Is the venerable Ince shipping law firm a casualty of modern financial markets? Or is it the victim of its own prowess as a litigator, which made it dependent on revenues from huge cases such as Sovcomflot (SCF Group) — and vulnerable to the revenue gaps after such cases are over?

Many of those who have commented on or off the record on the Ince Group’s ongoing financial and regulatory collapse have focused on the past five years, the period since stock-listed law firm Gordon Dadds absorbed the storied law firm formerly known as Ince & Co.