Character & Fitness Fail for Law Graduate With ‘No Plan’ To Pay Off His Debts

http://abovethelaw.com/2011/01/character-fitness-fail-for-graduate-with-no-plan-to-pay-off-his-debts/

by BRadmin • 16 years ago

35 39 16 years ago

bartonfink• 16 years ago

Just to be clear, this isn't about the guy who offered to leave law school in his 5th semester in exchange for all his tuition back. This is an entirely different situation with an entirely different flavor of fail.

rflrob• 16 years ago

I'm having trouble getting the facts through the indignant tone of the article... how much of this is "can't get a better job until I pass the bar, can't pass the bar until I pay off my debts (for which I need a better job)"?

dschobel• 16 years ago

He had a job as a stock broker and changed it for a $12 /hr part time job, which is what the board took issue with.

Honestly, it's neither that interesting nor that well written of an article.

archangel_one• 16 years ago

I think it is also a significant indicator that he has $16,500 in credit card debt which he also can't pay off. That sounds to me more like he has serious problems around understanding his financial responsibilities than a law student who was required to rack up a large student loan but was doing their best to control it.

I am not convinced by some of the indignant tone of the article either - maybe they have no right to tell him what he should be doing with his life, but surely the whole point of the bar exam is that they have the right to decide if he's the kind of person they want to allow to pass the bar?

adelevie• 16 years ago

That's about $5,000/year while enrolled in law school. Is it _that_ bad?

muerdeme• 16 years ago

Usually the financial aid office includes (extra) generous allowances for food, travel, and rent expenses that may be included in your student loans. Any credit card debt is on top of all of that.

zacstewart• 16 years ago

I've got to say I agree. In my last job, I trained a guy fresh out of law school to be a pizza delivery boy. From what I learned from him, law school is extremely expensive and you're in a tough spot after graduating and waiting for your bar exam, but he was still capable and determined to make enough money to keep himself afloat. Even as a pizza boy, he was making more than $12, and working more than 24-32 hours per week. I don't see any martyr here, and the entitled tone of the article doesn't help the argument either.

alanh• 16 years ago

As an Arizona State Univ. grad myself, I can say that his undergrad alma mater probably doesn’t help his Character assessment!

… but as far as (fiscal) fitness, it’s known to be an exceptionally cheap school, so at least he tried to keep his undergrad debt to a minimum.

shawnee_• 16 years ago

The headline of the article is misleading. A guy who has a job as in public defender's office cannot promptly pay off his $400K in student loans due to the fact that his wages in the public defender's office are ~ $12/hr and he has a daughter. The Ohio Bar is attacking his "Character & Fitness" for not pursuing the kind of legal profession that would enable him to earn the kind of money that people who work for private law firms typically make, and ignores the intangible value he's "paying back" to society by working for a public defender.

What is the value of defending years of freedom for those people who wouldn't otherwise get legal representation, who might and spend 30 years in jail as an innocent person?

http://www.startribune.com/nation/112809234.html

http://www.innocenceproject.org/know/

reader50002• 16 years ago

Its probably misleading cause you misread it. His loans are 170k, reasonable for law school graduate, and C&F has nothing to do with present or future career decisions.

reader50002• 16 years ago

For people who don't understand, they are denying him admission based on his decision to stay on at the public defender instead of quiting and finding likely nonexistent higher paying work to service his exorbitant albeit average student loan debt. This is completely unacceptable micromanaging by the Ohio Supreme Court here and if I were the guy I would keep fighting this. Character and fitness deals merely with a person's honesty and likelihood of not abusing the legal system; not his personal decisions regarding his personal finances that are in no way unusual for a law school graduate. Apparently the members of the OSC graduated 40 years ago when law school tuition was $400/yr. This case is ridiculous; there must be thousands of people in his exact position who passed readily.

ig1• 16 years ago

From the article it seems that he's made no payment on his loan at all, even though he had a job and no substantial outgoings, but rather defaulted. He tried to declare bankruptcy to clear his loan rather than trying to pay it off.

That is an attempt to abuse the legal system.

tptacek• 16 years ago

I don't understand your comment. Student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy.

jasonlotito2• 16 years ago

> they are denying him admission based on his decision to stay on at the public defender instead of quiting and finding likely nonexistent higher paying work to service his exorbitant albeit average student loan debt.

That's incorrect. It's because he's not...

"seeking full-time employment, which he acknowledges would give him a better opportunity to pay his obligations and possibly qualify him for an additional deferment of his student-loan obligation."

So, he admits that he could do a better job at paying his obligations and could also not default on his loan obligations. In other words...

He has already admitted that he has chosen not to work to pay back his loans.

cma• 16 years ago

That isn't illegal or immoral.

rprasad2• 16 years ago

Not quite accurate. The problem was that the dude wasn't trying to seek full-time employment as a public defender.

Lawyers working for the public/non-profit sectors are granted loan forbearance of all student debt (including student debt not related to law school) after working full-time for 10 years for government agencies/non-profits/military. However, part-time work does not apply to this 10-year period. So, he would not have needed to change jobs, only his commitment to his current job.

MaxGabriel• 16 years ago

So, I guess the core conclusion of this article should be this:

What does not paying off student loans have to do with your ability to be a lawyer?

thebooktocome3• 16 years ago

Someone with a large amount of debt is more likely, in the bar association's eyes, to seek illegal or questionably legal means of repaying it.

In this case, there's also the fact that the lawyer in question tried to file bankruptcy to lower his student loan payments, and to discharge some of his credit card debt. He also decided to take on a low-paying job as a public defender -- admirable, perhaps, but in his financial situation, irrational.

rprasad2• 16 years ago

Not quite correct -- the linked blog does not accurately recount the facts of the case.

The guy chose NOT to take on a job as a public defender. He took a job as a part-time public defender, paid hourly wages, instead of pursuing available full time positions in the public defender's office.

The distinction is meaningful because the federal government repays all student loans for lawyers who work in the public/non-profit sectors for 10 years in full-time positions. This is known as loan forbearance. However, it does not apply to lawyers who take on part-time jobs.

thefool• 16 years ago

All other things aside, people actually had a huge amount of freedom when it came to job choice in soviet russia.

whackedspinach• 16 years ago

Why is the C&F section even on the test? I thought you had to have no character to be a lawyer.

danilocampos• 16 years ago

When companies find a way to escape their debts, it's "strategic." When individuals so much as contemplate it, it's morally reprehensible.

Not a bad dichotomy to set up if you run or own a large business.

slavak• 16 years ago

The guy is deep in debt, but chose to keep a low-paying part-time job he [presumably] likes and to default on his loans instead of seeking options that would allow him to keep his obligations. And the complaint is that the guy should be free to do what makes him happy?!

Really? Is this a location issue? Because to me that sounds like the entitled moaning of a 10 year-old. The real world does not and should not care what YOU feel like doing. People are expected to behave like adults and to uphold their obligations. It's YOUR job to figure out a way to do what you love while successfully doing that - not everyone else's.

On the other hand, please correct me if I'm missing some important issue here.

Character & Fitness Fail for Law Graduate With ‘No Plan’ To Pay Off His Debts

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