September 15 2008 is etched on the financial world's collective memory. The day Lehman Brothers collapsed into bankruptcy was a pivotal moment in the most devastating financial crisis in generations, causing panic in capital markets and a virtual freeze in global trade.
Scores of books and magazine articles have chronicled Lehman's rapid and ruinous fall from global investment banking powerhouse to the largest corporate failure in US industry.
But it took a year of painstaking research and a door-stopper report by a Chicago-based lawyer to lift the lid on the management failures, destructive internal culture and reckless risk-taking that sent Lehman to its grim fate.