State bars may probe applicants’ behavior, but not mental health status, says DOJ

Jun 1, 2014 9:00 AM CDT

LSAC to pay $7.73M, change LSAT policies in settlement of ADA suit

In a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over Law School Admission Test policies concerning the disabled, the Law School Admission Council has agreed to pay $7.73 million and stop flagging test scores of those who were given extra time, among other policy revisions. The LSAC did not admit…

May 20, 2014 10:30 PM CDT

Law students seek license for long-deceased would-be attorney

Seeking to right a 124-year-old wrong, a law student group and two law professors at the University of California-Davis have submitted a bar application on behalf of Hong Yeng Chang. In a well-known case, he was denied a law license in 1890 because he was Chinese, KCRA reports. An 1886…

May 5, 2014 10:55 PM CDT

Florida lawmakers pass bill allowing noncitizens who stayed in the US illegally to get law licenses

The Florida legislature on Friday passed legislation that would allow some noncitizens who stayed here illegally to become lawyers. The bill would allow noncitizens in Florida to become lawyers if they were brought to the country as a child, if they lived here at least 10 years, if they have…

May 5, 2014 6:18 PM CDT

Thirty-eight 3Ls who took the Arizona bar in February await the test results

Thirty-eight law students from Arizona’s three law schools took the bar exam before graduation this year in a pilot program approved in 2012. The students who sat for the bar exam in February of their 3L year have not yet received the test results, the National Law Journal (sub. req.)…

Apr 14, 2014 2:09 PM CDT

Letters: The Stewart Model

Apr 1, 2014 10:10 AM CDT

Changes to bar pass standards delayed by lack of state data, panel says

Apr 1, 2014 6:40 AM CDT

DC federal court proposes elimination of reciprocity rule

Washington, D.C., federal courts have taken the first step towards liberalizing their rules governing out-of-town lawyers and whether or not they can practice law in the nation’s capital. According to Sheldon Snook, a spokesperson for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the court will formally propose new…

Mar 10, 2014 4:45 PM CDT

Immigrants living in US illegally can’t be lawyers, top Florida court says

Immigrants living in the U.S. illegally cannot practice law in Florida, the state’s top court ruled in a unanimous Thursday opinion. FlascBlog provided an early alert about the 11-page advisory opinion (PDF) by the Florida Supreme Court to the Florida Board of Bar Examiners. Authored by Chief Justice Ricky Polston,…

Mar 6, 2014 8:45 PM CST

DOJ says bar officials violate ADA by asking applicants too much about their mental health

Asking would-be lawyers standard questions about their mental health, including their history of diagnosis and treatment, could violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Justice. In a lengthy Feb. 5 letter (PDF) to the Louisiana Supreme Court, its committee on…

Feb 12, 2014 9:30 PM CST

3Ls in New York would take early bar exam, devote final semester to pro bono in new program

New York’s Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman announced a new “pro bono scholars” program on Tuesday in which third-year law students would take the bar exam in February in exchange for devoting their last semester to pro bono work. The first-of-its-kind program has already been approved by the Board of Law…

Feb 12, 2014 1:58 PM CST

Reciprocity fight returns as lawsuits press the ABA-advocated issue

Feb 1, 2014 7:50 AM CST

Do you think character and fitness standards for the bar are too lenient or too harsh?

This week, the California Supreme Court denied disgraced fabulist Stephen Glass admission to the state bar on character and fitness grounds, noting the duration of his journalistic dishonesty in the 1990s and his subsequent efforts to avoid detection. Was the court too harsh? Above the Law assistant editor Joe Patrice…

Jan 29, 2014 6:50 PM CST

Top Calif. court nixes Stephen Glass bar application over the ex-journalist’s deceit years ago

Presenting fiction as fact in long-ago magazine articles cost former journalist Stephen Glass a California law license on Monday, as the state’s top court held that his bar application should be rejected on character and fitness grounds. “Glass’s journalistic dishonesty was not a single lapse of judgment, which we have…

Jan 27, 2014 11:45 PM CST

A second state considers allowing its law-school grads to skip the bar exam

The Iowa Supreme Court will consider a proposal this summer that would allow graduates of Iowa’s two law schools to skip the bar exam if they practice law in the state. The grads would still have to pass an ethics exam, take a class on Iowa law and procedure, and…

Jan 14, 2014 11:45 AM CST