by Bruce | December 18, 2013 | Articles, Law Schools, Recruiting, Strategy
Linear extrapolations are widely suspected of being unreliable, but maybe not widely enough. Stated differently, it’s a category error to engage in static, not dynamic, analysis. Stated yet differently, the interesting challenge is almost never to ask,...
by Bruce | September 30, 2013 | Articles, Compensation, Leadership, Recruiting
Now that I have published a column (“Our Arms Race”) which took a stand against lateral partner hiring almost across the board, let me acknowledge the obvious and state for the record that no matter what anyone says or the track record shows, lateral...
by Bruce | September 23, 2013 | Articles, Innovative Managing Partners, Leadership, Recruiting
One of the more unusual reactions I’ve gotten to “Growth Is Dead” came from Kate Fritz, Managing Partner of Fenwick & West, who I had the chance to talk to recently. Several people have taken the book’s title a bit too literally, but Kate...
by Bruce | September 19, 2013 | Articles, Compensation, Leadership, Recruiting, Strategy
Within the past 48 hours: Managing Partner #1 (an AmLaw 50 firm) said to me, “I just don’t understand this lateral hiring frenzy. I just don’t get it. Do you?” Managing Partner #2 (an AmLaw 50, and one whose strategy has been so widely...
by Bruce | August 30, 2013 | Articles, Business Models, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Recruiting
Sometimes large changes break across the landscape like summer afternoon thunderstorms, seemingly coming from nowhere and definitely getting everyone’s attention: And sometimes they steadily and stealthily accumulate over time, perhaps without anyone ever...
by Bruce | May 11, 2013 | Articles, Law Schools, Recruiting, Strategy
What follows will be a bit out of the ordinary—OK, a lot out of the ordinary—for regular readers of Adam Smith, Esq., but there’s a cold, hard, important, gem of truth in it for lawyers, our firms, and our bedrock assumptions about the way things ought to work...
