by Bruce | February 7, 2007 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
It has been amply reported that last month New York, and then all major national, firms went to $145,000/year first-year associate salaries, and that the following "Simpson Thacher bump" raised the ante to $160,000/year. Several people have asked me...
by Bruce | February 3, 2007 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Knowledge Management, Leadership, Marketing, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy, Technology strategy
Mark Chandler, a Senior Vice President and the Secretary and General Counsel of Cisco, gave a speech last week in San Diego at the Northwestern School of Law’s 34th Annual Securities Regulation Institute, which has been getting a fair amount of play online, and...
by Bruce | January 30, 2007 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Practice Group Management, Strategy, Technology strategy
True story related to me this month by a friend who happened to be accompanying a senior and a junior partner through the library of their AmLaw 25 firm, with an eye towards figuring out if the space could be used better: Junior Partner (adamantly): ...
by Bruce | January 27, 2007 | Articles, Compensation, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
Lately there’s been heightened discussion of whether firms’ Managing Partners should be full-time CEO’s, or whether the traditional custom of their being active practitioners, billing gobs of hours on real live client matters and managing the firm...
by Bruce | January 25, 2007 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Strategy
"Goldman Sachs on line 1, Blackstone Partners on line 2—they both want to buy 20% of the firm." Could that be a scenario you, or your successors, will be facing some day? In the UK, something very like it is already happening. ...
by Bruce | January 24, 2007 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Practice Group Management, Strategy
The coverage has been wall-to-wall, if not deafening, and two things we do not do here at "Adam Smith, Esq." (there are others, trust me) are (1) cover breaking news; and (2) tell you things that we know you already know. So I haven’t yet...