Well, the proverb doesn't necessarily attribute the death of the company to the lawyer. If a company is dying (aka winding down), you most likely do in fact wa

Well, the proverb doesn't necessarily attribute the death of the company to the lawyer. If a company is dying (aka winding down), you most likely do in fact want a lawyer in charge, whatever their job title may be. For instance why would you put a scientist or engineer in charge of negotiating your acquisition? It's a great proverb and in particular the "accountants in charge to extract maximum value after maturity, lawyers in charge at the end to wind it down or sell it off" part is accurate of many businesses in general. No company gets to live in the startup and growth stages forever. At a certain point shareholders decide to get everything they can out of their investment and move on.