Unlock the Bar is a coalition of movement lawyers and law students advocating in New York for a just and equitable legal profession. Recognizing that the Bar admissions process was created to restrict legal power to white men, we formed during the global Uprisings for Black liberation to build a legal profession where Black, Brown, and system-impacted voices lead. From law school applications to Bar admissions, the legal profession pushes away voices from the most marginalized community, perpetuating a classist, elitist, and white supremacist institution. The Character and Fitness process is one such way.

As a New York-based organization, New York State is one of the primary sites of struggle. The New York State Bar requires applicants to answer a forty-five question ‘Moral Character’ application, which request large amounts of personal information that is both overinclusive and underinclusive for predicting an applicant’s future ethics as a lawyer. For example, in Question 26, the application requires applicants to disclose nearly all negative interactions with law enforcement such as citations, arrests, and guilty pleas, including everything from ten year-old speeding tickets to sealed juvenile delinquency proceedings. The Bar also requires applicants to disclose whether they use any ‘illegal drug’, including marijuana in Question 36, and requires disclosure of “any conduct or behavior, including conduct or behavior resulting from a condition or impairment, that could call into question [their] ability to practice law in a competent, ethical, and professional manner” in Question 34.  All of these questions, and many more, seek prejudicial ‘propensity’ information about past behavior that is irrelevant to an applicant’s capacity to practice law ethically in the future.

By requiring applicants to answer these discriminatory questions, the New York State Bar continues to openly defy State laws and public policy prohibiting discrimination against applicants with criminal records in employment and licensing applications. While the New York State Bar has attempted to obscure the racist and xenophobic effect of its admissions process, the Character and Fitness application still functions to disproportionately exclude communities of color, as it was originally designed to do. This is not just happening in New York, but all over the country, to much more punitive effect. The full discriminatory impact of the Character and Fitness process is nearly impossible to estimate.

As we fight this system, Unlock the Bar marches alongside the many organizations calling for widespread change to a legal profession that harms the very communities it purports to protect. We plan for our movement and the change it accomplishes to start a domino effect, ending system-impacted discrimination in every jurisdiction in the country, and to ultimately build true community representation. If you would like to learn more or join, please contact Tolu Lawal (tlawal.tl@gmail.com) and Al Brooks (ajb968@nyu.edu) or sign up here: https://forms.gle/1wKQze7FbDqh124cA.