A spokesman for White & Case said Mr. Owens and Mr. Pierce had no comment. Neither did the firm.

Mr. Owens has been well paid by most standards, but not compared with top partners at major firms, who make in the millions. (Mr. Pierce was guaranteed $8 million a year at Dewey & LeBoeuf.) When Mr. Owens first became a partner at Dewey, Ballantine, he made about $250,000, in line with other new partners. At Dewey & LeBoeuf, his income peaked at over $500,000 during the flush years before the financial crisis. In 2012, he made $351,000, and last year, while at White & Case, he made $356,500. He listed his current monthly income as $31,500, or $375,000 a year. And he has just over $1 million in retirement accounts that are protected from creditors in bankruptcy.

How far does $375,000 a year go in New York City? Strip out estimated income taxes ($7,500 a month), domestic support ($10,517), insurance ($2,311), a mandatory contribution to his retirement plan ($5,900), and routine expenses for rent ($2,460 a month) transportation ($550), food ($650) and miscellaneous outlays for things like utilities, medical expenses and cellphone and Internet service, and Mr. Owens estimated that he was running a small monthly deficit of $52, according to his bankruptcy petition. He has gone back to court to get some relief from his divorce settlement, so far without any success.

In his petition, Mr. Owens said he didn’t expect things to get any better in 2014.

And they could get worse. The most recent deal on White & Case’s website in which Mr. Owens played a role was the relatively modest $392 million acquisition of the women’s clothing retailer Talbots by Sycamore Partners, in which Mr. Owens (working with Mr. Pierce) represented Talbots. That deal was announced in May 2012. The White & Case spokesman did not provide any examples of more recent deals.

“In almost any other context, $375,000 would be a lot of money,” said William Henderson, a professor at the Indiana University School of Law and a director of the Center on the Global Legal Profession. “But anyone who doesn’t have clients is in a precarious position. For the last 40 years, all firms had to do was answer the phone from clients and lease more office space. That run is over. The forest has been depleted, as we say, and firms are competing for market share. Law firms are in a period of consolidation and, initially, it’s going to take place at the service partner level. There’s too much capacity.” He added that law firm associates and summer associates had also suffered significant cuts, which has culled the ranks of future partners.

All this “has had a huge effect on law school enrollment,” Professor Henderson said.

Mr. Clay, the consultant, said many firms had been slow to confront the reality that successful service partners were probably going to need to work more hours than rainmakers, not fewer, to justify their mid- to high-six-figure salaries. Many of them “seem to have felt they had a sinecure,” Mr. Clay said. “They’re well paid, didn’t have to work too hard, they had a nice office, prestige. It’s a nice life. That’s O.K., except it’s not the kind of professional life that will do much for a firm. These nonequity positions were never meant to be a safe place to rest and not work as hard as everyone else.”

And these lawyers may have to give up the pretense that they’re law firm partners. In his bankruptcy petition, Mr. Owens describes himself as a “contract attorney,” which has the virtue of candor.

“From a prestige standpoint, being called a partner is something that’s very important to people,” Mr. Westfahl observed. “Lawyers tend to be very competitive, and like all people, titles and status matter. But to the outside world, where people think all partners are equal, it’s deceptive. And inside the firm, everyone knows the real pecking order. When people see that partners are treated disparately, it causes unnecessary dissonance and personal frustration.”