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AndrewMcCormickProject 17 - 27 Jan 2010 - Main.AndrewMcCormick
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-- AndrewMcCormick - 13 Nov 2009 | | | Character and Fitness: a ubiquitous, historically present standard. But a significant one? | |
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< | Every state bar currently requires some form of character and fitness examination, as do most other countries (Rhode citing The Bar Examiner’s Handbook, S. Duhl 2d ed. 1980 - apparently unavailable online, in need of scanning). | >
> | Every state bar currently requires some form of character and fitness examination, as do most other countries (Rhode citing The Bar Examiner’s Handbook, S. Duhl 2d ed. 1980 - apparently unavailable online, in need of scanning). For most law students, this means little more than checking that parking tickets are paid; for a smaller number, serious matters prohibit admission to the bar. Typically, issues of fraud and non-disclosure of lesser offenses. Historically, character has been relevant, but the formality and process of assessment, as well as its rigor, has varied. | | | Rhode argues that, throughout its history and into the present day, character and fitness examinations are cultural showpieces, that they have never barred significant numbers of applicants, and rather have been a tool for delay and harassment and a “ritual” undermining the “ideals it seeks to sustain” (Rhode, Legal Ethics, 490-491. See attachment below). Despite her characterization of C&F standards as "showpieces", she argues that "within the American Bar moral character requirements have been a fixed star in an otherwise unsettled regulatory universe... virtue remained a constant prerequisite, in form if not in fact," and "during the course of the study [it became apparent that] bar examiners rarely exclude candidates on grounds of character, and generally report encountering few cases of serious misconduct" (Rhode, Moral Character as a Professional Credential, MoralCharacterCredential, 491.) |
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