Law Students on Spring Break: Don't Jeopardize Your Legal Career

Spring break has become an annual ritual for thousands of students.  Hopefully, few of you have had prior experience with law enforcement authorities.  But I wanted to gently remind you that violations of the law during law school can jeopardize your timely admission to the bar.  State bar admission authorities take very seriously: (1) any crimes involving alcohol or illegal drugs; (2) any crimes involving theft, burglary, and embezzlement; and (3) any crimes involving physical violence or the threat of violence.  Students who during law school are charged with such crimes will need to address the concerns of the state character and fitness committees.  Given that there is little time between the incident and the bar examination in most cases, some state bars seek to grant probationary admission (rather than regular admission) or require substantial proof that you do not have a problem that may reappear when the student is facing the pressures of law practice.  Although one criminal incident in law school will not generally result in a complete bar to licensure, it will prove to be an expensive and stressful experience.  Be careful and safe.  Walk away from situations where another person's unlawful or reckless conduct is likely to involve you.

Comments

[S.cotus]

Of course, this also means that students whose families are well-connected, or, at very least well-lawyered will look much more ethical than those who fell off the turnip truck.

[DBS]

Okay, I can't go get drunk & high and start a bunch of fights. I get that. But no embezzlement? Then what's the point of spring break?

Don't misunderstand the sarcasm - I'm not suggesting that such warnings are unnecessary. Only that they should be. Hearing students comment on their summer job search makes me think that it might help quite a lot to return to some clear cases of ethical breach. The most common theme, naturally, involves dishonesty in the hiring process. Another invovles the appropriate response to the difficulties in establishing residency for tuition purposes while still seeking jobs out of state. What disturbs me is not that people make the wrong ethical choice in such contexts, but that the question of ethics does not typically arise at all. If students even notice that the school's honor code can constrain how they can leverage a job offer in their dealings with other firms, they talk as if this constraint were both arbitrary and irrelevant to how anyone actually behaves. I wonder whether presenting ethical rules as if they raised purely prudential concerns contributes to the problem. To get back to your example, certainly it isn't hard to find examples of someone who is typically quite responsible doing something stupid and picking up a conviction that could hurt his future, so your advice is appropriate. However, it's also worth remembering that it is appropriate for state bar authorities to take such convictions seriously. Lawyers should be held to high ethical standards, and even though such a conviction should not automatically bar licensure, it should create an additional hurdle. When I hear ethical advice, I'd rather hear, "Be aware that a violation of [Rule] constitutes an ethical breach that a responsible examiner will be forced to take seriously, and is likely to jeopardize your timely admission to the bar," rather than merely, "Be aware that a violation of [Rule] is likely to jeopardize your timely admission to the bar."

[Scotus]

Thankfully, law firms can be quite unethical in the hiring process and never raise that many eyebrows. The government routinely jerks people around, and frequently the well-connected or best-looking are hired after others have PAID to attend an interview which was not undertaken in good faith. (Some agencies are notorious for this. Others are more ethical.) Same with firms. Luckily, once we are admitted to the bar, it seems that it is much harder to be kicked out then it is to be kept out of the bar.

[John Dzienkowski]

I fully support State Bar inquiries into applicant character and fitness when they relate to acts that related to fitness to practice law. I also usually do not teach students not to commit crimes. This post was drected at the group action issue during spring break -- peer pressure and the fact that authorities often arrest and charge everyone in the group. Authorities often charge everyone in a room with public intoxication even when some individuals have not been drinking. I posted this to urge adults to make good choices in the group action setting.

[Scotus]

Perhaps this highlights a problem with the discipline of legal ethics. Somewhere along the line C&F examiners began to look not just as convictions, but at arrests. The result being that people are not judged not based on whether they are arrested, but on who they associate with. If you are of the class of people who tends to get drunk far away from police, you will be viewed as “more ethical” than someone of a class that is routinely targeted by police.

I should note that in my experience, most law students I know are not “going wild” in Florida (even the ones who go to school in Florida).