Happy Birthday, Adam Smith!
Well, OK, recordkeeping around births and deaths was approached a bit more casually 299 years ago, but June 5 is the consensus best guess. And here at Adam Smith, Esq., we are sticking to it!
View ArticleThe Associate Attrition/Comp Wars: The Data is Just Plain Weird
Editor’s Note: A modestly condensed version of this article was published a few weeks ago in Thomson Reuter’s Forum magazine. It was the leading story for a week after it was published. We appreciate...
View ArticleFun With Rate Increases: How High is Too High?
A few days ago the intrepid and data-tropic Bloomberg Law reporter Roy Strom published Big law rates topping $2,000 leave value ‘in the eye of the beholder.’ Roy is a friend (disclosure!) but his...
View Article“Everything Must Go!” (Your Office Edition)
Two plus years after the simultaneous worldwide Office Exodus (“Everybody out of the building!”) at the onset of this pandemic, we are at last beginning to emerge from the by-guess-and-by-golly...
View ArticleSupply Chains Aren’t Just for Manufacturers
Yes, I’m looking at you, law firm leaders. You, too, have a supply chain. It’s time to start thinking of it that way. May we take a step back for a moment? From the redoubtable St. Louis Fed comes a...
View ArticleAdam Smith RIP (232 Years Ago)
July 17, 1790, Edinburgh. He is buried in Canongate Kirkyard on the Royal Mile.
View Article“I Was Wrong”
Recently The New York Times devoted its Sunday “Opinion” section to the theme, “I was wrong,” and several of its leading columnists each penned an essay “I was wrong about….” This set us thinking. And...
View ArticleSummer Reading List
This column is becoming something of a tradition, and traditions must be maintained. Sitting on various handy tables and shelves around the office and the den at home are, among many other things, the...
View ArticleTwo Nasty Trends About to Collide?
We distributed this column several weeks ago to our “friends and family” opt-in email list (which has a handsome level of subscribers and is free–what’s taking you so long? [sign up at the foot of our...
View ArticleA Late Summer Reflection: The Real Adam Smith
And now for something rather different. Not infrequently we’re asked how, or why we named our firm Adam Smith, Esq. The short and true somewhat beside-the-point answer is that it’s a bit of wordplay...
View ArticleLaw Firms Fail in the Oddest Way (All of Them)
Recently across my desk came a copy of a thoughtful and comprehensive article on why law firms collapse. Or rather, I should say, a pair of articles on that topic, both by John Morley, Yale law...
View ArticleA Sense of Place (It Matters After All)
Geography–a “sense of place”–is often taken for granted as the inevitable but fundamentally random by-product of historical happenstance, and almost never appreciated for the strategic dimension it...
View ArticleYour Comp Plan Motivates All the Right Behaviors (You Sure About That?)
We’ve worked with a lot of law firms over the years and an evergreen topic of discussion is their partner compensation plan–how it’s structured overall, if it’s aligned to the firm’s strategy, and then...
View ArticleThe 2022 Nobel Prize in Economics
And the winner of the 2022 Nobel prize in economics is… Ben Bernanke! Or, as The New York Times reported somewhat more formally: The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded on Monday to...
View Article“Adam Smith’s America,” Glory Liu: Book Review
Across my desk a couple of weeks ago came an advance copy of Glory Liu’s Adam Smith’s America: How a Scottish Philosopher Became an Icon of American Capitalism (Princeton University Press, Princeton...
View ArticleApologies for the Site Being Down Yesterday
A technical issue took us offline for the greater part of 24 hours. Our apologies. The issue was caused by our hosting service, a nationally recognized brand (they have run Super Bowl ads), with whom...
View ArticleThe Ballad of Kanye and Kyrie
Memory does not recall these pages ever featuring or even mentioning a rap star or a basketball star, but we are confident that our readers have wide-ranging and catholic tastes so we are sailing forth...
View ArticleWhat Do Associates Want? Read this report to find out (the results may...
This article is by Janet Stanton, Partner, Adam Smith, Esq. Recently, we had the good fortune to work with our great friends at Above the Law on a project to delve into the current associate mindset....
View ArticleLetter from London
Remember these? We made it customary here at Adam Smith, Esq. to publish a “Letter from….” after our return from any meaningful business trip to noteworthy cities. And, thankfully, here we are. When...
View Article