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CMLawLibraryBlog

The CM Law Library Blog seeks to inform the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law community about key legal education, research, practice, and law library news, with a particular focus on Cuyahoga County and Ohio as well as faculty research interests.

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ABA Considers Conditional Admission Criteria to Address Rehabbing Applicants

Jan Novak, Associate Director jan.novak@law.csuohio.edu | December 13, 2007 - 13:43

There are so many obstacles a law student needs to overcome on the road to becoming a lawyer: one which may seem insurmountable is a history of treatment for alcohol or drug abuse, mental illness or similar disability, which might effect the applicant’s fitness for practice under review by state bar commissioners. At its February Midwinter meeting the American Bar Association will consider a Model Rule on Conditional Admission to Practice Law, which would permit a state's board of bar examiners to authorize conditional bar admission to applicants with prior mental health or substance abuse problems if they agree to undergo supervised care or monitoring for a period of up to two years. The language of the proposed rule, as reported in the ABA/BNA Lawyer’s Manual of Professional Conduct follows:

"1. Conditional Admission. An applicant who currently satisfies all essential eligibility requirements for admission to practice law, including fitness requirements, and who possesses the requisite good moral character required for admission, may be conditionally admitted to the practice of law if the applicant demonstrates recent rehabilitation from dependency or successful treatment for mental or other illness, or from any other condition the court deems appropriate, that has resulted in conduct or behavior that would otherwise have rendered the applicant currently unfit to practice law, and the conduct or behavior, if it should recur, would impair the applicant's current ability to practice law or pose a threat to the public. The [Admissions Authority] shall recommend relevant conditions that the applicant to the bar must comply with during the period of conditional admission."


For the full report, see ABA/BNA Lawyer’s Manual of Professional Conduct Current Reports, vol. 23, no. 25, p. 626 (December 12, 2007)


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