by Bruce | January 11, 2016 | Articles, Client Relationships, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
With the release last week of the Annual Report from Georgetown Law’s Center for the Study of the Legal Profession, the “Big Three” annual reports—Altman-Weil’s Law Firms in Transition, Citi/Hildebrandt’s Client Advisory, and...
by Bruce | December 30, 2015 | Articles, Leadership, Strategy
Year-end is often seen, understandably if somewhat arbitrarily, as a time for reflection. Actually, in my book there’s never a bad time for reflection, so I’ll take an arbitrary peg over no peg. I hope you share my core belief in the power of standing back...
by Bruce | December 25, 2015 | Articles
by Bruce | December 22, 2015 | Articles
Herewith a seasonal column (we employ editorial license in so describing it) from Janet Stanton. I know this “tis the season to be jolly,” but I suspect more than a few of you feel more like the Grinch than Frosty the Snowman. All the fa-la-la-la-la-ing making you...
by Bruce | December 16, 2015 | Articles, Business Models, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
It has become a commonplace—I have bowed to convention and endorsed the notion myself—to observe that law firms are labor-, not capital-, intensive, and that (here’s the dangerous and subtle segue) therefore there would be no benefit to them in taking on outside...
by Bruce | December 10, 2015 | Articles, Compensation, Finance, Recruiting
This will not be a lecture. However. In the course of navigating published analysis and coverage of our beloved industry, I can rely on regularly coming across pat assertions displaying such frightful ignorance of basic economics that I’m forced to conclude the...
by Bruce | December 6, 2015 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Practice Group Management
A week or so ago, I happened across a training manual offering instructions on proper behavior within organizations. Here I take the liberty of quoting extensively from it. I ask one favor of you and one element of forbearance. The favor is to kindly ask yourself as...
by Bruce | December 1, 2015 | Articles, Business Models, Client Relationships, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Leadership
A few months ago we invited you all to take a survey addressing how truly “collegial and collaborative” your firm is, and how well prepared you felt (a) to be able to knowledgeably point clients towards cross-serving opportunities and (b) to be rewarded...
by Bruce | November 27, 2015 | Articles, Leadership, Technology strategy
IBM Watson. Google’s driverless cars. Uncanny recommendations from Amazon, Siri, and Google Now. Not to mention the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award for 2015 going to Martin Ford’s Rise of the Robots: Technology and the threat of a...
by Bruce | November 26, 2015 | Articles
Thanksgiving–in the truest sense of gratitude for all we have been given–is hardly for Americans only.
