CHAPTER 6 - 6-10 BAR ADMISSION

• Jurisdiction: United States

6-10 Bar Admission

6-10:1 Bar Examining Committee

Fixing the qualifications for as well as admitting person to the practice is an essential judicial function. The Judicial Branch has exclusive jurisdiction over determining who will be admitted to the practice of law.¹⁵⁵ The court's power to regulate admissions is exercised with the assistance of committees of the bar appointed and acting under rules of court.¹⁵⁶ The Bar Examining Committee acts as a factfinder concerning the applicant's qualifications.¹⁵⁷ Although the Committee has broad power of discretion, it acts under the court's supervision.¹⁵⁸ If the Committee fails to make sufficient findings of fact to supports its decision on admission, the matter may be remanded back to it by a reviewing court on appeal.¹⁵⁹

The rules applicable to bar admission are found in the Practice Book.¹⁶⁰ While there are statutory provisions applicable to bar admission¹⁶¹ the Bar Examining Committee governs itself according to the Practice Book and its own regulations.¹⁶²

6-10:2 Character and Fitness

Successful completion of the bar admission process involves a number of factors including graduation from an approved school and passage of the bar examination.¹⁶³ Information on the examination, when and where it will be given, sample questions, minimum scores and much more can be found at the Bar Examining Committee's website.¹⁶⁴ In addition to satisfying the many administrative requisites, bar applicants must demonstrate that they possess good moral character and fitness for the practice of law.¹⁶⁵

Good moral character is defined to include (1) The qualities of honesty, fairness, candor and trustworthiness; (2) observance of fiduciary responsibility; (3) respect for and obedience to the law; and (4) respect for the legal rights of others and the judicial process.¹⁶⁶ Fitness to practice law is defined as (1) the cognitive capacity to undertake fundamental lawyering skills such as problem solving, legal analysis and reasoning, legal research, factual investigation, organization and management of legal work, making appropriate reasoned legal judgments, and recognizing and solving ethical dilemmas; (2) the ability to communicate legal judgments and legal information to clients, other attorneys, judicial and regulatory authorities, with or without the use of aids or devices; and (3) the capability to perform legal tasks in a timely manner.¹⁶⁷

"The concept of 'good moral character and fitness to practice law' necessarily reflects the mores of the community as well as an estimate of the individual."¹⁶⁸ The focus is on the applicant's present fitness.¹⁶⁹ It is not enough that the applicant be honest; he must be believed to be honest.¹⁷⁰

Some conduct creates a presumption of a lack of moral character or fitness to practice. Such conduct includes conviction of a felony, a course of conduct evidencing disregard for the law and the rights of others, fraudulent conduct, including plagiarism and other forms of academic misconduct, false, misleading or incomplete disclosure on application for admission to the bar in Connecticut or elsewhere, significant financial problems evidencing fiscal mismanagement, suspension or disbarment in another jurisdiction, revocation or suspension of another license or governmental authorization to conduct a profession, trade or business and substance abuse not under control.¹⁷¹

In determining fitness, the Bar Examining Committee may take into account the number of incidents or offenses, (whether single, sporadic or repeated), the seriousness of the incidents or offenses and the degree of moral turpitude involved, the time of commission e.g. whether recent or remote past, the age of the applicant at the time of the incidents or offenses, mitigating circumstances, the opinion of others about the applicant's moral character and fitness, evidence of rehabilitation, activities, jobs and civil service and any other pertinent information including the degree of remorse.¹⁷² The Practice Book and the Bar Examining Committee's regulations allow the Committee to refer character and fitness matters to the county standing committees,¹⁷³ or decide these matters itself by using a subcommittee.

While the portions of the bar examining process that test for substantive knowledge are well supported and empirically defensible as valid measures to accomplish their purpose, the character and fitness process appears to involve a high degree of subjectivity and may be of questionable utility. A study of the Connecticut bar examining process attempted to judge the effectiveness of trying to predict a lawyer's career likelihood of disciplinary trouble by examining pre-admission medical and disciplinary records and found that, at best, there was a very weak correlation.¹⁷⁴ When one considers that part of the character and fitness examination process involves lay-people attempting to analyze, evaluate and predict future disciplinary problems on the basis of past conduct that may have occurred years before or medical records related to mental health treatment, the possibility that prejudice and ignorance may infect the process may be too great to justify this intrusion into private matters.

Admission has been denied when the Committee found that an applicant had engaged in fraud during the operation of a business and had not fully and honestly disclosed the details of the matter in his bar application.¹⁷⁵ Applicants have been denied admission due to a finding that there had been academic misconduct during law school.¹⁷⁶ An applicant was denied admission when it was learned that he was advertising as a lawyer in a phone book prior to his admission.¹⁷⁷

The character and...