It only took the departure of a handful of rainmaking partners to catalyze a partner run at infamously dissolved law firms.

When partners who had previously expressed a firm sentiment that they would never leave Dewey & LeBoeuf left in 2010, it served as a canary in the coal mine for many colleagues, said one former Dewey lawyer. “The reason I heard about them leaving was cash flow and ‘This is not the firm I joined,’ which I think is a real problem these days.”