A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

HIS FIRST CLIENT WILL BE JUKT MICRONICS:  A reader points out that for the first time in eleven years, the California Supreme Court will be reviewing a case of whether someone's moral character makes him unfit for the Bar, and that someone is Stephen Glass, whom the New York Bar previously refused to admit on said grounds.

This article reviews the opinions below, which do not otherwise appear available online, with the majority citing character witness testimony in his favor by "two law professors, an owner of TNR, an investigative journalist, four attorneys (including a partner of the firm where Glass is employed), and a founder and CEO of an educational software company who was a Rhodes Scholar," as well as "declarations of five witnesses, including three lawyers, a director at Human Rights Watch, and an International Relations Officer for the U.S. Department of Labor." A dissenting judge noted, however:

Although he provided evidence of some rehabilitation, the Committee proved that five years after his initial public fraud, Glass was not truthful on his application for admission to the New York Bar. In that 2003 application, he expressed remorse for his lies and promised to be honest. Yet, to gain admission to practice law in New York, Glass understated the number of articles he had fabricated and exaggerated his efforts to help the magazines identify those articles. At a time when he should have been scrupulously honest, he presented an inaccurate application because it benefitted him—the same behavior as his earlier misconduct. And as late as 2005, Glass told one psychiatrist that he was still in the process of understanding and accepting his past misconduct. Just two years later, in 2007, he applied for admission to the California bar.

This record does not demonstrate Glass’s complete rehabilitation. If he is admitted to practice law, California courts and others will rely on his word as an officer of the court... Indeed, if Glass were to fabricate evidence in legal matters as readily and effectively as he falsified material for magazine articles, the harm to the public and the profession would be immeasurable. Given the magnitude of his misconduct and his subsequent misrepresentations on his New York Bar application, Glass has not shown proof of reform by a lengthy period of exemplary conduct which ‘we could with confidence lay before the world’ to justify his admission.

[Also per our earlier discussions on this topic, that other author's name still does not appear among those admitted to practice in New York State (though she did pass the bar exam), nor does her name appear on the website of the firm where she is employed.]