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While the lamp holds out to bum, the vilest sinner may return.1
I. INTRODUCTION
When Ronald Robert Silverton graduated from the UCLA School of Law and joined the California bar in 1958, he could not have predicted the impact he would ultimately have on the state's lawyer disciplinary system.2 He probably wouldn't have been happy if he could have predicted it. Silverton 's long and sordid saga, spanning a period of 30 years, would place the issue of permanent disbarment at the forefront of an ongoing legal ethics debate in California.
In 1971, Laurence Rooker was involved in a small auto accident in which he received no injuries but did suffer minor car damage.3 Shortly thereafter, he was contacted on his unlisted phone number by a member of Silverton's legal staff who had "snuck a copy of the [accident] report" from the police station.4 The staff member then proceeded to instruct Rooker on how to best fake a whiplash injury in order to file a false claim.5 Perhaps it is an accurate foreshadowing of Silverton's luck that Rooker was an investigator with the local District Attorney's office.6 In 1972, Silverton was convicted of insurance fraud and grand theft.7
After his law license was suspended pending disbarment proceedings, Silverton founded the Save-A-Life Adoption Service.8 The Service "offered a Caribbean vacation to pregnant women from Europe" promising them free medical care "in exchange for doing housework at a hotel [that] potential adoptive parents could visit."9 Dubbed a "black market baby broker," Silverton was subsequently convicted of conspiracy to violate adoption laws and operating an adoption agency without a license.10
In 1975 Silverton was disbarred for the first time by the state of California. " In 1992, after three unsuccessful petitions for readmission, Silverton seemed an unlikely candidate to rejoin the legal profession.12 But surprisingly, 17 years after his initial disbarment, the Cahfornia bar apparently felt that he had redeemed himself. On October 6, 1992 he was once again permitted to practice law.13 In less than two years Silverton would again begin violating ethics rules.14
While the wheels of the lawyer discipline system slowly turned, Silverton took a route that most attorneys facing ethical charges do not consider: he ran for the Cahfornia Board of Bar Governors.15...