"There certainly are an awful lot of lawyers involved here," John Dean admitted to the Senate Watergate committee. Now it looks as if there are going to be an awful lot of ex-lawyers in the group that Dean was talking about. Last week Dean himself was suspended from practice by a three-judge federal panel. G. Gordon Liddy has already been disbarred in New York State, and the State Bar of California is contemplating action against lawyers from Richard Nixon down. Although he was not connected with Watergate, another well-known lawyer is also facing disbarment. The Maryland State Bar Association last week formally asked the state Court of Appeals to begin proceedings against Spiro Agnew.
For any lawyer, disbarment can mean disaster. Last week convicted Dirty Trickster Donald Segretti started to serve his maximum-six-month sentence in Lompoc Prison Camp 45 miles northwest of Santa Barbara, Calif. Declared Lawyer Segretti plaintively: "Four months in Lompoc is nothing to me compared with being disbarred. What would I do?"