by Bruce | May 31, 2011 | Articles, Business Models, Innovative Managing Partners, Leadership, Recruiting, Strategy
Last week I wrote about innovation and how the early adopters can gain sustainable competitive advantage. This week is something of a follow-on, albeit one motivated more by recent personal events than frankly by brilliant editorial planning in advance. The variation...
by Bruce | May 23, 2011 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Practice Group Management, Strategy
Jim Surowiecki, writing his regular column in The New Yorker, “The Financial Page,” wrote last week about innovation and why it seems to take hold in the US before it does elsewhere. Jim is a good read almost any week, but this is a column demanding...
by Bruce | May 18, 2011 | Articles, Business Models, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Alex Novarese, Editor in Chief of LegalWeek, has a smart column this week called “Rugged Individualism–a year of firm-specific achievement in the US.” Here are the highlights: Average revenue growth of the AmLaw 100 for 2010, as we’ve seen...
by Bruce | May 1, 2011 | Articles, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
A loyal and exceptionally thoughtful reader, and reasonably regular correspondent (also with a strong academic background in economics), writes: Bruce: I enjoyed your 9 February think piece. I would be interested in your views as to why law firms seem to be...
by Bruce | April 4, 2011 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Practice Group Management, Strategy
Recently, I wrote about what I called the Tier 1/Tier 2/Tier 3 challenge for BigLaw. Briefly, the Tiers are: 1: What everyone aspires to. Think Wachtell, Skadden, Cravath, et al. Good luck emulating them, or convincing the market you’re their peers if...
by Bruce | March 27, 2011 | Articles, Globalization, Leadership, Strategy
Toby Brown and Ron Friedmann (both friends) have a thoughtful and well-reasoned point/counter-point going over at “3 Geeks and a Law Blog,” which they invited me to comment upon. It’s called “Bet the Farm” versus “Law...