Reporting by the Los Angeles Times, filings by Edelson, and state audits revealed allegations of decades-long fund diversions, self-dealing, and ethical violations. The climbing count of Girardi’s victims also fueled already long simmering claims of a state regulator sleeping on the job.

“Tom Girardi was a wake-up call,” said David Freeman Engstrom, co-director of Stanford Law’s Center on the Legal Profession.

“We knew that only a tiny proportion of grievances resulted in disciplinary action. But we didn’t know just how bad the sorting mechanism was,” he said. “Maybe, we told ourselves, these statistics could be explained if most grievances were unfounded. Girardi showed that even egregious conduct is falling through the cracks.”