Appellate Law

That moral character stuff is a load of crap

By S. COTUS

TaxProfBlog points to Keith A. Swisher posted The Troubling Rise of the Legal Profession's Good Moral Character, 82 St.   John's L. Rev. ___ (2008), on SSRN, shows where the ?moral character? requirement came from. Turns out, it came from a desire to exclude communists. Today, it is used just to exclude and harass poor people that don?t have the common decency to live in a neighborhood that isn?t subject to intense police scrutiny and therefore can avoid arrest before they reach law school. It also places increased scrutiny on people that waited an inappropriate amount of time before going to law school.

In case you are wondering, like many lawyers, believe that people that ever sought mental help should not be admitted to the bar.  Their lack of stability might prevent them from providing effective assistance.  Their trips to the shrink might compromise their clients? confidences. However, since a lot of people disagree with me (perhaps because they are addicted to therapy), an easier-to-implement solution would be to test ?moral character? via a legal Kobayashi Maru test.  In this test, the candidate's client, who has many positive attributes and is likely innocent is standing trial.  No matter what the candidate does, he will be sent to a hole for the rest of his life.  The judge and opposing counsel will laugh at the candidate and accuse the candidate of unethical behavior, resulting in their disbarment for representing the client in the first place.  And yes, this test would include an animatronic Cully Stimson.  There would be  a recording of Renee Brissette that would tell the candidate that he isn't detail-oriented, and that he is a bad dresser.  Wouldn't this be a much better way to test moral character?
 

Full post as published by Appellate Law and Practice on February 07, 2008 (boomark / email).