Worried about the Character and Fitness Application? This video can help.

As a law student, you have to pass your jurisdiction’s character and fitness application if you want to sit for the bar. Students typically complete this extensive background check sometime during law school or when they apply to take the bar.

Get that? You’ll just have to wait to find out whether your jurisdiction deems you morally fit to practice law, or not, after you’ve racked up a few thousand in law school loans. Needless to say, this is a process you want to go as smoothly as possible.

Law students are asked to disclose almost everything – work history, where you went to school, and plenty of references and contacts you probably haven’t talked to in years.

So if there’s something in your past you’re worried about, or if you just need some guidance with your character and fitness application, this video can help. The program is co-sponsored by our friends at the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility.

Watch Understanding the Bar Admission Form and the Moral Character and Fitness

Student moderator Meredith Small of Harvard Law School talked with Dennis Rendleman, Ethics Counsel at the American Bar Association, about issues law students will confront in completing the bar admission forms, with particular emphasis on character and fitness applications. Rendleman highlighted issues relating to red flag conduct, truthfulness, coordination with law school application and fitness to practice as it relates to student loans.

You can view the slides from the presentation in this PDF.

This is the first webinar in our Ethics Series. See our complete schedule of Ethics Series webinars and more on our events calendar.

More on the Moral Character and Fitness Application

For more guidance from around the ABA on the character and fitness application process, check out:

• The Other Bar Hurdle: the Character and Fitness Requirement from our very own Student Lawyer magazine.
• Honesty is the best policy for character-and-fitness screenings from the ABA Journal.

• What Does it Take to Satisfy Character and Fitness Requirements? from the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar’s Syllabus.