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Friday, April 03, 2009
Ind. Law - More on "Goshen lawyer's confidential files found in trash"
Updating this ILB entry from April 1st, Justin Leighty of the Elkhart Truth has a follow-up story today:
GOSHEN -- Former clients of a local attorney are upset he's ignoring calls after they learned he'd thrown out files containing confidential information.Joe Lehman threw the files, along with law books, into a trash bin belonging to a downtown business last weekend, and the files remained there for several days.
After a story in Wednesday's Truth, some of his clients became concerned that their identifying information may have been compromised.
"He's opened up everybody whose records were in the Dumpster to identity theft and privacy invasion," said Wendy Manchester, one of Lehman's former clients. "He should've shredded those documents," she said.
Instead, files with paternity information, financial records, photographs and Social Security numbers were accessible to anyone.
"This is just not right. I don't know where my stuff is," said Manchester, who's tried calling Lehman over the last couple of days. He didn't call back, she said.
Calls to his number are unanswered and go to a voice mailbox that is full and won't accept new messages. When contacted Tuesday, Lehman said he thought the files were older ones and he didn't realize there was personal information in what he trashed.
Amy Hapner, another former Lehman client, said in an e-mail message that she called Lehman and left a message Wednesday, then tried calling Thursday with no luck.
Now Manchester's filing a disciplinary complaint with the state. "He needs to be taught a lesson about confidentiality," she said.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 3, 2009 09:37 AM
Posted to Indiana Law