At 4:30 P.M. on Monday, March 6, the partners in the Los Angeles office of New York’s 322-lawyer Shea & Gould filed into a conference room filled with associates. The partners’ stunned faces told the story. “I knew it was all over,” recalls one associate.

Lessing Gold, the branch’s managing partner, quietly delivered the news. The Los Angeles office was to be phased out over the next three months. The office’s 52 partners and associates, as well as some 100-support personnel, were fired.