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&lt;p&gt;This morning, a juicy, Page One, above-the-fold piece runs in the &lt;i&gt;NY Times&lt;/i&gt; about the shenanigans undertaken by Lehman Brothers to obscure the true state of its finances. The story draws on anonymous insider interviews and a 2001 internal memo which advocated that Lehman invest in the small financial firm Hudson Castle.&amp;nbsp; According to the &lt;i&gt;Times &lt;/i&gt;account, Lehman effectively controlled Hudson Castle while appearing to deal with it at arm&amp;rsquo;s length. Hudson provided Lehman with a favorable source of financing without any &amp;ldquo;headline risk&amp;rdquo; if a deal failed. The piece is strewn with lurid images of &amp;ldquo;hidden passages,&amp;rdquo; &amp;ldquo;shadowy entities,&amp;rdquo; &amp;ldquo;alter egos,&amp;rdquo; and so on. Utterly absent from this account are lawyers and/or law firms. But didn&amp;rsquo;t somebody have to draw up the papers for the special purpose entities? Who opined that things were aboveboard with the SEC and SOX? Can there be any doubt that in-house counsel and outside firms had a big role in greasing the rails of the Lehman trainwreck?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Washington Lawyer&lt;/i&gt;&amp;rsquo;s January cover story, &amp;ldquo;Financial Crisis 2008: Where Were the Lawyers?&amp;rdquo; wrestles with its title question at great length and is recommended reading.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Related: In the court-ordered Examiner&amp;rsquo;s Report into the collapse of Lehman, in which Examiner Anton Valukas (chair of Jenner &amp;amp; Block) concludes that Lehman&amp;rsquo;s directors should be immunized from personal liability, there appears this interesting nugget:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Unable to find a United States law firm that would provide it with an opinion letter permitting the true sale accounting treatment under United States law, Lehman conducted its &lt;/i&gt;[balance sheet manipulations]&lt;i&gt; under the aegis of an opinion letter from the Linklaters law firm in London.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A &lt;i&gt;Times (UK)&lt;/i&gt; look at the Examiner&amp;rsquo;s Report here.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;-posted by brian&lt;/p&gt;

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