Indiana Attorney Suspended for ‘Widespread Misconduct’

An Indiana lawyer who was forced to cease practicing by an emergency interim suspension because he continued to accept clients even though he couldn’t capably represent them because of physical and mental health issues, was suspended for three years by the state’s highest court.

The Indiana Supreme Court said in its Tuesday opinion that Raymond Gupta, a medical malpractice and personal injury practitioner, would have to apply for reinstatement, and he’d “face a particularly steep burden to gain reentry” because the severity and scope of his misconduct were “extreme.”

Gupta’s sanction was the consequence of 22 separate counts of “widespread misconduct spanning several years and consisting generally of criminal activity, dishonesty, gross financial mismanagement, and severe neglect of client matters,” the court said.

Gupta admitted to the misconduct, and the court highlighted what it termed the “more egregious” instances, including:

• Indictment in federal court on charges of tax evasion;
• Trust account violations from 2010-18, including commingling of funds and use of the funds to pay business and personal expenses;
• Having contingent fee agreements requiring clients to pay for any expenses he deemed necessary, including charging a client $14,000 for payments to a consulting medical clinic when he’d only paid $4,000 to the clinic on the client’s behalf; and
• Neglecting client matters including one case where he didn’t respond to discovery on that and failed to attend a meeting and that got dismissed as a result.

His actions reveal ethics breaches including a failure to communicate; violation of fee rules; trust account rule violations; failing to withdraw from representation when mentally or physically impaired; and dishonesty, the court said.

It noted that it had disbarred attorneys who engaged in “similarly egregious patterns of misconduct.” However, it accepted the ethics commission’s recommendation that Gupta be suspended for three years, noting that it was doubtful that he would be able to meet the “heightened burden” for reinstatement.

The case is In the Matter of Raymond Gupta, Respondent., 2020 BL 88187, Ind., No. 19S-DI-71, 3/10/20.