by Bruce | January 26, 2015 | Articles, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Strategy
Across my desk last week came US Trust’s 2015 Investment Strategy Overview, a 40-page publication laying out their view of the year ahead for investors, including their highlights and overall perspective as well as a global macro overview, their views on...
by Bruce | January 22, 2015 | Articles, Law Schools, Recruiting
Going to be in San Francisco Wednesday, March 11? Want an excuse to be? Then we have the answer for you: Please join us at our day-long conference, Innovation in Entry Level Recruiting. Why attend? From the program description: It’s no longer news that the legal...
by Bruce | January 21, 2015 | Articles, Business Models, Client Relationships, Leadership, Strategy
Newish to many lawyers, rarely to their delight, is a growing realization that when clients start talking about the price for legal services, they don’t (really) care whether that price is arrived at by summing a whole lot of billable hours, a negotiated...
by Bruce | January 18, 2015 | Articles
Caught up in the intensity of our day to day, most of us pay paltry attention to the very bedrock the legal professoin rests on: I refer, of course, to the Rule of Law. In the Anglo-Saxon legal canon, perhaps no document can lay claim to a more central position in...
by Bruce | January 14, 2015 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
The widely experienced and catholically curious Lee Pacchia (formerly of Bloomberg Law, now at his own Mimesis Law) asked me to stop by his studio last week and talk about the role of culture in law firm combinations. I also touch on the issue of “deal...
by Bruce | January 12, 2015 | Articles, Finance, Practice Group Management
Regular readers know that some of the “evergreen” topics here on Adam Smith, Esq. include: The theme that profits matter more than revenue—but that remarkably few partners think in those terms; The inevitable invasion of Law Land by Big Data in all its...
by Bruce | January 5, 2015 | About the Site, Articles
Still searching for a New Year’s Resolution? One that’s drop-dead simple to keep, at least? In the spirit of trying to be helpful to our loyal readers in all things, may we offer a modest suggestion: Simply subscribe to the Adam Smith, Esq. email list. By...
by Bruce | January 2, 2015 | Articles, Marketing, Profiles of Individuals
Bruce Marcus, whose life and work recast professional services marketing in a client-centric mold, died shortly before Christmas in New Haven of an aneurysm, at age 89. I got the news on the phone that day from Mana, his wife of over 50 years, calling from their home...
by Bruce | December 30, 2014 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, M&A, Strategy
To paraphrase the gone-but-not-forgotten E.F. Hutton campaign (I did work on Wall Street—I’m allowed these memories), when a Director Emeritus of McKinsey, who founded and led the firm’s global practice supporting mergers and acquisitions, speaks about...
by Bruce | December 23, 2014 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Practice Group Management, Recruiting
Russell Long (1918—2003) was a US Senator from Louisiana for nearly 40 years (1948—1987) and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee for nearly half that period. As such, he was an expert on the US tax code and, legend has it, observed that the realities of politics...