Texas
Board of Law Examiners
Full Length Articles
By Renée
Moeller-Taylor and Robert “Bob” Bennett in association with The
Bennett Law Firm
Any
Texas
law student wishing to apply for admission to the Texas Bar must complete
and filed a form entitled the Declaration
of Intention to Study Law (“Declaration”) with the Texas Board of
Law Examiners (“BLE”).[i]
The deadlines vary according to when you start law school; however
the deadline tends to fall shortly (possibly as quickly as within 6 weeks)
of when you begin your law school studies.
Check with the Texas Board of Law Examiners for exact deadlines.
A.
When the Process starts for the Texas Board of Law Examiners
It all actually starts before you are accepted to law school.
The Texas Board of Law Examiners’ staff will compare the
responses given on your law school application to the responses given on
your Declaration. Questions
relating to criminal offenses and discipline received as a student will
receive particular review.[ii]
You should note that the questions are not necessarily identical on
law school applications as they are asked on the Declaration.[iii]
Unfortunately, your law school application may probably have been
completed a year or more before you are looking to complete the
Declaration, but careful attention must be given to the responses
you make on your law school application.
Both the law schools and the Texas Board of Law Examiners expect
your answer to be truthful and complete.
When in doubt, disclose.[iv]
B.
Texas Bar of Law Examiners Investigation
If you misguidedly think the investigation is not all
that extensive, you’re wrong. The
Texas Board of Law Examiners will obtain criminal history information from
both the FBI and the Texas Department of Safety.
Other records will be checked as well with authorization and
release forms submitted with your Declaration....
Read the full
story here
[i]
The Texas Board of Law Examiners is not a part of the Texas
State Bar. Both are
established per the authority of the Texas Supreme Court but are
separate entities. www.ble.st.tx.us;
FAQs
[ii]
“A Message from the
Texas
Board of Law Examiners to Prospective Applicants for Admission to the
Bar of Texas,” Prospective Student Message.
[iii]
Id.
[iv]
Id.
Preparing
Your File for a
Texas
Board of Law Examiners’ Hearing
By Renée
Moeller-Taylor and Robert “Bob” Bennett in association with The
Bennett Law Firm
To begin with you need to know exactly what the Texas Board of Law
Examiners’ are objecting to. This
means you must have all communications between your client and the Texas
Board of Law Examiners. You
should also have a copy of the Client’s Application for Admission to
Law
School
as well as their Application for Admission (for out-of-state law students)
or the Declaration of Intent (for
Texas
law students).
Carefully review the applications and the communications from the
Texas Board of Law Examiners; compare and know exactly what the Texas
Board of Law Examiners are targeting.
Obtain letters of recommendation that not only speak to the good
moral character of the Client, but also set forth knowledge of the event(s)
and that the event(s) were an aberration, were youthful mistakes of years
past, or do not reflect the character of the Client today.
You have to make these letters fit the particular needs of the case
and the person writing them..
Letters are best obtained from long or close employers/employees;
church leader or an active member; a congressman (if there is any personal
connection); a judge or magistrate from whom the Client has worked or with
whom has a personal relationship of long standing knowledge.
Take care to pay attention to the Judicial Cannons regarding
Letters of Recommendation and Testimony.
Prepare a Response on behalf of your client explaining the
incidents (even though this may have been done piecemeal before – put it
all together in one response, not to long) and reference were possible
your supporting exhibits. Your
response is your first exhibit. The
recommendations and other documents you choose are the remaining exhibits.
Do not forget that although you have to have your exhibits to the
staff attorney a minimum 8 days before the hearing, you need to take
another 5 copies of the Response and other exhibits to the hearing: (3)
for the Panel, (1) for the court reporter, and
(1) your client. You
should have your own copy as well.
As soon as you or your counsel receives the Exhibits from the Texas
Board of Law Examiners, the Applicant and hopefully his/her legal counsel
should both carefully examine the Board’s exhibits.
Just because a document is of public record, if there is anything
wrong with the document the document should be objected to, as opposed to
not objecting to the document but objecting to the veracity of the
document. The Panel does not
actually see the Applicant/Respondent’s Response and exhibits until the
hearing itself. Only the staff
attorney sees these before the actual hearing.
It is good if one the people who has written a letter of
recommendation can appear with you at the hearing in your support, as well
as your attorney.
Make sure you have carefully gone over the Texas Board of Law
Examiners’ exhibits and advised the opposing staff attorney if you have
any objections by 4 days before the hearing.
If you need subpoenas for the hearing, make sure you do not wait
until the last minute. The
subpoenas are issued by the Texas Board of Law Examiners but sometimes one
must be persistent in order to get them to issue the subpoenas, which are
provided for under the Rules Governing Admission to the Bar of Texas.
