eye. Here in Canada, the profession was shocked last year by the sudden collapse of respected Toronto firm Goodman and Carr . Other names like Brobeck and Coudert come to mind as well. In most of these cases, what really stands out is the astonishing speed and seeming lack of warning with which everything gave way. The only tremor emanating from Heller was a pair of failed merger talks, but as soon as that word began circulating, the breakdown was underway. Sound familiar? It should, unless you've ignored newspapers and television for the last two weeks, and the collapsing house of cards on Wall Street that they've been chronicling. Because when you get right down to it, the same affliction really took out both Heller Ehrman and the likes of Lehman Brothers: the marketplace suddenly stopped believing in them. The consistent theme of the analyses emerging from Wall Street's rubble is that the industry's level of trust in each of these entities fell away, first gradually and then suddenly. And when that happened, what became apparent -- with frightening speed and clarity -- was that trust was really the only thing keeping these institutions afloat. Here's Derek DeCloet of the Globe & Mail : Mistrust -- or lack of confidence, if you prefer -- is the most corrosive thing you can ever have coursing through the world's banks and credit markets. Mistrust maims and destroys. In the end, a financial institution's only asset is trust. Brand names, history, branches on