Portage lawyer’s license suspended
By Teresa Auch Schultz tauch@post-trib.com September 14, 2012 3:38PM
Updated: October 16, 2012 6:08AM
A Portage attorney has to serve a six-month suspension of her law license after the Indiana Supreme Court found she had neglected and lied to one of her clients.
According to the order, which was filed Sept. 7, Janice Gambill, who could not be reached for comment, agreed in 2008 to file for a client a legal malpractice suit against another attorney who had represented the client in a personal injury case in Illinois.
Instead, she filed a personal injury case in Indiana, which was dismissed. When her client asked her about the case, Gambill lied and claimed she had filed a legal malpractice case in Indiana, adding that the original attorney had to respond to it by a certain deadline.
She didn’t actually file the lawsuit until 2010, however.
The client had to hire yet another attorney, who had to dismiss the case Gambill filed and refile it in Illinois.
Gambill was already on a probation of her law license at the time for a previous issue of neglecting other cases, not returning money she wasn’t supposed to take to a client and lying to the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission.
Her suspension starts Oct. 19, according to the order. She will have to ask the Supreme Court after the suspension period to have her license reinstated.
