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for Mary Orlando, stating that the estate had illegally
distributed moneys to Mary Orlando and others. The alleged
illegality was premised on her representation that she was the
lawful beneficiary of the estate. She also claimed that all fees
paid out to Lynch and Reardon had to be returned to the estate.
In approximately January 1983, INA retained attorney Robert
Boote (Boote) of the law firm of Wolf, Block, Schorr and Solis-
Cohen, Philadelphia, to prepare and file an account of the estate
with the Orphans' Court for INA in its capacity as surety.
Boote determined that there were no organized records
maintained by the estate. Boote assumed that Lynch was the
attorney for Mary Orlando, as administratrix of the estate,
although he never saw any document to confirm that assumption.
He did, however, see the agreement of August 7, 1978, between
Mary Orlando, as administratrix of the estate, and Lynch pursuant
to which Lynch had been hired to recover the stolen securities.
Boote requested Lynch to provide him with records of the
estate that would enable Boote to prepare an account for the
estate. Lynch was not forthcoming in providing Boote with estate
records and the records that Boote did obtain from Lynch were
disorganized and not very helpful to Boote in his task of
preparing an account. Boote's law firm had an estate accounting
department, and he assigned an experienced estate accountant to
request records from their original sources such as brokerage
houses and banks and to work with the estate's accountant at the
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