'Words fail to capture the severity and extent' of lawyer's bigotry, appeals court says
A New York lawyer has been disbarred after coming to the attention of disciplinary officials by filing ethics complaints against others said to contain racist and antisemitic language. (Image from Shutterstock)
A New York lawyer has been disbarred after coming to the attention of disciplinary officials by filing ethics complaints against others said to contain racist and antisemitic language.
Lawyer Rahul Dev Manchanda of New York was disbarred in a Nov. 21 order by the Appellate Division’s First Judicial Department of the New York Supreme Court.
The Legal Profession Blog noted the decision.
The Attorney Grievance Committee opened an investigation of Manchanda sua sponte after he filed three complaints with the commission and the Human Rights Council in 2021 that contained racist and antisemitic language, according to the appeals court’s decision.
The grievance commission emailed Manchanda and asked for a response to its misconduct allegations. Manchanda’s reply again used racist and antisemitic language, the appeals decision said. The grievance commission then reviewed Manchanda’s court filings and found that they made antisemitic remarks and used “foul and vile language” to attack judges.
“There does not appear to be any reported case in which the attorney’s misconduct similarly rose to the virulence that respondent has demonstrated well before and all throughout this disciplinary proceeding,” the appeals court said.
“Words fail to capture the severity and extent of his bigotry. The conduct here is simply shocking and outrageous.”
The decision cited a referee’s findings that Manchanda, in the appeals court’s words:
• Filed documents with “unacceptably bigoted language” in state and federal courts and “a panoply” of agencies. Manchanda had denied tat he was the author of the documents.
• “Used intolerably vile and foul language and divulged privileged information” when responding to clients’ online complaints. Manchanda had claimed that he did not write the responses, or he obtained approval for the language that he used.
• “Used racist, antisemitic, homophobic and misogynistic statements while holding himself out as a well-trained and extremely experienced lawyer” in New York City. He had claimed that he didn’t know that the statements were objectionable.
• “Repeatedly made meritless, frivolous and vexatious arguments well beyond the point at which he should have known better.” His “targets for such filings have grown to include this very disciplinary proceeding and collateral attacks that he has launched on it in state and federal courts.”
Manchanda told the ABA Journal in an email that he was disbarred for reasons that he thought were “unfair and unjust.” He included an attachment indicating that he has filed an appeal on constitutional grounds.
“In short,” Machanda says, “I had filed (what I thought was protected speech) civil rights lawsuits, requests for investigation and law enforcement complaints alleging racial discrimination and systematic and continuous bias against me for the last 20 years, as an Indian American lawyer born in New York, my children, my family and my law firm business by the two most dominant races/ethnicities within the New York judicial/court/legal system: Jews and African Americans.”
In response, he says, the Attorney Grievance Committee’s First Department started the ethics investigation and filed “nonsensical charges against me for ‘discriminatory acts’ (which are still protected under the First Amendment freedom of speech) that I maintain that I did not even do, because I had tons of employees/staff, over the course of my 25 years as a lawyer, and 23 years in my own private law practice.”
He adds that it was unfortunate that the Appellate Division ordered his immediate disbarment “without any warning or interim suspension.”
