Los Angeles industry players are taking note of some interesting shifts in the sand out there vis a vis the ongoing Anthony Pellicano case.

To wit: Is it a coincidence that two similar stories appeared within days of each other out there, one in "The Daily Law Journal" and the other in the "Los Angeles Times"? What they had in common: the notion that law firm of Greenberg, Glusker, Fields, et al., and principal partner Charles Sheppard were off the hook, so to speak, with the government.

What they also had in common, say my West Coast tea leaf readers: the unspoken nod that Bert Fields is being separated from his firm in the press by the firm’s own spokesman, Brian Sun.

You see, each story left Fields — still unarrested, unindicted, simply investigated and very much voicing his innocence — hanging in the wind as Greenberg Glusker moves on.

Sun, I am told, was the purveyor of both stories, and is planning more to come.

Fields — who’s represented everyone from Tom Cruise to Michael Jackson to Sylvester Stallone — surely cannot be happy if the reasoning is correct, and he’s being sacrificed for the good of the company.

But then again, the firm has already lost 10 attorneys, thanks to Howard Weitzman’s recent exit to start a new shop.

Unlike the recent Page Six contretemps right here in our backyard, the Pellicano case is not going away anytime soon. Some scandals are tempests in teapots. But the Pellicano story continues to be a major blight on a company town, and its victims are still not entirely known.