Polycrisis
Consider: According to PwC’s annual 2023 survey of CEOs worldwide (4,410 from 105 countries), 40% said they did not see their own companies as viable in 10 years if they stayed on their current path....
View ArticleWhy Would Anyone want to be Managing Partner?
The following column is by Dario Ramon Buschor, PhD and incorporates original research of his. He describes himself thus: “I prefer to work with lawyers instead of working as a lawyer. That’s why I,...
View ArticleThe WFH/RTO Impasse: What are we Supposed To Do?
Covid-19 may be behind us as a daily personal preoccupation, but one major repercussion of its shockingly extended and global impact is still with us: Do we or do we not go back to the office? May we...
View ArticleJamie Dimon’s Advice
Jamie Dimon’s annual letter to shareholders, which comes out as part of the JP Morgan Chase annual report, was published about two weeks ago. At 42 pages, it takes more than a passing skim-over to...
View ArticleEverybody Back in the Pool Office?
Ever since “RTO” became a real possibility, I have been firmly and decisively on the fence about the best policy for firms to follow. A free-for-all come and go (or don’t come) as you wish? Sure, why...
View ArticleIs Litigation in Long-Run Secular Decline?
The first truly evil character to appear in Scripture is of course the Snake in the Garden of Good and Evil. Not a nice guy, not someone you’d want to emulate, not a role model: The Snake of all...
View ArticleOur Brave New Lateral World
Something that feels structurally different seems to have developed in the lateral market. The ambition of this essay is to describe what we think it is, why it has developed, and what it portends for...
View ArticleThe Maroons & The Grays: The Next Chapter
It has been four years since we initially published our series laying out a law firm market segmentation model we called the “Maroons & The Grays,”[1] and four years on is none too soon for an...
View ArticleThe Economics of Superstars
“Ripped from the headlines,” as the cliche-inclined might say, we have this from The American Lawyer in the past week or so: Elite Firms Revisit Comp Formulas as Star Talent Has ‘Extraordinary...
View ArticleRIP Stroock (1876–2023)
Irish BIshop George Berkeley (1685–1753) famously asked, “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is present to hear it, would there be a sound?” His notion is neither as cutesy nor as vexed as it...
View ArticleThe Associate Salary Wars Yet Again
“Cravath To A Million Squillion!” Sorry, but we’ve seen this dance so many times before that, you have to admit, we all know the script by heart. Cravath (or other blue chip firm [insert here]) bumps...
View ArticleWho Needs To Be Listening To Your Clients? You do.
The following column is by Janet Stanton, Partner, Adam Smith, Esq. For unfathomable reasons many law firms and lawyers eschew client feedback. The reason we’re baffled by this is that at its most...
View ArticleThree Cheers for Black Box Comp
When it comes to partner pay, the first thing everyone salaciously wants to know is “how high is up?” And second by a nose is probably “Who’s on top and by how much, especially compared to me?”...
View ArticleIs the American Legal Profession a Guild?
This is one in our occasional series of excerpts from my yet-to-be-published new book, treating, among other things, the historic roots of our profession tracing back to medieval guilds. I hope you...
View ArticleIf Supply Grows Faster Than Demand,…
Sometimes it’s the quiet, seemingly unremarkable, things that ultimately rear up and bite you. Here may, or may not, be one. Let’s start with this chart from Thomson Reuters redoubtable annual...
View ArticleThe Myth of the “Equity” Partner
This column is by Janet Stanton, Partner, Adam Smith, Esq. Let’s get something straight from the get-go: “Equity” as it is known in Law Land is a chimera. Unlike in the other 98% of the economy,...
View ArticleThe Fable of Starbucks
Few brands are more prominent in our daily lives (well, at least if you’re a Western world urban dweller) than Starbucks. Its rise to prominence has become standard-issue corporate lore: From its...
View ArticleSingle Tier is Dead: Long Live Single Tier
Comes word that Cleary Gottlieb is abandoning its increasingly rarefied “single tier” status and will begin naming Non Equity Partners “with immediate effect.” The intrepid Roy Strom of Bloomberg Law...
View ArticleThe 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics Goes To…..
The Nobel in Econ (a/k/a The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel) for 2024 was awarded a few days ago to Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson of MIT and to James Robinson...
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