Prom Dresses And Bar Admission

The North Carolina Supreme Court has affirmed a recommendation of the Wake County Superior Court to deny a petition to sit for the bar examination

In May 2010, petitioner received her Juris Doctor degree from North Carolina Central University School of Law. After law school, petitioner initially applied for, and later received, a license to practice law in Washington, D.C. In October 2010, while her District of Columbia Bar application still was pending, petitioner applied to take the North Carolina Bar Examination. In her North Carolina Bar application, petitioner disclosed forty incidents between 1983 and 2004 in which she had been accused of criminal offenses including forgery, larceny, shoplifting, writing worthless checks, using a stolen credit card, possessing stolen property, and obtaining property by false pretenses. Petitioner acknowledged that many of these incidents had resulted in criminal convictions.

A hearing was held on the North Carolina application 

Petitioner testified at the hearing in support of her application and explained that, beginning in the 1980s, she committed a number of criminal offenses, which she characterized as being motivated by financial necessity. Yet she also stated that her life started to change after a particular incident of shoplifting that occurred in 2002. Petitioner testified that on this occasion, which occurred the day of her twin daughters’ prom, she had attempted to take prom dresses from a department store by concealing them in a bag. Petitioner stated that after she was caught and her daughters learned what she had done, the extent of her criminal conduct was “put in front of [her] face.” She testified that subsequently, she began going to counseling and started working for her father. She testified that she had not stolen anything since the incident in 2002. Petitioner stated that she had been truthful about her criminal history when applying to law school, the District of Columbia Bar, and the North Carolina Bar. Although petitioner acknowledged that she had “neglected” to include some of her criminal history in her law school application and her two bar applications, she testified that the omissions occurred because she “just forgot.” Petitioner stated that she had amended each application to correct the omissions.

There were discrepancies in the various explanations

the Board [of Law Examiners] entered an order denying petitioner’s application. In its order the Board noted that petitioner had committed a substantial number of criminal offenses throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The Board found that petitioner had failed to disclose six criminal convictions on her law school application and that she had received a letter of caution from the school “remind[ing]” her of her “obligation to provide full disclosure.” In addition, the Board stated that petitioner had omitted seven criminal charges on her District of Columbia Bar application and six charges of failure to appear on her North Carolina Bar application. The Board discussed how petitioner’s accounts of the 2002 shoplifting incident differed. The Board explained that in petitioner’s initial written account, she asserted that “she had taken the prom dresses (previously purchased) to a tailor to be hemmed,” and after unsuccessfully attempting to steal undergarments to go with the dresses, she eventually produced receipts for the dresses and had them returned to her. The Board noted that this written account differed from petitioner’s testimony describing the event and concluded that the differences “showed a lack of candor.”

…the Board concluded that petitioner had failed to carry her burden of demonstrating that she possesses the requisite character for admission, partly because of her past criminal conduct and partly because of numerous misstatements and omissions that were revealed by the evidence. The evidence establishes that petitioner submitted inaccurate accounts of the 2002 shoplifting incident to both the Board and the District of Columbia Bar Committee. Her initial narrative contained specific but inaccurate details, such as taking the prom dresses to be hemmed, being falsely accused of shoplifting the dresses, and having the dresses later returned to her. Subsequently, petitioner submitted to the District of Columbia Bar Committee a revised statement asserting that the incident occurred on the night before the prom and that she stole prom dresses and shoes, while in her North Carolina Bar application, petitioner stated that the incident happened a week before the prom. Petitioner acknowledged that she “should have re-amended” her North Carolina Bar application to reflect this revised statement. Finally, during her testimony before the Board, petitioner stated that the incident occurred both on the day of the prom and the night before. When she was asked “exactly” what she attempted to take, she responded, “It was the dresses,” and when asked whether she attempted to take “[a]nything else,” she said, “No.” These three accounts each differ significantly with respect to factual details such as when the incident occurred and what was taken. The Board did not err by considering petitioner’s testimony and other statements and concluding that she demonstrated “a lack of candor.”

The petitioner was profiled on the web page of her law school with a link to a story from the News & Observer.

One notable aspect of the opinion is that it points out how different bar admission can be from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. (Mike Frisch)