Soma Sengupta, formerly of crime set One Inner Temple Lane, was disbarred this week after a Manhattan court found that she had executed an extensive and elaborate fraud to secure her pupillage. The court heard that Ms Sengupta had forged her letters of reference and included false information in her CV—including a degree with honors from Georgetown Law School, a stint as a prosecutor for the Manhattan district attorney, and work experience as a defence lawyer for the Legal Aid Society.
However, it was Ms Sengupta's deception about her age that finally raised suspicions and sparked a 2009 investigation by the Bar Standards Board. Now 52 and then in her late 40s, Ms Sengupta's application file with One Inner Temple Lane listed her birth year as 1978—meaning that she would have been just 29 years old at the time had the information been correct.
'The lengths that Ms Sengupta went to, to embellish her experience and qualifications are extraordinary. Her elaborate dishonesty is clearly incompatible with membership of the Bar,' said BSB director of professional conduct Sara Jagger. So troubling and thorough was Ms Sengupta's misrepresentation that the BSB eventually changed its application procedure so that university transcripts now need to be sent in sealed envelopes directly from schools, rather than passing through the hands of applicants themselves. Sources: New York Times; Legal Futures; Legal Cheek
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