[Photo:  Stephen DiCarmine (by Seth Gottfried, Natan Dvir / NYPost), and Joel Sanders (by Rick Kopstein/ NYLawJnl)]

The events leading up to the collapse of Dewey & LeBoeuf, once one of New York’s most prominent law firms, are about to be relived for a 2nd time in a Manhattan state courtroom. Prosecutors will again try to secure convictions of 2 former Dewey executives - Stephen DiCarmine and Joel Sanders - nearly 15 months after a state judge declared a mistrial in an earlier criminal case and almost 5 years since the law firm filed for bankruptcy.

A 3rd defendant in that first trial - Steven Davis, the firm’s former chairman - is already 1 year into a 5-year deferred prosecution deal.

Yet prosecutors working for Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, remain undaunted and continue to argue that Mr. DiCarmine and Mr. Sanders were architects of a huge accounting scheme that enabled Dewey to defraud its lenders and creditors during much of the financial crisis.

Jury selection began Monday in NYS Supreme Court, and prosecutors have suggested that the 2nd trial may not be much shorter than the earlier proceeding, which stretched out over 5 months. It ended with jurors unable to reach a unanimous verdict after 21 days of deliberations.

Some jurors from the first trial said the length of the proceedings and the number of charges - over 100 counts against the 3 defendants - had made it difficult to reach a unanimous verdict.

This time around, prosecutors are expected to introduce much of the same evidence and call the same witnesses. But at least jurors will have fewer charges to consider against Mr. DiCarmine, Dewey’s former executive director, and Mr. Sanders, the firm’s former CFO.

The case against both men - announced with much fanfare by Mr. Vance in March 2014 - has been whittled back to just 2 felony counts and a misdemeanor. The trial judge, Robert Stolz, tossed out the most serious grand larceny charges against the 2 defendants in February.

But even with the pared-back case, Mr. DiCarmine, 60, and Mr. Sanders, 58, could face up to 4 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charge - a securities fraud count.

The 2nd trial is taking place with much less attention than the first, which was closely watched by the New York legal community. The prosecution of the former Dewey executives was one of the first watershed white-collar cases brought by Mr. Vance, whose office has a mixed record in high-profile trials.