The claim that lawyers act as gatekeepers or certifiers in financial transactions is widely discussed in the legal literature. There has, however, been little empirical examination of the claim. We test the hypothesis that law firms have replaced investment banks as the gatekeepers of the market...

The authors document significant sales by the insiders of firms filing bankruptcy petitions prior to the filing date. They also find that selling is more intense for top executives and officers and that insiders in general systematically sell stock before prices fall and buy stock after prices...