Late-Writing Bar Applicant Denied Admission (For Now)
The Ohio Supreme Court has denied admission to an applicant who was found to have twice written after time was called on the bar examination.
Lingyu Jia of Columbus, Ohio, is a 2013 graduate of the Case Western Reserve University School of Law and has applied as a candidate for admission to the Ohio bar. On the recommendation of the admissions committee of the Columbus Bar Association, the Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness approved Jia’s character and fitness and permitted her to take the July 2014 bar exam.
The basis for the denial
Jia applied and sat for the July 2014 bar exam. On the second day of the exam, the MBE portion, the day was divided into a morning session and an afternoon session. During each session, applicants were given 100 multiple-choice questions, for which they were to fill in a bubble on the provided answer sheet.
The applicants were seated two to a table, diagonally positioned with one applicant on each side of the table. As the morning session wound down, and consistent with the written and verbal instructions given to all applicants, the director of the Office of Bar Admissions gave a warning five minutes before the session was to end. Jia received, heard, and understood the instructions. But when the bar-exam official gave the stop command, Jia continued to fill in bubbles after time was called.
The male applicant sitting at an adjacent table to the left of and facing Jia testified that he looked over and observed Jia fill in about three bubbles after time was called. He did not immediately report his observation to a proctor, though he did ask a female applicant at his table—whom he did not know prior to the exam—if she had observed Jia writing after the command to stop. She replied that she had not. Jia does not dispute that she continued to write after time was called at the end of the morning session, but she testified that she filled in just one bubble.
During the afternoon session, the bar-exam official once again gave a five-minute warning before the end of the session. Five minutes later, she instructed the applicants to stop writing and place their materials in the upper-lefthand corner of the table. Because of the conversation between the male and female applicants at the adjacent table following the morning session, the two applicants looked in Jia’s direction to see if she would again write after time was called. Both of the applicants at the adjacent table testified that Jia filled in one bubble after time was called. The next morning, the female applicant advised a proctor of her observations. Jia testified that she was certain that she did not write past the allotted time during the afternoon session.
The third and final day of the bar exam was a morning-only session consisting of six essay questions that were distributed two at a time. The applicants were permitted to type their answers to the essay questions using a laptop computer program.
Because the female applicant reported her observations the previous day, Rosey White, a 13-year employee of the Office of Bar Admissions and a proctor for the exam, approached Jia’s table at the end of the time allotted for the first two essay questions. According to White’s testimony, after the instruction to exit the program had been given, she observed that Jia did not remove her hands from the keyboard and let them hover over it as if she were going to continue typing—but she did not continue to type. White approached Jia, placed her hand on Jia’s shoulder or desk, and gave her a command to stop. After receiving the verbal command, Jia removed her hands from the keyboard and then exited the essay program. Neither the adjacent applicants nor the proctor observed Jia typing past the allotted time in either of the remaining essay sessions.
The male applicant reported his observations.
A hearing was held and it was determined that the applicant had passed even with a penalty
The Board of Bar Examiners adopted the panel report and imposed a 16.7-percent penalty on the MBE portion of Jia’s exam—a sanction comparable to those imposed on applicants who had been determined to have written after time was called on an essay question. Even with that penalty, Jia’s score was high enough to pass the bar exam, but the Board of Bar Examiners referred the matter to the Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness for further review.
The court concluded that the applicant had failed (for now) the test of character
Because the evidence shows that Jia continued to write after time was called on two separate occasions during the bar exam, we agree that she has failed to satisfy her burden.
Accordingly, we adopt the character-and-fitness board’s finding that in light of her conduct during the bar exam, Jia has failed to prove that she currently possesses the requisite character, fitness, and moral qualifications for admission to the practice of law in Ohio. Consequently, we disapprove Jia’s application at this time. However, Jia may submit an applicant’s affidavit and a newly completed supplemental character questionnaire to the Office of Bar Admissions on or after May 1, 2016, and if those documents reveal no further character and fitness issues, Jia may be sworn in as a member of the Ohio bar.
Lesson here. (Mike Frisch)