Case Title: In re Application of Martin

Citation: 2012-Ohio-5427

Docket Number: 2012-0426

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2012-11-28T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as In 
re Application of Martin, Slip Opinion No. 2012-Ohio-5427.] 
 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in 
an advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested 
to promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 
65 South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or 
other formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be 
made before the opinion is published. 
 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2012-OHIO-5427 
IN RE APPLICATION OF MARTIN. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets,  
it may be cited as In re Application of Martin,  
Slip Opinion No. 2012-Ohio-5427.] 
Applicant for admission to practice of law currently lacks the requisite character, 
fitness, and moral qualifications—Applicant may reapply to take a later 
bar examination. 
(No. 2012-0426—Submitted May 9, 2012—Decided November 28, 2012.) 
ON REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness of the 
Supreme Court, No. 513. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Ebonie Michelle Martin of Columbus, Ohio, graduated from 
Capital University Law School in May 2011.  She applied as a candidate for 
admission to the Ohio bar in September 2010 and subsequently applied to take the 
July 2011 bar exam.  After an admissions committee recommended that her 
application be disapproved, a panel of the Board of Commissioners on Character 
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and Fitness held a hearing to address the issues identified in the report by the 
admissions committee.  The panel and board recommend that we disapprove 
Martin’s application based on her present lack of the requisite character, fitness, 
and moral qualifications, and permit her to apply to take the July 2014 bar exam.  
We adopt the board’s recommendation to disapprove the pending application and 
to permit Martin to apply to take the July 2014 bar exam. 
Summary of Proceedings 
{¶ 2} Two separate panels of the Columbus Bar Association admissions 
committee interviewed Martin in 2011.  On June 30, 2011, the admissions 
committee issued a report recommending that Martin not be approved as to her 
character, fitness, and moral qualifications to practice law in Ohio.  Martin 
appealed the committee’s recommendation to the Board of Commissioners on 
Character and Fitness pursuant to Gov.Bar R. I(12)(B). 
{¶ 3} A panel of the board conducted a formal hearing and issued a 
report identifying three areas of concern that led the panel to recommend that we 
disapprove Martin’s application based on her character and fitness at this time.  
The board adopted the panel’s report in its entirety.  Neither Martin nor the 
admissions committee objects to the board’s findings or recommendation. 
{¶ 4} The panel and board first express concern about Martin’s 
truthfulness based on her explanation that she had failed her real-property class 
during her first semester of law school because she had failed to place her 
assigned exam number on the exam.  She claimed that she had written the number 
on the palm of her hand but that her sweaty palms had rendered the number 
illegible.  The admissions committee’s investigation, however, revealed that while 
Martin may have lost some points based on her failure to use her assigned exam 
number, she had also performed poorly on the exam. 
{¶ 5} The second area of concern relates to Martin’s handling of her 
finances.  Although Martin owed only $15,000 in undergraduate student loans 
January Term, 2012 
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when she started law school, she amassed a student-loan balance of approximately 
$150,000 for tuition and living expenses while attending Capital University Law 
School, despite receiving scholarships to pay all but $18,000 a year for school, in 
addition to public assistance.  At the time of the hearing, her loans were in 
forbearance.  The panel and board found, however, that by obtaining financial 
counseling, creating a budget, and obtaining employment as a paralegal, Martin 
showed that she is beginning to address this issue. 
{¶ 6} The third and most serious area of concern identified by the board 
relates to Martin’s lack of truthfulness in her explanation of a 2008 traffic stop 
that resulted in her being charged with providing false information to a police 
officer to avoid a citation, driving with an expired driver’s license, and failing to 
restrain a child in a car seat.  Martin testified, and the police officer’s testimony 
confirmed, that she had been pulled over because the officer believed that the 
windows of her vehicle were too darkly tinted—though she was never charged 
with an offense related to the window-tinting. 
{¶ 7} At the hearing, Martin admitted that when she was pulled over, she 
did not have her driver’s license with her and the license had expired more than 
six months before her traffic stop.  She testified that when the officer asked her 
for her Social Security number, she gave him her mother’s Social Security 
number instead, but she claimed that she had done so by mistake, due to the stress 
of the situation and the fact that she regularly gave her mother’s Social Security 
number in dealing with her mother’s health issues.  But the officer testified that in 
addition to giving him her mother’s Social Security number, Martin also gave him 
her mother’s name and date of birth. 
{¶ 8} On her bar-exam application, Martin reported that the providing-
false-information charge was due to her telling the officer that the child in the 
vehicle during the traffic stop was her daughter when it was actually her 
goddaughter.  At the hearing, Martin maintained that at the time she filled out her 
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bar-exam application, she believed that the confusion over the child’s identity was 
the basis of the falsification charge against her. 
{¶ 9} Although the falsification and child-restraint charges were dropped 
and Martin pleaded guilty to the no-operator’s-license charge, the panel and board 
believed the officer’s version of the events as conveyed through his testimony and 
the report he prepared at the time of the traffic stop.  Moreover, they believed that 
Martin had used her mother’s name, birth date, and Social Security number in an 
attempt to avoid responsibility for driving with an expired driver’s license. 
{¶ 10} The panel and board were also troubled by Martin’s explanation 
about why the car she was driving at the time of the stop was not registered in her 
name, although she claimed that she had purchased it from her friend.  The panel 
asked Martin to submit additional documentation regarding the transaction after 
the hearing, and the panel’s report states that that documentation demonstrates 
that “the transaction was completely different than the testimony provided by the 
Applicant at the hearing.”  That documentation, however, has not been 
transmitted to this court as part of the record. 
{¶ 11} Citing Martin’s testimony concerning the false information given 
to the police officer during her 2008 traffic stop and her apparently false 
testimony about her purchase of the car, the panel and board expressed concern 
about her truthfulness.  Based upon those facts, they submit that Martin does not 
presently possess the character, fitness, and moral qualifications necessary for 
admission to the bar of Ohio.  Therefore, they recommend that we disapprove 
Martin’s application and permit her to reapply for the July 2014 bar exam. 
Disposition 
{¶ 12} An applicant to the Ohio bar must prove by clear and convincing 
evidence that he or she “possesses the requisite character, fitness, and moral 
qualifications for admission to the practice of law.”  Gov.Bar R. I(11)(D)(1).  The 
applicant’s record must justify “the trust of clients, adversaries, courts, and others 
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with respect to the professional duties owed to them.”  Gov.Bar R. I(11)(D)(3).  
“A record manifesting a significant deficiency in the honesty, trustworthiness, 
diligence, or reliability of an applicant may constitute a basis for disapproval of 
the applicant.”  Id. 
{¶ 13} Based upon the foregoing, we agree that Martin has failed to prove 
that she currently possesses the requisite character, fitness, and moral 
qualifications for admission to the practice of law.  We therefore adopt the 
board’s findings of fact and disapprove Martin’s pending application to take the 
bar examination.  Martin may apply to take the July 2014 bar examination by 
filing a new application to register as a candidate for admission to the practice of 
law and an application to take the bar examination.  Upon reapplication, she shall 
undergo a complete character and fitness investigation, including an investigation 
and report by the National Conference of Bar Examiners and a review and 
interview by the appropriate local bar association admissions committee. 
Judgment accordingly. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’DONNELL, CUPP, 
and MCGEE BROWN, JJ., concur. 
LANZINGER, J., concurs in judgment only. 
__________________ 
Leppla Associates and Gary James Leppla, for applicant. 
Loveland & Brosius, L.L.C, and William L. Loveland, for the Columbus 
Bar Association. 
______________________