Should Permanent Disbarment Be Permanent
![handle is hein.journals/geojlege20 and id is 599 raw text is: Should Permanent Disbarment be Permanent?
BRIAN FINKELSTEIN*
While the lamp holds out to bum, the vilest sinner may return.'
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. o
* JD, expected 2008, Georgetown University Law Center.
1. In re Van Bever, 55 Ariz. 368, 373 (1940).
2. State Bar of California, Ronald Robert Silverton, http://members.calbar.ca.gov/search/member__detail.
aspx?x=28775 (last visited Mar. 29, 2007).
3. In re Silverton, 14 Cal. 3d 517, 520 (1975).
4. Id.
5. Id.
6. Id.
7. Id. at 519; In re Silverton, 36 Cal. 4th 81, 81 (2005).
8. Ann Davis, The Myth of Disbarment-NLJ Finds Half of the Disbarred who Reapply Win Reinstatement,
NAT'L L.J., Aug. 5, 1996, at Al.
9. Id.
10. Id.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/geojlege20&div=34&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Should Permanent Disbarment Be Permanent
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