by Bruce | November 28, 2009 | Articles, Business Models, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Strategy
For the second installment in our series on Law Firm Business Models, we turn to boutiques. Boutiques, as a player on the landscape of industrial structure, are a familiar character. Boutiques, in fact, exist in countless industries, and seem capable of thriving in a...
by Bruce | November 25, 2009 | Articles, Business Models, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Here the first in what I plan will be a series on Law Firm Business Models. Today’s topic is Regional Firms, and the focus of essentially every one of the columns in this planned series will be a discussion of whether the business model under examination is...
by Bruce | November 17, 2009 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Innovative Managing Partners, Leadership, Practice Group Management, Strategy
What’s going on at Reed Smith? Less than a week ago, they announced a roughly 20% cut in first-year associate salaries and hourly billing rates for the 50-odd lawyers joining the firm in January 2010. Here’s what they had to say about it (emphasis...
by Bruce | November 14, 2009 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
One of the more thoughtful and, frankly, creative responses to my two recent columns on lateral partners asked a simple question: What should a firm recruiting a potential lateral be obligated to tell the putative future partner? This is the kind of question that gets...
by Bruce | November 10, 2009 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
My recent column, What Makes Laterals Run?, has generated a most rewarding level of reader feedback, worthy of an update to the original column. Reactions have literally come from around the world, and, with the permission of my correspondents (all of whom expect...
by Bruce | November 7, 2009 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
Perhaps I don’t write as much as I should about lateral partners. I mean the economic phenomenon of lateral partner hiring, not gossip that much of the legal press seems to specialize in about specific “gotcha” movements of partners or small groups...
