by Bruce | February 23, 2015 | Articles, Just Plain Interesting, Marketing, Technology strategy
If you haven’t yet heard about Above the Law’s “Converge” conference coming up here in NYC on Wednesday, March 18th, you’re about to. It’s a full-day conference at the marvelous University Club (Fifth @ 54th, McKim, Mead and White,...
by Bruce | February 16, 2015 | Articles, Ineffable
Here at Adam Smith, Esq., we cover the array of law firm management issues from strategy and finance to compensation and cultural issues—”an inquiry into the economics of law firms,” to coin a phrase. But there’s much more to life. Specifically,...
by Bruce | February 9, 2015 | Articles, Ineffable
Hardly ever does a breaking story in the news serve as the peg for a column here on Adam Smith, Esq., but we reserve the right to make exceptions to all customs, so today a briefish note on the still-unfolding slow-motion descent of Brian Williams, the NBC Nightly...
by Bruce | February 9, 2015 | About the Site, Articles, Just Plain Interesting
Dear Reader: From my long-time friend Stephen Denyer in London (Head of City and International at The Law Society) comes this: Dear Bruce: Might I take a moment to emphasise how welcome all Adam Smith followers worldwide will be at the Global Law Summit taking place...
by Bruce | January 30, 2015 | Articles, Globalization, Strategy
I wasn’t going to write about Dacheng/Dentons until I was. When I first heard about the mega tie-up creating the largest law firm in the world—records are made to be broken, as any number of athletes will happily confide in you—I had only two thoughts: First,...
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...
