by Bruce | September 24, 2019 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Practice Group Management, Question of the Month
Returning from a hiatus, our Question of the Month appears refreshed and in the pink. You know what to do. Use the comments box for editorial embellishment. [poll id=”18″] Thanks for being a voter!
by Bruce | September 13, 2019 | Articles, Business Models, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Latin America
The following column is by Antonio Leal Holguin, Director of Latin America for Adam Smith, Esq. I recently spent three days in Lima. A metropolis of close to 10 million people, Peru’s capital is one of Latin America’s most vibrant cities and a famous culinary...
by Bruce | August 26, 2019 | Articles, Business Models, Client Relationships, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Has our first (and really only) answer to the question, “What is a corporation’s purpose?” been wrong for the last, oh, 40 or 50 years? The answer, pace Milton Friedman [see note at end], has of course been “shareholder value!” And now...
by Bruce | July 26, 2019 | Articles, Business Models, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
In our third and final installment of the Maroons/Grays segmentation analysis, we presented this: Here’s a simplistic way of thinking about the two types of firms and the consequences for each of strong or of weak management. Maroons Grays Superbly run Steady as she...
by Bruce | June 27, 2019 | Articles, Finance, Leadership, M&A, Partnership Structures, Recruiting, Strategy
Ask almost any Managing Partner or office leader this question and odds are about 98% that the answer you’ll get is, “It depends.” Indeed. We wish there were reliable, consistent, industry-wide data on laterals’ success ratios, but we’ve...
by Bruce | June 14, 2019 | Articles, Business Models, Client Relationships, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Marketing, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Let’s open this third and final installment with the #1 question we’re most frequently asked about this model: Can one firm excel at being both a Maroon and a Gray? No. Or in the very best of circumstances, it’s extremely hard to do and it’s...
by Bruce | June 9, 2019 | Articles, Business Models, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
At the end of installment #1, we promised you we’d discuss what happens if you apply Porter’s famous “five forces” to the Maroons and the Grays. Shall we? Insight from Porter’s “Five Forces” In 1979, Harvard Business School Professor Michael...
by Bruce | June 5, 2019 | Articles
Born June 5, 1723, Kirkcaldy, Scotland. Today he would be 296.
by Bruce | June 3, 2019 | Articles, Business Models, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Marketing, Partnership Structures, Strategy
We have never subscribed to the belief that law firms operate in a fundamentally undifferentiated industry—that each law firm competes with every other law firm—and that given the magic alignment of expertise, cost, and personal rapport, clients’ choice of law firms...
by Bruce | May 31, 2019 | Articles, Business Models, Finance, Leadership, Technology strategy
Eight years ago, Marc Andreessen wrote that “software is eating the world.” Notably, he wasn’t specific about what geographies it had already consumed and where it was going next. Today I’d like to suggest that whether this software feast is...
