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A Winamac attorney has been disbarred by the Indiana Supreme Court for having sexual relations with three clients.
Nathan Pearson of Pearson Law LLC is immediately disbarred, according to a ruling issued by the court on Feb. 14.
The court wrote that Pearson’s actions were predatory, not “merely exercises in poor judgment.”
“He exploited three highly vulnerable clients, taking advantage not only of the power imbalance inherent in the attorney-client relationship, but also the specific weaknesses arising from the clients’ histories of drug use, sexual abuse, and other trauma,” the court said.
Pearson did not immediately respond to an email or phone message from The Indiana Lawyer seeking comment.
The court’s Disciplinary Commission began investigating Pearson’s misconduct in July 2023. According to the opinion, Pearson represented an 18-year-old client in 2016 who had a history of sexual abuse and substance use.
While representing the client as a public defender, Pearson allegedly scheduled meetings with her after business hours. The meetings often followed the same pattern, with Pearson offering the client bourbon after which the two would engage in intimate interactions, according to the court.
The client said that while none of the encounters involved the explicit use of force or lack of consent, she said she “felt compelled because of the situation.”
In February 2018, Pearson was appointed to represent another client in four criminal cases.
This client, who also had a history of substance use, was asked to meet Pearson at his solo practice office after hours. Her husband was not able to attend the meeting, so she brought her children because she was not comfortable with meeting Pearson alone.
During the meeting, Pearson allegedly led the client to a different room, away from her children, and effectively cornered her into being intimate with him, according to the court’s findings.
The client testified that she was “unable to stand up from the chair because of how Respondent was positioned” and proceeded to be intimate “[b]ecause I was a vulnerable drug addict that was in a lot of trouble and . . . I thought if I did that I would get out of some of my trouble.”
The woman reported the incident to the same probation officer as the first client, who in turn reported it to the presiding judge in the second client’s case. Following an attorneys-only hearing, Pearson withdrew from her case.
Another of Pearson’s clients, who also had a history of substance use and sexual abuse, had an intimate relationship with Pearson before he began representing her around March 2017 while he was working for another law firm, the court determined.
After she became a client, she said she drank a glass of brown liquor while at Pearson’s home and woke up naked in his bed. She said she had little memory of what happened but believed the two had been intimate.
While Pearson eventually left the law firm, it sent the client a letter telling her she still owed the firm more than $700. The client responded, saying she believed Pearson had written off those fees in exchange for her having sex with him, according to the court ruling.
The state’s high court determined Pearson violated Indiana Professional Conduct Rules 1.7(j), 1.8(j) and 8.4(d) due to his interactions with his clients.
The case is In the Matter of Nathan L Pearson, 23S-DI-00186.
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