What are the dangers associated with a violation of Rule 9 of the California State Bar of Justice's Commingling Guidelines?

Even though the offense of commingling was technically not committed, many of the dangers that accompany violation of Rule 9 are present here. The rule against commingling 'was adopted to provide against the probability in some cases, the possibility in many cases, and the danger in all cases that such commingling will result in the loss of clients' money. Moral turpitude is not necessarily involved in the comminlgling of a client's money with an attorney's own money if the client's money is not endangered by such procedure and is always available to him. However, inherently there is danger in such practice for frequently unforeseen circumstances arise jeopardizing the safety of the client's funds, and as far as the client is concerned the result is the same whether his money is deliberately misappropriated by an attorney or is unintentionally lost by circumstances beyond the control of the attorney.' Peck v. State Bar, 217 Cal. 47, 51, 17 P.2d 112, 114. Of course, an attorney may properly place his ward's money in his safe for a short period of time to safeguard it until he has time to deposit it in a bank. But when an attorney keeps a large sum of his ward's money [39 Cal.2d 169] in his safe for over three years and loses track of its whereabouts, the evils described in the Peck case are clearly present. Petitioner, according to his own version of the facts, was guilty of gross negligence in the handling of his ward's funds.