State high court suspends lawyer for misconduct
Richard D. Walton of the Indianapolis Star provides this report:
A woman hired Indianapolis attorney John H. Freeman IV to represent her son in delinquency proceedings. When Freeman didn’t show at a hearing, the mother was forced to negotiate a plea with the prosecutor.
Another woman hired Freeman to advocate for her granddaughter in school expulsion proceedings. After Freeman failed to appear, the girl was suspended.
And when a dissatisfied criminal suspect demanded a refund, Freeman replied with a threatening letter, the Indiana Supreme Court said. “Please do NOT EVER in your life send me another letter,” Freeman wrote. “If you do I will have to make trouble for you while you are locked up!”
The high court, finding Freeman committed “serial neglect” of his clients, has suspended him from practicing law for one year, effective Dec. 1. The court found that Freeman’s conduct “often left his clients abandoned and forced to fend for themselves. His demonstrated lack of competence warrants a substantial suspension.”
The court found Freeman, who was admitted to the practice of law in 1994, failed to perform requested services, attempted to withdraw from a case without informing the client and failed to inform clients of his billing practices.
You can read the per curiam opinion In the Matter of John H. Freeman IV online (pdf).
