Ex parte Minor
| Decision Date | 28 June 1973 |
| Docket Number | No. 53673,53673 |
| Citation | 280 So.2d 217 |
| Parties | Ex parte Paul Stephen MINOR and Jack Mark Stoller. |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
SUMMERS, J., assigns reasons for denying this application.
TATE, J., dissents from the denial of the application and assigns written reasons.
BARHAM, J., dissents from the denial of the application.
DIXON, J., dissents; this rule newly instituted by the committee in Feb., 1973, has never been submitted to and approved by this Court, as required by the Articles of Incorporation of the Bar Association.
Application for Review of Action of the Committee on Bar Admissions.
The necessities of modern mass society may require a certain amount of mass bureaucratic processing and of governmental intrusion into the privacy of individuals. In a democratic republic of free men, these must be kept to the minimum.
A word should be said about the request of the applicants. In their letter, they respectfully advised the Committee that in their view the blanket authorization to sift through their records, wherever situated and at whatever far time in the future the bar association might desire to do so, was not authorized by the rule of this court (which had delegated to the Committee certain bar admission functions) and was overbroad and unreasonable. (The court in fact limited the duration of the broadly worded waiver to the period before admission to the bar.)
Each of the applicants stated that 'if the Supreme Court of Louisiana deems the waiver originally requested reasonable, I will comply with the request' and each further stated Each of the applicants succinctly summarized their position as follows:
The respectful refusal of these earnest young applicants to complete a form they regarded as excessive, unreasonable, and unauthorized is in the finest tradition of our bar and of our Republic. Blind acceptance of authority's edicts is Not an American ideal. The legal profession is the first-line (and sometimes the last-line) defense of individual liberty and of the right of the individual to be free from unreasonable governmental restraint. I can only deplore any attitude of those responsible for administering the affairs of the bar--i.e., this court and the organized bar committees--which would somehow find it blameworthy and a cause for investigation of character that young Americans make a reasoned attack upon a bureaucratic regulation they regard as unauthorized and arbitrary.
In my view, the form for applicants required by the Committee on Bar Admissions created by this court is not authorized by the rule of this court creating this committee. Additionally, this form represents an unreasonable and excessive intrusion through authority of government into the privacy of individuals. Its requirement that the individual give his consent in advance to such intrusion, without further notice to him, is intolerable in a free society.
I cannot subscribe to such action under the color of governmental authority granted by this court--all the less, because our rule did not contemplate or authorize it. I respectfully dissent.
SUMMERS, Justice .
'Every applicant to be admitted to the practice of law in this State must meet the following requirements until such time as they may be changed by the Board of Governors of this Association with the approval of the Supreme Court:
(A) At least forty-five days prior to the date fixed for the examination each applicant for admission must deliver to the Secretary of this Association an application addressed to the Committee on Bar Admissions on the required form, accompanied by an examination fee of thirty-five dollars ($35.00). The application shall be prepared by the applicant, in his own handwriting, and shall be sworn to by him before an officer authorized to administer oaths.
(B) Each applicant must produce satisfactory evidence that he is:
(d) A graduate of a law school that is approved by the American Bar Association.
(C) Each applicant must be certified to the Supreme Court by the Committee on Bar Admissions as having satisfactorily passed the required examinations.' (Articles of Incorporation of Louisiana State Bar Association, Art. XIV, § 7)
These applicants for admission to the practice of law in the State of Louisiana, by a joint petition to this Court, seek a declaration that they have fulfilled all statutory requisites to qualify. In this connection, their petition alleges that the Committee on Bar Admissions lacks the statutory authority to require the signing of a 'Certificate of Waiver' devised by the Committee to facilitate its inquiry into the 'good moral character' of all applicants. The document authorizes the Committee to obtain information from employers, the Armed Forces, law enforcement agencies, educational institutions and federal, state, or local bar associations concerning applicants. It is also a waiver of the confidential nature of that information, together with a release of all claims resulting from disclosures made in reliance upon the waiver. For the February 1973 bar examination, all 118 applicants signed the certificate, 473 signed for the July 1973 exam. Only these two applicants refused.
Applicants assert that they have each submitted two certificates of good moral character. These, they say, constitute 'satisfactory evidence' that they are 'of good moral character' as the Articles of Incorporation of the Bar Association provide. It is argued, therefore, that the authorization and waiver to investigate their background is unnecessary, and the Committee is without authority to impose such a requirement.
Their position is that the Committee's failure to approve their applications, and the Committee's stated purpose to withhold the results of their bar examinations until an investigation to determine their eligibility has been conducted, constitutes an unreasonable classification resulting in a denial of due process and equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.
This Court denied the application. Our ruling requires all applicants for admission to the bar to sign the authorization and waiver.
The contention that the Committee is without authority to require the signing of such an authorization and waiver is not well founded. Just as we have authorized the Committee to provide application forms for bar examination applicants (Art. XIV, § 8 ibid.) without setting forth the details of those forms, the implementation of the requirement that the applicant produce satisfactory evidence of good moral character is not set forth in detail. Instead the experience, knowledge and good judgment of the Committee is relied upon to supply the necessary administrative procedures to meet the practical problems presented. It is now the universal practice for state supreme courts to delegate the administrative details of bar admission to a board or committee of bar examiners. Comment, 1970 Wisc.L.Rev. 471. Members of the Committee on Bar Admissions are especially knowledgeable and experienced in the affairs of the practicing bar. They are the profession's chosen representatives whom we have approved.
And while the powers of the Committee are merely recommendatory, and not binding upon this Court, the Committee was created for the express purpose of relieving the Court of the onerous duty of examining applicants for admissions. Of necessity, this involves investigating their fitness, both as to legal learning and moral character. Recognizing this responsibility of the Committee, this Court has traditionally accorded wide latitude to that body to enable it to adopt administrative and clerical procedures considered necessary to accomplish its mission. Thus, this Court will refuse to exercise its authority in contravention of the Committee's recommendations and practices, unless a clear showing is made by the applicant that the Committee's actions are arbitrary, unreasonable or contrary to sound principles applicable to bar admissions. The Committee has been scrupulous in the exercise of the authority granted to it by the court. Cf. Spears v. State Bar of California, 211 Cal. 183, 294 P. 697 (1930).
Since the authority of the Committee generally would include the right to devise and require the signing of this ...
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