One of the fundamental principles of legal ethics can be summed up as: "Keep your hands off the money." And while this is a gross oversimplification of the legal ethics rules, it is true that this breach of fiduciary trust is among the gravest transgressions that a lawyer can make. Moreover, as it are often amongst the most heavily-punished violations, it often start a cascading effect of rule-breaking as lawyers desperately attempt to avoid detection.