Title: In re Application of McKinney

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as In 
re Application of McKinney, Slip Opinion No. 2012-Ohio-5635.] 
 
 
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-5635 
IN RE APPLICATION OF MCKINNEY. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as In re Application of McKinney,  
Slip Opinion No. 2012-Ohio-5635.] 
(No. 2011-1520—Submitted March 20, 2012—Decided December 5, 2012.) 
ON REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Character and 
Fitness of the Supreme Court, No. 495. 
________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Michele L. McKinney of Cincinnati, Ohio, registered as a 
candidate for admission to the practice of law in June 2010 and applied to take the 
February 2011 bar examination.  The admissions committee of the Cincinnati Bar 
Association disapproved McKinney’s application based on her lack of candor 
regarding her conduct during her employment with a Cincinnati law firm in her 
first year of law school and the reasons that that employment was terminated.  
McKinney appealed and applied to take the July 2011 bar examination.  After 
conducting a hearing, a three-member panel of the Board of Commissioners on 
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Character and Fitness issued a report recommending that McKinney’s application 
be denied because she does not presently possess the requisite character, fitness, 
and moral qualifications to be admitted to the bar.  The panel, however, 
recommended that she be permitted to apply as a candidate for the July 2014 bar 
exam.  The full board adopted the panel’s findings of fact, but citing McKinney’s 
contradictory testimony, evasiveness, and lack of candor throughout the 
admissions process, recommends that she not be permitted to reapply in the 
future. 
{¶ 2} Although McKinney concedes that we should disapprove her 
current application to take the bar examination, she objects to the board’s 
recommendation that she be forever barred from reapplying and urges us to 
permit her to take the February 2013 bar exam.  We adopt the board’s findings of 
fact and recommendation that McKinney’s current application be disapproved.  
However, we sustain her objection in part and will permit her to reapply for the 
July 2014 bar exam. 
Summary of Proceedings 
{¶ 3} McKinney began her law school career at the Salmon P. Chase 
College of Law at Northern Kentucky University (“NKU”) in August 2007.  The 
following month she accepted a paralegal position at the Cincinnati law firm of 
Lerner, Sampson & Rothfuss (“LSR”). 
{¶ 4} Before deciding to attend law school, McKinney had signed a lease 
for an apartment in Louisville that she planned to occupy with her sister.  Her 
sister had not signed the lease because she had a mortgage that they believed 
would financially disqualify her as a lessee.  McKinney’s sister occupied the 
apartment, but she began to experience serious health problems that prevented her 
from working and left her unable to pay the rent.  The sister planned to vacate the 
premises, but McKinney would remain financially responsible for the three to 
four months that remained on the lease.  When she inquired about terminating the 
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lease early, McKinney was advised that she could sublet the property or her lease 
could be cancelled if she was transferred by her employer. 
{¶ 5} Instead of attempting to sublease the property, McKinney planned 
to fake an employment transfer by fraudulently producing two documents on her 
employer’s letterhead—one to verify her transfer from Louisville to Cincinnati, 
and the other to acknowledge that she accepted the transfer.  Both letters were 
purportedly drafted for the firm by employee Kelly Richards, but Kelly Richards 
did not exist.  Concerned that the landlord would call the firm to verify her 
transfer, and believing that the landlord would recognize her voice, McKinney 
changed the voicemail on a phone used by her sister to state that the caller had 
reached the desk of Kelly Richards.  McKinney’s sister would then call back and 
pretend to be Ms. Richards. 
{¶ 6} McKinney’s employer had a strict policy forbidding employees 
from using company e-mail for personal purposes.  Believing that McKinney was 
violating the policy, the firm’s human resources director, Rachel Faris, began to 
monitor her e-mail account in real time.  Faris discovered that McKinney was 
sending e-mails and then immediately deleting them from her sent folder.  Faris 
became more suspicious on March 21, 2008, when in the process of printing some 
of those e-mails before McKinney deleted them, she found one that said, “I need a 
contact number for my fake human resources person.”  On further investigation, 
Faris found an e-mail with the falsified letters on the firm letterhead attached.  
Based upon the information uncovered by Faris’s investigation, Teresa Miller, the 
firm’s chief operating officer, fired McKinney and her boyfriend (now husband) 
that same day. 
{¶ 7} In her application to register as a candidate for admission to the 
practice of law, McKinney stated that her reason for leaving employment in 
March 2008 was “terminated/conflicted with school schedule.”  Later in her 
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application, she explained, “I was fired [for] using company email for personal 
reasons.” 
{¶ 8} Before conducting McKinney’s character and fitness interview, the 
Cincinnati Bar Association contacted LSR, seeking additional information about 
McKinney’s termination, and learned of her scheme to defraud her landlord.  The 
attorneys assigned to conduct her interview asked open-ended questions, giving 
McKinney the opportunity to fully disclose the circumstances of her termination.  
McKinney, however, did not voluntarily disclose that she had created the 
fictitious letters on her employer’s letterhead.  Nor did she acknowledge that the 
letters were the cause of her termination.  When the interviewers revealed their 
knowledge of the letters, McKinney was evasive. 
{¶ 9} After the interview, McKinney grew concerned about the letters 
and left a voicemail for one of the interviewers asking him to call her if he had 
additional questions, but the interviewers had already decided to recommend that 
her application be disapproved. 
{¶ 10} By the time the matter came before the full admissions committee 
of the Cincinnati Bar Association, both McKinney and the committee had 
obtained copies of her employment records and had the opportunity to review 
them.  Included in those records was a memo that Faris had prepared to 
memorialize McKinney’s termination meeting.  Faris wrote that she attended the 
meeting in which Miller told McKinney that her employment was being 
terminated for violating company policy.  Faris wrote that Miller advised 
McKinney that she was very disturbed to discover that McKinney had falsified 
documents on firm letterhead to avoid liability for her lease and that she had sent 
an excessive number of personal e-mails on company time.  Faris also noted that 
she had personally notified the landlord of McKinney’s scheme to avoid her lease 
obligation. 
January Term, 2012 
5 
 
