Justice Department Investigates Florida Supreme Court on Bar Mental Health Screening
Justice Department Investigates Florida Supreme Court
on Bar Mental Health Screening.
Julie Kay, Daily Business Review
The U.S. Justice Department is investigating the Florida Supreme Court over the state Board of Bar Examiners' policy of evaluating applicants for mental health diagnosis or treatment, the Daily Business Review has learned.
The investigation was opened last December by the Justice Department's civil rights division as an alleged violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The division wrote Chief Justice Jorge Labarga notifying him of the investigation.
For several years, the Justice Department has discouraged state bar licensing groups and the agencies that oversee them from asking people applying for law licenses about their mental health status.
The Louisiana Supreme Court reached a settlement with the Justice Department last August, agreeing to stop asking registrants directly about mental health disabilities. The Justice Department began its investigation of the Louisiana Supreme Court in March 2011 after complaints were filed by the Bazelon Center for Mental Health on behalf of two Bar applicants.
The Florida Board of Bar Examiners, an agency of the Florida Supreme Court, oversees bar admissions and determines whether applicants should be admitted to the Florida Bar by reviewing lengthy character and fitness files.
Spokesmen for the Florida Supreme Court and Justice Department declined comment on the investigation.
The Florida board, like many law licensing groups around the country, asks whether applicants have ever been diagnosed with a mental illness such as bipolar disorder, psychosis or depression.
Mental health and disability advocates have been fighting the line of questioning for several years as an ADA violation. They say some bar applicants lie while others put off getting much-needed mental health treatment until after getting law licenses.
Five-Year History
In letters to Vermont and Louisiana officials last year, the Justice Department said questioning bar applicants on mental health diagnosis is illegal.
While questions about an applicant's conduct are appropriate, "questions based on an applicant's status as a person with a mental health diagnosis do not serve the court's worthy goal of identifying unfit applicants, are in fact counterproductive to ensuring that attorneys are fit to practice and violate the applicable civil rights laws," the letters said.
The Justice Department found Louisiana's practice of evaluating bar applicants for mental illness or admitting them under a conditional licensing system is discriminatory and violates the ADA. Those who were admitted conditionally were required to provide periodic reports from psychiatrists as well as notice of medication changes.
One of the offending questions identified by the Justice Department: "Within the past five years, have you been diagnosed with or have you been treated for bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, paranoia or any other psychotic disorder?"
The Justice Department threatened to sue Louisiana Bar and Supreme Court authorities if they did not change their policies. Under the notice of settlement, Louisiana authorities agreed to refrain from asking applicants about mental health issues unless an applicant or third party mentioned it. They also agreed to keep any such information private from the attorneys' employers.
Front Burner
In its letter to Labarga, the Justice Department asked the court to list any questions about mental health and conditional admission on the bar application. The department also asked for the numbers of candidates who responded affirmatively and those admitted conditionally, how many were asked for medical records and whether they were granted hearings.
Matthew Dietz, a Miami lawyer who specializes in representing people with disabilities, applauded the investigation.
"The fact that the Florida Board of Bar Examiners has focused on disability as an issue to exclude persons from membership in my profession is out of step with my Florida Bar and is pure discrimination," said Dietz of the Disability Independence Group. "It must be changed. To the extent that it needs to be done by the U.S. Department of Justice and this discrimination could not be addressed by its own membership, leadership and bench is embarrassing."
Florida Bar president Greg Coleman partially defended the practice.
"This has to be decided on a case-by-case basis," he said. "There is no broad brush. It's a complicated area because there's a balance that must be struck between looking at someone's background and deciding whether they are a threat in becoming a lawyer."
He added: "When you become a lawyer, people are putting their trust in your hands. They come to you for life-changing events. We need to make sure lawyers licensed in this state are not a threat."
Coleman said the Board of Bar Examiners is considering changes in its questioning but has not done so yet.
"Clearly the court and the Board of Bar Examiners are seriously looking at what happened in Louisiana," Coleman added. "It's on their front burner. They're not ignoring it."
