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&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;In this month of unhappy Lehman/Freddie/Fannie/AIG anniversaries, &lt;i&gt;The National Law Journal&lt;/i&gt; asks if &lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;BigLaw has learned any lessons from last year&amp;#8217;s demise of Heller et al.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Longtime Heller partner Michael Charlson (now at Hogan &amp;amp; Hartson), believes the dissolution &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;was &amp;#8220;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;a sign of the changing legal world and even a change in why people become lawyers.&amp;#8221; &lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;Back in 2000, when Heller associates demanded that the firm match the &lt;em&gt;&lt;span&gt;Gunderson&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;i&gt; &lt;/i&gt;&quot;dot-com bump&quot; of $125,000 for &lt;em&gt;&lt;span&gt;first&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;i&gt;-&lt;/i&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;span&gt;years,&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;span&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/em&gt;Charlson recalls that he &amp;#8220;warned them to be careful what they ask for&amp;#8221;: &lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;span&gt;When you start paying those salaries, the tolerance for people coming in at 1,500 or 1,600 hours a year, the commitment to pro bono, those tolerances shrink a lot [&amp;#8230;] There was a lot of sadness about the fact that a place that could combine the quality of the legal work we provided with the humanity of the place just wasn&#39;t going to be able to make it anymore. [I]n some sense it was a really sad statement about where the profession, if not the broader society, had gone.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;Orrick chairman Ralph Baxter draws a lesson about fragility and scale:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;span&gt;For partners as individuals, in a big firm or not, if you didn&#39;t get it before, you get it now, that law firms are fragile, [&amp;#8230;] It&#39;s about the consolidation in the practice of law, the challenges of leading and practicing law at the scale we have come to, with a business model that was not intended for this scale [&amp;#8230;]&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt; &lt;i&gt;&lt;span&gt;At the end of the day, we are still limited by some features we can&#39;t change, such as the inability to raise capital other than from the after-tax income for partners and debt.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;But most things about the old model we can change.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;MoFo&#39;s Keith Wetmore spots a theme: &quot;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;[L]aw firm failures from last year were important lessons in minimizing short-term debt, because in every death story from these law firms, the banks rang the bell.&quot;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;In other news, that other September 08 casualty, Thelen, has filed Chapter 7. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;-posted by brian&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;

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