Bruce MacEwen, writing as incisively as ever at Adam Smith, Esq., posted Friday this first in a series of articles on whether law firms commit the resources they should to business management. Key quote:
“McKinsey (on whom we will rely in this series) estimates the managerial complexity quotient of a high-end professional services firm to be on the order of 5X that of a conventional retail, transportation, manufacturing, or construction firm. In other words, managing a sophisticated law firm with (say) $300-million in annual revenue is as challenging as managing a “something else” firm with $1.5-billion in annual revenue. We can debate—although we won’t—whether it’s 3X, 5X, or 7X, but it’s clearly >1X.
The problem is that virtually no firm I know is taking this seriously—which means acting on it. The problem is very simple: We do not treat our businesses in a business-like fashion…”
We’re looking forward to the next installment.
Now, back to our business.