Make
sure you review and know the Texas Board of Law Examiners’ exhibits and
be ready to refute them by direct references to your exhibits.
____________________________________________________________________________
WHAT
YOU SHOULD EXPECT AT YOUR
TEXAS
BOARD OF LAW EXAMINERS’ CHARACTER HEARING
By Renée
Moeller-Taylor and Robert “Bob” Bennett in association with The
Bennett Law Firm
Getting
There & Docket Call
The building itself that houses the Texas Board of Law Examiners is
near the NW corner of
W. 14th Street
.
14th Street
is divided by the
Capital
Building
and does not go through. On
the other side of the
Capital
Building
it is
E. 14th Street
. This makes it difficult to
locate for someone not familiar with the area or
Austin
The next problem is that there are no public parking garages.
Parking is coin metered on the streets and you may find yourself
spending a fair amount of time looking for an open space, only to find one
several blocks away. Additionally,
the maximum is 2 hours, which means you have the problem of getting back
to the meter and resetting it.
Until the docket is called,
you do not know what order you will be called in.
“Character” Hearings are scheduled first on the docket, and the
estimated time can be anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours, depending
on the case.
To solve the parking and parking mete issues, it is primarily
recommended to either take a cab; or allow at least a half hour to
find parking and walking to the correct address (and finding it may be
sometime else as previously pointed out).
The Texas Board of Law Examiners is on the 5th Floor
Docket call is at 8:50 a.m.
The Staff Attorneys will come out and call the docket and give you
an estimate of the docket timing as stated above.
One advantage is that Applicants/Respondents who are represented by
legal counsel are usually scheduled first.
However, you may still not be heard until 10 a.m. to Noon,
depending on that day’s docket.
The Hearing
At the hearing, in addition to yourself and hopefully your legal
counsel, will be the staff attorney for the
Texas
, a court reporter and three (3) Panel Members of the Texas Board of Law
Examiners. You may have
previously elected to have certain witnesses admitted but the hearing
remains closed to the general public or it is open.
This is the result of you Open Hearing Election that is at the very
end of the hearing instructions you received with the letter stating the
date your hearing has been set for. Do
not overlook this if you want and expect to have witnesses present to
speak on your behalf. It is
always good if at least one of your recommenders or at least a family
member is willing to appear at the hearing to speak in your behalf.
This is matter of impression with the Panel; although it may not be
possible as in the case of someone from out-of-state seeking admission to
the Texas Bar.
The Applicant/Respondent will be sworn in.
The staff attorney and Applicant/Respondent or his/her counsel will
announce they have exchanged exhibits and may discuss any objections to
any of the exhibits. If there
are no objections, the exhibits are admitted.
A copy of the exhibits may be requested to be given to the court
reporter before docket call so she can mark her set, thus adding in moving
the hearings along in a move timely fashion (unless there are objections
to any of the exhibits.
Both sides have the opportunity to make an Opening Statement, then
the Applicant/Respondent is called as a witness and examined by the staff
attorney, and then hopefully by his/her own counsel.
The Panel will then ask questions of the Applicant/Respondent.
The issues vary from case to case.
However, if the issue of character is truthfulness and candor (i.e.
questions answered wrong on either or both the law school application
and/or the Declaration of Intent (only required of Texas law students) or
the Application for Admission to the Bar then it is a matter of failure to
disclose – truthfulness and candor.
The Texas Board of Law Examiners are gatekeepers.
In the example issue above, the crux will be not so much what you
did in the past (and failed to originally disclose) but at this moment in
time does the Panel believe in your truthfulness.
Admissions of past errors and truthfulness about how and why you
had to amend your law school application and Supplement your Declaration
of Intent or Application for Admission to the Bar will usually be the main
focus point. The Panel is
judging whether or not you are now a truthful and candid person.
Admissions of acceptance of your responsibility for past errors and
sincerely expressions of regret will be looked at.
These taken together with your Response and your exhibits, which in
this scenario will mainly consist of your correspondence and supplements
sent to the Texas Board of Law Examiners and to your Dean of Admission of
your law school, but also the strength of the recommendation letters that
you have supplied.
After examination of the Application/Respondent, closing summations
are made and the hearing closes. You are usually advised that your counsel
or you will be verbally contacted later that day or the next depending on
how late in the day your hearing actual is, as to the Panel’s decision
to permit your admission to the Texas Bar or not.
If you receive a decision that you will be admitted, you will
receive a written signed Order to that effect usually within the week.
What happens after you receive you verbal notice, either way is the
subject of another article.
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