Phones were ringing across the country with former law school classmates wondering if their friends’ new associate positions at white-shoe firms were in jeopardy, too. After all, entire classes of associates were let go at some firms. The recession had reared its ugly head in a place it never really went before. Not only did it find its way into the white-collar world, but it pierced the sanctity of the legal profession — a profession that began transforming into a business like (almost) any other.

It was around 1991. The savings and loan crisis that affected many law firm clients proved just as tough to bear for the legal industry, which for the first time faced mass layoffs across a spectrum of firms and organizations. Swap out savings and loan for commercial mortgage-backed securities and the storyline could have a 2008-09 dateline, recounting the even-larger-scale layoffs, salary cuts and overall business model shifts the profession encountered in the past five years.