Case Title: In re Application of Worthy

Citation: 2013-Ohio-3018

Docket Number: 2013-0421

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2013-07-16T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as In 
re Application of Worthy, Slip Opinion No. 2013-Ohio-3018.] 
 
 
 
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. 2013-OHIO-3018 
IN RE APPLICATION OF WORTHY. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, 
it may be cited as In re Application of Worthy,  
Slip Opinion No. 2013-Ohio-3018.] 
Attorneys—Character and fitness—Recent felony-theft conviction and failure to 
disclose academic misconduct on law-school and bar-admission 
applications—Application to take the bar exam disapproved—Applicant 
may apply to take the July 2014 bar exam. 
(No. 2013-0421—Submitted May 8, 2013—Decided July 16, 2013.) 
ON REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Character and  
Fitness of the Supreme Court, No. 540. 
____________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Michele Yulana Worthy of Beavercreek, Ohio, is a January 2013 
graduate of the University of  Dayton School of Law and has applied to register as 
a candidate to sit for the February 2013 bar exam.  Based on findings that she was 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
2 
 
convicted of a fifth-degree-felony theft offense during her senior year in college 
and that she had failed to disclose an incident of academic misconduct on her law-
school and bar-exam applications, the Board of Commissioners on Character and 
Fitness recommends that we disapprove Worthy’s application for the February 
2013 bar exam but permit her to reapply to take the July 2013 bar exam.1  We 
adopt the board’s findings of fact but will allow her to reapply for the July 2014 
bar exam. 
Facts 
{¶ 2} The admissions committee of the Greene County Bar Association 
first interviewed Worthy on August 23, 2012, and issued a provisional report 
recommending that her application be approved.  On October 31, 2012, she 
applied to take the February 2013 bar exam.  Because Worthy had been convicted 
of a felony, however, Gov.Bar R. I(11)(D)(5)(a) required her to submit to a 
review by the board in accordance with Gov.Bar R. I(12). 
{¶ 3} A panel of the board conducted a hearing on January 10, 2013.  In 
its report, the panel found that Worthy received her undergraduate degree from 
the Ohio State University in the spring of 2009 and worked as an assistant teacher 
for one year before beginning her law studies at the University of Dayton in the 
fall of 2010. 
{¶ 4} During Worthy’s senior year of college, while she was supporting 
herself and putting herself through school, she fell short on funds following an 
illness that caused her to miss work.  She and a friend planned to shoplift designer 
jeans from a store and then sell them, but they were caught shoplifting by the 
store’s security officers. 
{¶ 5} Worthy was represented by a public defender, and as a first-time 
offender entered into a diversion program.  She was sentenced to community 
                                                          
 
1 It would not be possible for Worthy to apply for the July 2013 bar exam, since the registration 
period has passed. 
January Term, 2013 
3 
 
service and one year of community control and was ordered to pay restitution of 
$1,100.  She completed 80 hours of community service, made restitution within 
one year, and was released from community control.  This offense has since been 
expunged from Worthy’s record. 
{¶ 6} Worthy fully disclosed her felony conviction on both her 
application to law school and her application to register as a candidate for 
admission to the practice of law.  She testified that she had never before done 
anything like that and only later learned that her accomplice had previously 
shoplifted at the same location and was on the store’s watch list.  The panel found 
that Worthy was so ashamed of the incident that she lost her composure at times 
during her testimony.  She testified that she had not done anything wrong in the 
three and a half years since that incident and that she had tried to give back to the 
community by participating in philanthropic and community-service activities, 
including going to Panama to assist with HIV testing and educational workshops.  
Worthy stated that if she is faced with financial difficulties in the future, she will 
not do something “crazy” like this.  She also made it clear that her actions had 
greatly disappointed her family and that she would never want to repeat them. 
{¶ 7} The panel next inquired about an incident of academic misconduct 
that Worthy had revealed during her interview with the admissions committee of 
the Greene County Bar Association.  As an undergraduate, Worthy submitted a 
paper for one of her courses that included material plagiarized from a website.  
When asked why she had not reported this incident on her application to register 
as a candidate for admission to the bar, she explained that she had not answered 
yes to the question about warnings, academic probations, and similar occurrences, 
because answering yes would require her to answer follow-up questions regarding 
the incident and she had been unable to obtain the detailed information about the 
sanction imposed by the school.  She stated that she had intended to supplement 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
4 
 
