State Bar to create standards for moral character review

In addition to passing the bar exam, every attorney in California must be "of good moral character" to be licensed. But there aren't clear, public guidelines on what moral character means.

Now the State Bar is looking to change that. A working group will establish uniform standards to provide greater consistency and transparency in the review process.

"We believe that this effort will contribute greatly to ensuring that the admissions process is both inclusive and fair," State Bar Executive Director Leah Wilson said in a statement.

The group was established after a September 2018 sub-entity review suggested moral character reviews could be affected by subjectivity and bias.

"Some suggested that, despite guidance and calibration, standards for rejection seemed uneven and, at times, imbalanced. The lack of good standards for defining moral character has been widely noted," according to the review.

Thirty-nine other states have published moral character standards, according to the report.

At the group's first meeting in San Francisco Friday, the seven-member committee reviewed the issues that arise most often in moral character evaluations and how the State Bar approaches these decisions.

Moral character issues vary in severity and can include misdemeanor and felony convictions, college or law school probation or honor code violations, driving under the influence infractions, job terminations and attorney discipline or disbarment in another state.

Of the approximately 9,000 applications the bar receives annually, about 200 result in a further interview with the Committee of Bar Examiners, according to State Bar supervising attorney Michael J. Glass. Only a couple of denials per year are appealed to the State Bar Court, he said.

For the most extreme cases, the state Supreme Court established a rehabilitation test to determine if an applicant who committed a severe infraction in the past can still be admitted to the bar. The applicant must have "a compelling showing of rehabilitation and truly exemplary conduct over an extended period that would suffice to demonstrate his fitness for the practice of law." In re Glass, 58 Cal. 4th 500 (Cal. 2014).

The working group's task will be to define the standard for good moral character and further consider how to account for these rehabilitative efforts.

There is not yet a timeline for releasing the group's recommendations.