The Stanford Criminal Justice Center (SCJC) and the Stanford Center on the Legal Profession (SCLP) released a report in July 2019 on admission barriers to law school and the California State Bar for qualified people with criminal records.

“Our study reveals that there are successive barriers that keep qualified individuals from entering the legal profession—from applicant concerns about satisfying moral character requirements before applying to law schools to confusion around the different criminal record disclosure requirements for law schools and the California State Bar, to a lack of support while in law school and when navigating the State Bar application process,” said Debbie Mukamal, executive director of the SCJC and co-author of the report.

The report also found that the California State Bar’s moral character review process is imprecise and potentially confusing.  “A lawyer’s misconduct in the context of a professional relationship is of much greater concern to clients than what they do before becoming a lawyer,” said Deborah Rhode, the Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law and director of the SCLP. “Therefore, if the goal is public protection, the standards should be stricter for attorney discipline than they are for admission, not the reverse.” To learn more, go to https://stanford.io/36M7Chk.