International Law

Lawyers jokes aside, attorneys are evaluated for their "character and fitness" before they are admitted to the bar in their state.

They questions are what you would expect -- have you been expelled from any institution for an honor violation, have you ever convicted for any crime, etc.

But the Association of American Law Schools is sponsoring a panel that will address whether applicants'  cyber-stalking and cyber-harassment should be evaluated as part of the character and fitness assessment. From the description of the panel:

Cyber-stalking and cyber-harassment have made their way to the legal academy....Do law students who engage in harassment, smearing, and other such conduct (on Facebook, blogs, "Above the Law," etc.) raise fitness and professionalism issues?  Is there a problem with law students using websites to make outrageous gender- or race-specific comments (often about other students or faculty members)?  (See http://lawvibe.com/the-autoadmit-scandal-xoxoth/ .)  Is this conduct beyond question as free speech or does this conduct raise character and fitness issues that law schools must address? 

Eugene Volokh of the Volokh Conspiracy outlined the specific free speech issues and the chance that an ill-defined policy would chill debate among law students fearful of getting too close to the line.

Brian Leiter suggested that, "a simple rule like, 'No one shall be admitted to the Bar who repeatedly and with malicious intent posts on the Internet threats (implied or otherwise) of sexual violence against women' would not unduly impinge the marketplace of ideas."

No one (well, except, we assume those who post seriously harassing items on a site) finds true harassment or stalking -- on or off the Internet -- particularly appealing behavior, and, while I'm at it, I would rather not have a total chauvinist as my attorney, but outside the clear line threatening illegal behavior like Leiter suggests, this would be a fairly difficult thing to approproiately institute.

Like most free speech trade-offs, it would be better to admit a few undesirables (who will hopefully weed themselves out in one way or another) than risk stifling legitimate debate.

Although this post is American centric, it is nonetheless an important reminder to all Australian law students that they need to be careful when online, or they may potentially risk having some difficulty when it comes time to being admitted.