Azuka Amucha

February 28, 2015

AZUKA AMUCHA [#233891], 43, of Los Angeles, was disbarred Feb. 28, 2015 and ordered to comply with rule 9.20 of the California Rules of Court. Amucha stipulated he misappropriated client funds, committed acts involving moral turpitude and failed to maintain client funds in his trust account, render an accounting to a client, promptly pay client funds or respond to a client’s reasonable requests for status updates. Amucha’s misconduct stemmed from a personal injury matter involving an uninsured motorist that he agreed to take on in 2010. After settling with the client’s auto insurance company for $15,000, Amucha did not provide the client with an accounting and did not inform him that he would be collecting his attorney fees or that an investigator had been hired for his case, which would cost $2,918. Amucha was required to maintain $6,960.77 in his client trust account on his client’s behalf. Instead, the balance in the account fell to -$4,844.45. In addition, Amucha waited more than two-and-a-half years to give the client his settlement funds, telling him it would complicate a California Victim Compensation Program application he’d filed on the client’s behalf. In mitigation, Amucha had no prior record of discipline and entered into a pretrial stipulation with the State Bar.