So, at this point you've read about the Ohio Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Ohio Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness's rejection of Jonathan Griffin's application to the bar, right?
Mr. Griffin is in $170,000 of education debt and $16,500 of credit card debt. He works 24-32 hours a week at the Public Defender's office for $12 an hour. The board as well as the court deemed Griffin unfit to practice law because he didn't have a plan for dealing with his debt. Um, I'm pretty sure his plan was to PASS THE BAR and get a job as the lawyer. In the words of Above the Law, "What the hell kind of legal education system are we running where we charge people more than they can afford to get a legal education, and then prevent them from being lawyers because they can't pay off their debts?" Amen.
If you're as outraged as I am, here's the roster of the Ohio Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness. Write these folks a couple letters letting them know how classist you think their decision is.
In case you don't want to risk spending any more loan money on postage, here are the email addresses for the folks who work for private firms (and hence had easy to find email addresses):
Todd C. Hicks, Esq., Chair - thicks@tddlaw.com
G.Scott McBride - gsm@spgmlaw.com
Andrew J. Dorman - adorman@reminger.com
Suzanne K. Richards - skrichards@vorys.com
John C. Fairweather - jfairweather@brouse.com
First of all ... take my father's e-mail address off your list. My dad is one of the most ethically outstanding men I have ever known. There were probably many other underlying issue about your friend that the Board did not like. Get over yourself and your friend's debt. It's not your issue and my dad and the board do not owe him a license to practice law. If his life is not in order, why should people hire him to get their lives in order!? DUH!
ReplyDeletePS - Some people do not deserve to take out loans... or go to law school for that matter. I guess your friend will just have to bag groceries like some other people. It's called humility.
ReplyDeleteA-hole and privilege is dripping from every letter of your posting. This decision sets up a bad precedent for those individuals who've gone through life struggling to make ends meet and hasn't had the opportunity to live on Mommy and Daddy's dime, or were born with a silver spoon in their mouths like you obviously were. What it says to individuals is that if you're poor and go into debt to become a lawyer without establishing a plan to pay back your loans prior to becoming a lawyer, then you don't deserve to be a lawyer. The whole idea of this is asinine. The board might as well have said that you don't deserve a license unless you have a plan to pay for law school prior to attending that doesn't include taking on loans. This decision is straight out class warfare.
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