Articles
A law firm taxonomy: Introduction
We humans like to put things in categories. And while we can get it plain wrong, or mix up two categories benignly or malignly, there’s no question our propensity for categorization—from friend or foe and food to poison, to Linnaeus, to the periodic table, to the Dewey decimal system—has gotten us a long way on
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Strategy & Partner Pay
Herewith the second article by Richard Rapp. Thanks, Richard!—Bruce. Law firm managers who are planning large-scale, hubristic expansion-by-acquisition should study the Dewey LeBoeuf morality play very closely. The rest of us should not. It’s a distraction that diverts attention from what matters closer to home. Permit me to analogize: Those of us who are
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How do we know what we know?
What follows will be a bit out of the ordinary—OK, a lot out of the ordinary—for regular readers of Adam Smith, Esq., but there’s a cold, hard, important, gem of truth in it for lawyers, our firms, and our bedrock assumptions about the way things ought to work (which is precisely the same way they’ve
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USNWR, RIP
Most people attend law school to obtain jobs as lawyers (Not butchers or bakers, or candlestick makers.) If law school was just a cool place to chill out for a few years without building specific job skills, they’d call it “college.” Jobs are important, and we think that law schools should be competing to place
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In Defense of the Billable Hour
This is the first column written by our new colleague here at Adam Smith, Esq., Richard Rapp. Trust me, it won’t be the last–Bruce. I enjoyed reading the recent exchange here (“What’s Your Client Mix,” April 9, 2013) triggered by reports of the lawsuit accusing DLA Piper of overbilling. As expected the comments included
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Richard Rapp Joins Adam Smith, Esq.
It is with great personal and professional pleasure that we announce Richard Rapp is joining Adam Smith, Esq. as Senior Advisor. Those of you who have learned even a little about the consulting side of Adam Smith, Esq. know that we have remained small by choice, reflecting our conviction that the most challenging and sophisticated
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Reviews Are Coming In
Growth Is Dead: Now What? has now been out for two months and reviews are beginning to come in. Here are a few: A high-profile law-firm consultant offers a grim prognosis, and advice, for the upper echelons of the legal profession. He addresses a range of problems, such as the lack of growth in client
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Reinhart & Rogoff Under Siege
I thought this would prove to be a tempest in an academic teapot—”where the politics are so vicious and bitter because the stakes are so small”—but the mainstream media has proven me wrong. I refer of course to the bar brawl that has broken out challenging a key finding of Harvard professors Carmen Reinhart and
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“ReInvent Law:” You Have Spoken
A few weeks ago I ran a column about “ReInvent Law,” an event in Silicon Valley in the first half of March, which presented some views about possible futures of BigLaw, most of which were, uh, challenging to those who think business as usual is a strategy. My column wasn’t so much about whether I
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What’s Your Client Mix?
I wasn’t going to write about the DLA over-billing allegations that came to light about 10 days ago because I didn’t think there was much to say except that they reflect badly on all of us, and on second thought that they reflect badly on all of us. But as it turns out it launched
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