The New Jersey State Bar Association and the state’s two law schools have urged the state supreme court to eliminate a mandatory “character and fitness” questionnaire that asks law school graduates and applicants to disclose any conditions affecting their ability to practice law, including substance abuse or a “mental, emotional or nervous disorder or condition,” and whether they are seeking treatment. The bar argues that asking about mental health could discourage students from seeking help and that there are more effective ways to screen candidates for their fitness to practice law.
In a letter to the state supreme court, Jeralyn Lawrence, the president of the state bar, wrote that “instead of contributing to a reluctance to seek mental health assistance, we should be championing efforts of bar applicants and attorneys to seek the help they need as early as possible.” The bar argues that disclosing a mental health issue does not automatically disqualify a candidate from admission to the bar and that, over time, the court has revised both the questionnaire and the regulations that govern the Committee on Character’s limited consideration of mental health issues.
According to the New Jersey bar, 26 states have either never asked lawyers and law graduates about mental health issues, or substantially modified or eliminated those questions. Neighboring New York State eliminated its mental health disclosure requirement for bar admission applicants in 2020 after advocates argued that it stigmatized such conditions and discouraged law students from seeking help. Ohio dropped its character and fitness question about mental or psychological disorders in January, and Virginia law students successfully pushed the state in 2019 to stop asking about mental health.
A 2022 national study of law student wellbeing found that 44% of survey respondents said the potential threat to their bar admission might deter them from seeking help for a mental health issue. When law students at New Jersey’s Rutgers University are referred for campus counseling, they often ask whether they will have to disclose that to the bar and whether it will hold up their character and fitness review, wrote co-deans Kimberly Mutcherson and Rose Cuison-Villazor in their letter to the court in January.
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“There are other more effective and less intrusive ways to screen candidates for personal characteristics that affect their fitness to practice. This inquiry should be based on conduct and not health records,” they wrote.
In conclusion, the New Jersey State Bar Association and the state’s two law schools have urged the state supreme court to eliminate the requirement for law school graduates and applicants to disclose their mental health conditions in a mandatory “character and fitness” questionnaire. The bar argues that asking about mental health could discourage students from seeking help and that there are more effective ways to screen candidates for their fitness to practice law. A national study of law student wellbeing found that the potential threat to their bar admission might deter them from seeking help for a mental health issue. The co-deans of Rutgers University have also expressed concern about whether students must disclose their mental health treatment to the bar.