The Wall Street Journal’s Nathan Koppel has authored an excellent review (W$J article here) of the demise of Dallas-based Jenkens & Gilchrist (prior blog posts here), which shut down earlier this year after mass defections and an expensive settlement with the federal government. Koppel’s piece follows this earlier Dallas Morning News article that does a good job of chronicling the demise of the firm.
Given that the former leaders of the firm candidly admitted that the firm took big risks in the tax shelter business in order to generate increased profits, Larry Ribstein makes a typically insightful observation about how strict regulation of law firm structure may have contributed to the firm’s questionable risk-taking:

It is at least worth exploring whether freeing law firms from these constraints would produce more responsible firms. Jenkens is another reminder that it is folly to assume that such an innovation would besmirch some Platonic ideal of non-profit-oriented professionalism that law firms currently adhere to.