<p>I was reading this entry about Tips getting into law school, and I was taken aback by this:</p>
<ol>
<li> Stay Out of Trouble. Thinking of throwing a kegger in your dorm room with your pals this weekend? Think again. In addition to wanting to know your grades and test scores, law schools will ask you questions relating to your "character and fitness" to practice law. Essentially, this involves disclosing any academic or criminal disciplinary incident in which you've ever been involved. Every year, I see confessions involving everything from on-campus alcohol infractions to arrests for various ill-considered activities. Even if you make it into law school, these disclosures are forwarded to the bar committee of the state where you intend to practice and could keep you from being admitted to the bar. Make your life easier by considering the long-term effects of your decisions, even if they seem like a fun idea now.</li>
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<p>Really? Really? From my understanding, any student "misconduct" doesn't get placed on academic or personal records and are deleted after a certain amount of years. Basically, they aren't permanent. So, with that in mind, who the hell would admit to "bad behavior". Finally, a kegger you threw in college shouldn't prohibit you from being admitted into the bar. Especially if it's "non-criminal". </p>
<p>Your law school application will ask you straight up about academic and disciplinary incidents. In addition, many law schools will require a dean’s certification. A dean’s certification is required by some law schools to confirm that applicants have not been involved in academic or disciplinary transgressions as undergraduates. Your school’s dean will have to disclose all information whether or not it shows up on your transcript.</p>
<p>It is better to disclose, disclose, disclose as the lack of disclosure would probably get you in more trouble during the character and fitness review than the actual infraction itself.</p>
<p>You want to disclose. Don’t even THINK about lying. </p>
<p>If it’s not a serous offense, it is unlikely to keep you from being admitted to the bar. If you don’t disclose it and it comes out later, the failure to disclose really can keep you from being admitted.</p>
<p>throwing the kegger isn’t the problem. No law school or bar application (that I know of) will ask “did you throw a party in college?” or even “did you consume alcohol when a minor or provide it to minors?”.</p>
<p>BUT they will ask if you had been charged with (not just convicted of!) any crime–some states even ask about parking tickets, and a lot ask about moving violations. And they will also ask if you were ever subject to disciplinary action at your college or law school. </p>
<p>So it’s not about confessing to throwing a kegger–it’s about what happens if you get caught throwing that kegger and it goes on your record. To respond to your statement “From my understanding, any student “misconduct” doesn’t get placed on academic or personal records and are deleted after a certain amount of years.”, it is completely incorrect. Colleges don’t delete things from your record after a certain amount of time. And criminal arrests and citations obtained as an adult (and many juvenile ones) are always on your record, unless you’re able to go through a process of having them pardoned or expunged…and even then, law schools and bar examiners may want to know about them.</p>
<p>I cannot stress enough how bad an idea it would be to lie about one’s record. You would not believe how stringent bar examiners can be (personal example: I was sued in small claims court my first year of law school. It was a very minor issue and the case was dismissed. When I applied for admission to the bar, I had to disclose it on my application, was then asked to provide more details in a separate written account, and expect to be asked about it when interviewed before admission. And that’s for a stupid small claims, civil, suit, that was dismissed within weeks of filing).</p>
<p>The bar of most states will obtain certified copies of your law school application from your law school (yes, law schools do indeed have to keep copies of the law school applications of all of the students who actually attend that law school). The disclosures on your application will be matched against the disclosures you make on your bar application/character and fitness committee statements as a matter of course, and if a full background check is ordered (which you must give them permission to do, though I don’t know the frequency with which it is done), everything had better match up pretty tightly.</p>
<p>The bar examiners will require that you disclose even expunged, or otherwise “no longer on the record”, information about violations. The bar examiners will also require that you disclose all charges that have been brought and any arrests, regardless of the outcome (though you can explain). You are best served by disclosing everything, and I mean everything.</p>
<p>I have friends and colleagues (all now admitted to the bar) who had to disclose public urination charges, serving alcohol to minors charges (fraternity social chariman – this was an on campus, university charge without any police involvement) and junior high school shoplifting charges. I have heard of instances where multiple instances of the same violation/crime/bad behavior can prove quite difficult to overcome (e.g. multiple DWI) and certain crimes that will be quite difficult to overcome on their own (e.g. plagarism, cheating, embezzlement – anything that shows a lack of truthfulness). </p>
<p>Law schools ask these questions up front because if you will have trouble being admitted to the bar, they would rather not bother to waste a seat and have you waste your time on a law degree.</p>