by Bruce | September 1, 2008 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Innovative Managing Partners, Leadership, Strategy
Time to take stock. This dratted credit crunch has now celebrated, if that’s the word, its first birthday, and there is no clarity about when it may end. What’s a law firm to do? If you believe McKinsey, and if you believe that where investment...
by Bruce | August 22, 2008 | Articles, Compensation, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
We have our first comprehensive report on how 2008 is shaping up financially, courtesy of The American Lawyer, and Dan DiPietro of Citi’s Private Bank, and it paints a picture of what are soon going to be, if they aren’t already, vastly diminished...
by Bruce | August 16, 2008 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Practice Group Management, Strategy
One of the most famous management books in recent history is The Balanced Scorecard, published in 1996 by two Harvard Business School professors, Robert Kaplan and David Norton. If you’ve never heard of it, you should at the very least become familiar with its...
by Bruce | August 12, 2008 | Articles, Globalization, Strategy, Technology strategy
With the news today that both Clifford Chance and Eversheds are ramping up their outsourcing initiatives in India (covered in The Lawyer and in LegalWeek), it’s timely to report on a panel on outsourcing that I attended last week at the ABA’s annual...
by Bruce | August 9, 2008 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Strategy
Put these trends together, as reported by this month’s issue of The American Lawyer, and what do you get? Midlevel associates, despite their pay jump since 2006, aren’t satisfied with with their compensation; New York City salary levels have penetrated...
by Bruce | August 4, 2008 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
This is about the Cadwalader layoffs. But I won’t be piling on. I really won’t. Instead, I’d rather examine how the firm got to this unhappy pass and what managerial lessons it might hold in store for us. To understand what brought it to cutting...