Steely grey clouds hung low over Toronto on March 13, although many of its residents had fled south for the school vacation break. For most of the lawyers at Goodman and Carr LLP, it was a usual workday, save for a 6 p.m. partners’ meeting.

But at day’s end as the partners assembled, there was no requisite meal set out for the dinner-hour meeting — just drinks, cocktails, and snacks, and a curious, palpable tension. About a half dozen partners holidaying with their families were dialed in to the meeting by conference call.

Quickly, the first bomb was dropped. Without much introductory formalities, Brad Hildebrandt of Hildebrandt International professional consulting services — which everyone was aware had been retained by the firm to troubleshoot business strategies — announced to the group that securities and mining specialist Jay Goldman had advised the week prior that he was leaving.

But before that information had sunk in, Hildebrandt, flanked by two associate consultants, proceeded to detonate the news that Goodman and Carr’s executive committee, based on a thorough review of operational affairs, had concluded that business should cease and desist and the firm be closed for good.

A visual presentation quickly followed the announcement, but as charts, graphs, and point-form prognoses flashed on the screen, the nut message delivered was still resonating.

Donald Carr, founding partner of the 42-year-old firm, was connected by speaker phone, unable to attend work that week due to illness. He too was hearing the definitive recommendation for the first time and appealed to anyone to conjure up a viable plan, assert a collective will to continue.

No one could — or would.

When someone finally called for an official vote on the matter, the suggestion seemed pointless, although a number of partners seated around the boardroom table threw their hands up in favor; others were preoccupied with thought, milling about nervously at the snack trays and nobody reported an official vote count.

“I felt like I was at a cocktail party held at a funeral parlor, with the corpse in full display,” says one long-time partner who didn’t want to be named.

And with that, a decision was made that would send almost 200 lawyers and support staff onto the streets, and most who were affected didn’t even see it coming.

So the question ensued among partners, associates, staff, clients, and the legal community at large: how did a once vibrant, entrepreneurial, and ambitious law firm that touted “hard working law” as its slogan, crash and burn at the turn of a meeting?

For the following month, Goodman and Carr’s web site advised, “The firm suffered the loss of a number of partners and it was decided that it was in the best interests of the clients, lawyers, and staff to windup the business at this time.”

Indeed, more than 30 partners had left the firm inside of the past year alone; Paul Bleiwas, the firm’s most recent managing partner, found himself overwhelmed with the winding down. He says that at the time of closing, there were “85 to 90 lawyers, I don’t remember the breakdown,” maybe “half” who were partners.

Conjecture that followed attributed the closure to an increasingly competitive market for mid-sized law firms to secure clients, talent poaching by competitors, rainmakers in search of top compensation, and the residual recuperation from much earlier losses — like top revenue-earning equity partner Jeff Blidner, who had left and joined client Brookfield Asset Management Inc.

The firm had sought a merger opportunity and was at one point late last year in serious discussions with Chicago-based Baker & McKenzie. But that fell through, to which Baker & McKenzie stated, “Given our global legal business, Canada, one of the major economies of the world, is an important market for us. We are committed to the Canadian market and are prepared to invest our resources in strategic growth opportunities.

We have a high regard for the firm of Goodman and Carr, its lawyers, and the quality of its practice. However, in the final analysis, we regrettably concluded that this opportunity did not provide us with the right strategic fit for our firm.”

While the merger would have ensured Goodman and Carr’s survival, alone its future was becoming precarious. The firm on its face was profitable but bench strength was depleted. Thus, the precise query was not why the firm folded, but why had so many partners left?