her application once she obtained that information, but that she had forgotten to 
do so. 
{¶ 8} In making its provisional recommendation that Worthy’s 
application be approved, the local bar association admissions committee had 
considered her plagiarism and failure to disclose it on the application to register as 
a candidate for admission to the bar.  At the panel hearing, however, a panel 
member noted that the National Conference of Bar Examiners character-and-
fitness-investigation summary included a page from Worthy’s application to the 
University of Dayton School of Law on which the following question was asked:  
“Have you ever been dropped, suspended, warned, disciplined, placed on 
scholastic or disciplinary probation, expelled or requested to resign, or allowed to 
resign in lieu of discipline from any high school, college, or university, or 
requested or advised by any such institution to discontinue your studies therein?”  
Worthy had answered no, although she testified that the Committee on Academic 
Misconduct had told her that she “couldn’t have another incident of plagiarism” 
and that she had understood this to mean that she was on academic probation.  But 
on further questioning by the panel, she stated that she did not remember 
answering no to the question and that she could not explain her reason for having 
done so.  The panel noted that the question on the law-school application was 
virtually identical to the question at issue on the application to register as a 
candidate for admission to the bar.  And since Worthy had admitted knowing that 
she should have answered yes to the question on her application to register as a 
candidate for admission to the bar, the panel found it difficult to believe that she 
would not have understood that she should have answered yes to the law-school-
application question. 
{¶ 9} The panel found that Worthy had engaged in two instances of 
dishonesty when faced with minor emergencies—shoplifting when she was short 
on cash and plagiarizing when she fell behind in a college course.  The panel also 
January Term, 2013 
5 
 
found that she had intentionally failed to disclose her plagiarism on her 
application to register as a candidate for admission to the bar.  The majority of the 
panel found, however, that the incidents of theft and plagiarism appeared to be 
“isolated acts of dishonesty in the context of an individual who ordinarily follows 
the rules.”  The majority further speculated that Worthy’s failure to timely 
disclose her plagiarism revealed a lack of awareness of the professional conduct 
expected of lawyers.  Believing that Worthy had gained some maturity and a 
better understanding of what is expected of persons in the legal profession, and 
noting her responsible handling of her volunteer and paid employment during her 
law-school career, the majority of the panel recommended that her character, 
fitness, and moral qualifications be approved.  Citing Worthy’s tendency to cut 
corners when under pressure, the short time that had passed since her felony 
conviction, and her failure to disclose her plagiarism on two separate occasions, 
the dissenting panel member voted to disapprove her current application and 
permit her to reapply for the February 2014 bar exam. 
{¶ 10} The board’s findings of fact mirror those of the panel, but the 
board was not convinced that Worthy understood the significance of her failure to 
disclose and explain the circumstances of her academic probation on her law-
school application and her application to register as a candidate for admission to 
the bar.  The board found that Worthy was in her early 20s at the time of her 
felony conviction, that she did not have a prior criminal record, that she had been 
released from community control, and that the record of her conviction had been 
expunged.  But the board expressed concern that less than four years had elapsed 
since her conviction. 
{¶ 11} While the board believed that Worthy had learned from her 
mistakes and that she might be able to satisfy the character-and-fitness standards 
in the near future, it found that she had failed to demonstrate that she currently 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
6 
 
possesses the requisite character, fitness, and moral qualifications to be approved 
for admission to the practice of law in Ohio.  We agree. 
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).  “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.”  Gov.Bar R. I(11)(D)(3). 
{¶ 13} In determining whether the record demonstrates such a deficiency, 
we consider a number of factors, including an applicant’s failure to provide 
complete and accurate information regarding his or her past; false statements by 
the applicant, including omissions; and acts committed by the applicant involving 
dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.  See Gov.Bar R. I(11)(D)(3)(g), 
(h), and (i).  Based upon Worthy’s failure to disclose her academic misconduct on 
both her law-school and bar-admission applications and her relatively recent 
felony-theft conviction, we agree that she has failed to sustain her burden at this 
time. 
{¶ 14} Accordingly, we adopt the board’s finding that Worthy has failed 
to prove that she currently possesses the requisite character, fitness, and moral 
qualifications for admission to the practice of law in Ohio and disapprove the 
pending application.  However, we believe that with time, Worthy may be able to 
prove that she meets the requisite qualifications, and we therefore permit her to 
reapply for the July 2014 bar exam, at which time she will be subject to a new 
character-and-fitness investigation. 
Judgment accordingly. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, O’DONNELL, LANZINGER, KENNEDY, 
FRENCH, and O’NEILL, JJ., concur. 
January Term, 2013 
7 
 
____________________ 
Michele Yulana Worthy, pro se. 
Amy S. Boland, for the Greene County Bar Association. 
________________________