It’s not a big deal, but it sort of is. Basically, it means I don’t have to appear at a character and fitness hearing before they’ll let me take the bar exam.
I’m not surprised - I don’t have a criminal record or anything - but they’re pretty in depth. Your five references and every prior employer get a three page questionnaire.
They also go through your law school application and compare it to your bar application to see if you were “enhancing” any of your qualifications. Of course, you don’t learn that until you’ve already started law school and you’re stuck with anything you made up (I didn’t, but I put down years I did extracurriculars more or less at random because I couldn’t remember.)
Law professors all say pretty much the same thing: as long as you’re honest, you’ll be okay. I suppose if your secret has something to do with bodies in your crawlspace, you should probably keep it to yourself, but otherwise they just want you to confess your sins and repent.
I admitted to a driver’s license suspension I’m not sure ever occurred.
Sweet. They don’t give you official notice here, they just run your fingerprints off NCIC and run you through VICAP, and also you have to know at least one Willie Nelson song by memory on demand if requested.
Seriously, I’ve quietly followed your final year of law school with a good deal of interest and have been just a bit proud that your grasp and discussion of the law has taken a noticeably acute and professional voice. You’re thinking like a lawyer. Good for you.
You got off easy. In Austria, bar applicants have to prove their good character by juggling, tap-dancing, and singing the “Catalina Magdalena Hoopensteiner Wallendiner” song.
Wow! Ethical enough to be a lawyer, huh? That’s really saying something!
I knew one guy in law school who the faculty unsuccessfully tried to blackball at this step. I’ve long thought this pre-admission ethics stupid, since post-admission enforcement is such a joke. I’ve long advocated giving everyone a ticket into the game, but then lowering the hammer on the incompetent and unethical who have been admitted.
Congratulations. I’ve never heard of a Bar Clearance, nor imagined anything of the sort was needed.
But I guess you really Cleared the Bar. That’s always good.
No letters in Florida anymore, unless you take the exam before receiving clearance. You just go on a website and put in your exam location and it shows you a list of exam taker numbers with pass or fail next to them. Pretty cold.
Feels like it for me, too, although in other ways it feels like I’ve been in school for decades. In some respects I’m practically institutionalized; I won’t know how to function when I don’t leave work and go to class.
Still a little over a year before I take the bar exam (July 29-30, 2014.)
I know of a person who was allowed to matriculate in a prestigious, accredited law school *despite *a dishonorable discharge from the Navy (for theft) and a couple of restraining order violations as an undergrad. So maybe clearing the bar isn’t really that difficult.
There was no way I was ever going to do either but then again, I was never asked. Also, when I was admitted, ethics issues had only started getting some long overdue attention.
