The Tokyo Bar Association on Monday suspended a lawyer from practicing for two years for fabricating a court document to show a client that he had won a judgment on her behalf when in fact he never filed her original lawsuit.
Katsutoshi Ishikawa, 40, was retained by a woman in Tokyo to file a lawsuit in May 2003 to claim unpaid wages from a company, but he did not file the suit, according to the bar association.
On Jan. 27, 2004, he delivered a document to the woman that purportedly showed she had won her case outright. Ishikawa paid her around 2 million yen, close to the amount the woman had demanded in her suit, out of his own pocket, according to the association.
The case came to light when the woman requested the court to issue the ruling again only to discover that no case had been filed, the association said.
Ishikawa, who was suspended for behavior detrimental to the profession, told the association that he lied after neglecting his work.
The association said it has not filed a criminal complaint but has notified the Tokyo District Court of the incident.