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

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.

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 &#38; 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.<p>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?<p><a href="http://www.startribune.com/nation/112809234.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.startribune.com/nation/112809234.html</a><p><a href="http://www.innocenceproject.org/know/" rel="nofollow">http://www.innocenceproject.org/know/</a>

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.

So, I guess the core conclusion of this article should be this:<p>What does not paying off student loans have to do with your ability to be a lawyer?

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)"?

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?!<p>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.<p>On the other hand, please correct me if I'm missing some important issue here.

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.<p>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?

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

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

When companies find a way to escape their debts, it's "strategic." When individuals so much as contemplate it, it's morally reprehensible.<p>Not a bad dichotomy to set up if you run or own a large business.

Why is the C&#38;F section even on the test? I thought you had to have no character to be a lawyer.