— The practice

Five disciplines.
One standard.

Engagements are bespoke, often confidential, and always structured around the principal’s most consequential decisions. We take a limited number each quarter, and staff every one with principals.

— How an engagement begins

Five steps, in order.

I

Introduction

A private conversation, usually an hour, with no material exchanged. We establish what the decision actually is and whether we are the right counsel for it. Roughly half of these conclude with a referral elsewhere.

II

Mutual confidentiality

Before anything substantive is shared in either direction, a mutual non-disclosure agreement is executed and, where the engagement warrants it, a portal account is opened for you under the same terms.

III

Diagnostic

Two to four weeks of primary work: the numbers as they are, the interviews the business has not run, and an honest statement of what we do not yet know. It concludes with a written view and a scope.

IV

Mandate

A defined engagement with named people, a fixed fee and a stated decision it is meant to serve. We take a limited number each quarter and decline work we cannot staff with principals.

V

Standing counsel

Most relationships continue past the mandate that began them. The firm’s average client tenure is nine years, which is the figure we are most protective of.

— By invitation

When the stakes are consequential,
the counsel should be private.

We accept a limited number of new engagements each quarter. A first conversation carries no obligation on either side, and nothing substantive is exchanged before mutual confidentiality is in place.

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