Ohio Denies Permission To Sit For Bar Exam: Character Issues Despite Recovery From Heroin Addiction

An application to sit for the bar examination has been disapproved by the Ohio Supreme Court.

Mikulin applied to take the July 2015 bar exam and despite expressing some concern about his history of substance abuse, his failure to address his financial responsibilities, and his extensive history of traffic violations, the admissions committee of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar recommended that his character and fitness be approved. In light of those concerns,  however, the Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness exercised its authority to review his application sua sponte…

The board found that Mikulin began to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana on a regular basis while he was in high school and that as a consequence, he lost interest in school and his grades fell. He admitted that he went to college to “party” and that his substance abuse “took off” once he arrived at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, in 2002. In addition to drinking and smoking marijuana, he progressed to using Percocet, Vicodin, and OxyContin. When those drugs became too expensive, he began snorting heroin. He was academically dismissed from Florida Atlantic in 2005.

Mikulin reported that after he lost his job for walking off his shift, he hit bottom in May 2006. “[B]roke and sick,” he called his father, who took him to enroll in an outpatient treatment program. Mikulin started attending Narcotics Anonymous and stopped using heroin and opiates, though he admitted that he continued to drink alcohol. But he relapsed following the sudden death of his younger brother and starting shooting heroin.

The board described Mikulin’s life from late 2006 to approximately 2012 as a roller coaster of addictive drug use and periods of treatment, followed by brief periods of sobriety. He lost several jobs during that time—once for dishonestly altering a restaurant customer’s credit-card receipt to increase his tip. Following two arrests in November 2008 for possession of heroin, Mikulin entered the Ashtabula County drug-court program. He continued with treatment, and despite a number of relapses, graduated from the drug-court program in 2010 and Cleveland State University in 2012. Although he used heroin again for two weeks in March 2011, he subsequently completed a five-day detox program. At his May 2015 admissions hearing, he testified that he had not used heroin since that time and that believing he should not use any drug—including alcohol—he stopped drinking in August 2012. Shortly after starting law school, he entered into a three year contract with the Ohio Lawyers Assistance Program and has complied with its terms. He graduated from Case Western Reserve University School of Law in May 2015.

The court noted progress in his recovery from addiction but there were other character issues.

While crediting Mikulin for the difficult steps he has taken to overcome his heroin addiction, the board was troubled by the combination of his extensive traffic record and his financial irresponsibility. Finding that these factors reflect a disregard for the law when Mikulin “should be striving to be an exemplar of obedience to the law,” the board recommended that Mikulin’s application be disapproved at this time but that he be permitted to apply for the July 2016 bar examination.

(Mike Frisch)