In re Application of Martin

[Cite as In re Application of Martin, 134 Ohio St.3d 154, 2012-Ohio-5427.]

IN RE APPLICATION OF MARTIN.

[Cite as In re Application of Martin, 134 Ohio St.3d 154, 2012-Ohio-5427.]

Applicant for admission to practice of law currently lacks the requisite character,

fitness, and moral qualifications—Applicant may reapply to take a later

bar examination.

(No. 2012-0426—Submitted May 9, 2012—Decided November 28, 2012.)

ON REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness of the

Supreme Court, No. 513.

__________________

Per Curiam.

{¶ 1} Ebonie Michelle Martin of Columbus, Ohio, graduated from

Capital University Law School in May 2011. She applied as a candidate for

admission to the Ohio bar in September 2010 and subsequently applied to take the

July 2011 bar exam. After an admissions committee recommended that her

application be disapproved, a panel of the Board of Commissioners on Character

and Fitness held a hearing to address the issues identified in the report by the

admissions committee. The panel and board recommend that we disapprove

Martin’s application based on her present lack of the requisite character, fitness,

and moral qualifications, and permit her to apply to take the July 2014 bar exam.

We adopt the board’s recommendation to disapprove the pending application and

to permit Martin to apply to take the July 2014 bar exam.

Summary of Proceedings

{¶ 2} Two separate panels of the Columbus Bar Association admissions

committee interviewed Martin in 2011. On June 30, 2011, the admissions

committee issued a report recommending that Martin not be approved as to her

character, fitness, and moral qualifications to practice law in Ohio. Martin

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appealed the committee’s recommendation to the Board of Commissioners on

Character and Fitness pursuant to Gov.Bar R. I(12)(B).

{¶ 3} A panel of the board conducted a formal hearing and issued a

report identifying three areas of concern that led the panel to recommend that we

disapprove Martin’s application based on her character and fitness at this time.

The board adopted the panel’s report in its entirety. Neither Martin nor the

admissions committee objects to the board’s findings or recommendation.

{¶ 4} The panel and board first express concern about Martin’s

truthfulness based on her explanation that she had failed her real-property class

during her first semester of law school because she had failed to place her

assigned exam number on the exam. She claimed that she had written the number

on the palm of her hand but that her sweaty palms had rendered the number

illegible. The admissions committee’s investigation, however, revealed that while

Martin may have lost some points based on her failure to use her assigned exam

number, she had also performed poorly on the exam.

{¶ 5} The second area of concern relates to Martin’s handling of her

finances. Although Martin owed only $15,000 in undergraduate student loans

when she started law school, she amassed a student-loan balance of approximately

$150,000 for tuition and living expenses while attending Capital University Law

School, despite receiving scholarships to pay all but $18,000 a year for school, in

addition to public assistance. At the time of the hearing, her loans were in

forbearance. The panel and board found, however, that by obtaining financial

counseling, creating a budget, and obtaining employment as a paralegal, Martin

showed that she is beginning to address this issue.

{¶ 6} The third and most serious area of concern identified by the board

relates to Martin’s lack of truthfulness in her explanation of a 2008 traffic stop

that resulted in her being charged with providing false information to a police

officer to avoid a citation, driving with an expired driver’s license, and failing to

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January Term, 2012

restrain a child in a car seat. Martin testified, and the police officer’s testimony

confirmed, that she had been pulled over because the officer believed that the

windows of her vehicle were too darkly tinted—though she was never charged

with an offense related to the window-tinting.

{¶ 7} At the hearing, Martin admitted that when she was pulled over, she

did not have her driver’s license with her and the license had expired more than

six months before her traffic stop. She testified that when the officer asked her

for her Social Security number, she gave him her mother’s Social Security

number instead, but she claimed that she had done so by mistake, due to the stress

of the situation and the fact that she regularly gave her mother’s Social Security

number in dealing with her mother’s health issues. But the officer testified that in

addition to giving him her mother’s Social Security number, Martin also gave him

her mother’s name and date of birth.

{¶ 8} On her bar-exam application, Martin reported that the providing-

false-information charge was due to her telling the officer that the child in the

vehicle during the traffic stop was her daughter when it was actually her

goddaughter. At the hearing, Martin maintained that at the time she filled out her

bar-exam application, she believed that the confusion over the child’s identity was

the basis of the falsification charge against her.

{¶ 9} Although the falsification and child-restraint charges were dropped

and Martin pleaded guilty to the no-operator’s-license charge, the panel and board

believed the officer’s version of the events as conveyed through his testimony and

the report he prepared at the time of the traffic stop. Moreover, they believed that

Martin had used her mother’s name, birth date, and Social Security number in an

attempt to avoid responsibility for driving with an expired driver’s license.

{¶ 10} The panel and board were also troubled by Martin’s explanation

about why the car she was driving at the time of the stop was not registered in her

name, although she claimed that she had purchased it from her friend. The panel

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asked Martin to submit additional documentation regarding the transaction after

the hearing, and the panel’s report states that that documentation demonstrates

that “the transaction was completely different than the testimony provided by the

Applicant at the hearing.” That documentation, however, has not been

transmitted to this court as part of the record.

{¶ 11} Citing Martin’s testimony concerning the false information given

to the police officer during her 2008 traffic stop and her apparently false

testimony about her purchase of the car, the panel and board expressed concern

about her truthfulness. Based upon those facts, they submit that Martin does not

presently possess the character, fitness, and moral qualifications necessary for

admission to the bar of Ohio. Therefore, they recommend that we disapprove

Martin’s application and permit her to reapply for the July 2014 bar exam.

Disposition

{¶ 12} An applicant to the Ohio bar must prove by clear and convincing

evidence that he or she “possesses the requisite character, fitness, and moral

qualifications for admission to the practice of law.” Gov.Bar R. I(11)(D)(1). The

applicant’s record must justify “the trust of clients, adversaries, courts, and others

with respect to the professional duties owed to them.” Gov.Bar R. I(11)(D)(3).

“A record manifesting a significant deficiency in the honesty, trustworthiness,

diligence, or reliability of an applicant may constitute a basis for disapproval of

the applicant.” Id.

{¶ 13} Based upon the foregoing, we agree that Martin has failed to prove

that she currently possesses the requisite character, fitness, and moral

qualifications for admission to the practice of law. We therefore adopt the

board’s findings of fact and disapprove Martin’s pending application to take the

bar examination. Martin may apply to take the July 2014 bar examination by

filing a new application to register as a candidate for admission to the practice of

law and an application to take the bar examination. Upon reapplication, she shall

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undergo a complete character and fitness investigation, including an investigation

and report by the National Conference of Bar Examiners and a review and

interview by the appropriate local bar association admissions committee.

Judgment accordingly.

O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’DONNELL, CUPP,

and MCGEE BROWN, JJ., concur.

LANZINGER, J., concurs in judgment only.

__________________

Leppla Associates and Gary James Leppla, for applicant.

Loveland & Brosius, L.L.C., and William L. Loveland, for the Columbus

Bar Association.

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