Like a run on a bank, law firms can quickly collapse if a few rainmakers pick up and take their books of business elsewhere—a vicious cycle that's hard to stop once it gets going.

That's the takeaway from a law review article by Yale professor John Morley. He says a partner exodus can happen quickly because there's a huge financial incentive not to be one of the last partners remaining at a firm.

That dynamic is on many partners' minds right now as they debate whether to fight the White House's punitive executive orders.

For this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, Morley spoke with Bloomberg Law reporter Roy Strom about how these so-called "runs on the partnership" can play out and about which types of firms are the most vulnerable to a catastrophic implosion.

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