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the money paid to them by Lynch pending approval of the payments
by the court.
After 14 hearings during the period May 2, 1986, to March
24, 1987, Judge Shoyer entered an adjudication on September 21,
1988. Judge Shoyer opined that the method Lynch followed in
removing bonds and coupons from the estate and his failure to
maintain adequate records of such transactions was a breach of
ethical standards. He stated, however, that the court was not
disposed to penalize Lynch for his several violations of the
ethical rules but would leave the disposition of such ethical
considerations to the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of
Pennsylvania, and he referred the record of the Orphans' Court to
the Disciplinary Board. There is no evidence in this record that
the Disciplinary Board ever took any action on the referral.
Judge Shoyer stated that in endeavoring to arrive at a
reasonable and fair fee, he was most conscious of the fact that
had it not been for Lynch and Reardon, there would be nothing for
the parties before him to fight about. He found that a
reasonable contingent fee for Lynch and Reardon should be based
on a percentage of the fair market value of the recovered stolen
bonds. He first noted that there was no allegation by Panepinto
of any impropriety by Reardon.
Reardon admitted that he had received $250,950 from Lynch in
payment of the investigatory work which he had performed. Judge
Shoyer found that Reardon was entitled to 15 percent of
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