Still Looking For The Vomit

The Ohio Supreme Court has disapproved an application of a law graduate to sit for the bar examination.

A panel of the board conducted hearings on June 6 and September 26, 2014—the first hearing focused on Scannell’s conduct following his August 2013 automobile accident and the second focused on a fight he had with his girlfriend on a North Carolina beach in July 2012. The panel expressed some concerns regarding Scannell’s candor and honesty with regard to the fight on the beach. But based on its findings that he knowingly made false statements to a magistrate and prosecutor about his automobile accident, gave false sworn testimony at the panel hearing as to what had transpired in court, and took efforts to have the traffic ticket for the accident issued in his father’s name, the panel recommended that Scannell’s pending application be disapproved and that he not be permitted to reapply to take the Ohio bar exam. The board adopted the panel’s findings of fact and recommendation.

The court in turn agreed.

The accident at issue took place in Cuyahoga Falls in August 2013. The applicant sought to falsely place the blame on his father. The father falsely testified that he was the driver

He explained that when the police arrived at the scene of the accident, he was “over in the bushes throwing up” due to nausea he suffered as a result of chemotherapy treatment…

Scannell did not inform the magistrate that his father’s story was a complete fabrication in that his father was not driving the truck, was not a passenger in the truck, and was not even in Cuyahoga Falls the night of the accident. Instead, he supported his father’s story by pointing to a map he had brought with him to indicate in which bushes his father had been throwing up.

The court

While acknowledging that Scannell presented a sad tale of a bright, hard-working young man with impressive letters of recommendation, the panel noted that during his June 2014 hearing, he was “combative, and at other times, rambling and unable to focus or respond to a straightforward question with a direct answer.” The panel also reported that “[h]e was uncommonly nervous throughout the hearing.”

For now

we disapprove Scannell’s pending application to sit for the bar exam, but we will permit him to reapply in two years, provided that he (1) submits to a mental-health evaluation by a licensed psychiatrist or psychologist selected by the board, (2) submits a new application to register as a candidate for admission to the practice of law that includes a report of the findings of his mentalhealth evaluation, and (3) completes a new character and fitness examination, including an investigation by the National Conference of Bar Examiners.

In an unrelated matter, the court denied permission to sit of a bar applicant who had not graduated from law school.

Greenberg initially applied to take the July 2013 bar examination but failed to meet certain requirements, including submitting a final law-school certificate, in time to take that test. He subsequently sat for the February 2014 bar exam but did not pass. After the exam results were released, it was determined that during the application process, his law school had erroneously certified that he had received a law degree when, in fact, he had not.

He had taken the exam in February 2014. (Mike Frisch)