Times Select"), "A Big Star May Not a...