{¶ 11} Despite having reviewed Faris’s letter and acknowledging that she 
had planned an elaborate scheme to extricate herself from her lease, McKinney 
testified that she did not recall being informed that the false letters on the firm’s 
letterhead were the reason for her termination.  Although she expressed her 
understanding of the serious nature of her conduct, she attempted to excuse her 
evasiveness at her character and fitness interview, claiming that she had forgotten 
many of the details.  Expressing serious concerns about McKinney’s poor 
judgment and lack of candor, the full admissions committee recommended that 
her application be disapproved. 
{¶ 12} At the June 30, 2011 hearing before a three-person panel of the 
Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness, McKinney testified that she 
was never told that her employment was terminated for using the firm’s letterhead 
to create the fictitious letters.  She stated that she was called to the firm’s human 
resources office, and that before she was fully seated, Miller told her that she was 
being terminated.  McKinney observed a quarter-inch stack of paper that appeared 
to be personal e-mails sitting on Miller’s desk.  Recognizing the top e-mail as an 
exchange between herself and her boyfriend that contained embarrassing 
comments, she declined the opportunity to review the documents with Miller.  
She was then escorted to her desk and from the building.  While this version of 
events was consistent with McKinney’s statement in her application and her prior 
testimony, it did not comport with Faris’s testimony that her March 21, 2008 
memorandum accurately memorialized the termination meeting.  The panel 
believed Faris’s testimony and contemporaneous memorandum were more 
credible than McKinney’s testimony and therefore found that McKinney had been 
advised that her creation of the fictitious letters on the firm’s letterhead and her 
excessive personal e-mails were the basis for her termination. 
{¶ 13} The panel found the remainder of McKinney’s record 
unremarkable, despite her 2001 conviction for operating a vehicle while under the 
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influence of alcohol and five speeding tickets.  Noting that McKinney did not 
report two of the speeding tickets on her application, the panel attributed that 
omission to inattention rather than deliberate misrepresentation.  In contrast to 
McKinney’s deceptive conduct, the panel noted that she had volunteered at a 
domestic violence and sexual assault center, a street law diversion program 
through the juvenile court, and an animal shelter, as well as serving as the 
president of the Student Advocacy Society while in law school.  She also 
presented five character references, including three letters from professors at 
NKU, and a letter from a former employer, attorney Harry Sudman.  Her current 
employer, attorney Thomas Richards, testified at the panel hearing that she has 
worked for him since October 2008, and that he planned to keep her on after she 
is admitted to the practice of law because she is a thorough researcher, interacts 
well with clients, and gets good results.  Although Richards believed McKinney 
was honest and had no reservations about her sitting for the bar exam, the panel 
did not believe that he knew all of the circumstances of her termination.  The 
panel recommended that her application be disapproved and that she be permitted 
to reapply for the July 2014 bar exam. 
{¶ 14} The board adopted the panel’s findings of fact, but noting that 
McKinney was a 30-year-old law student when she engaged in deceptive behavior 
to avoid liability on her lease, and that she was evasive throughout the admissions 
process, the board concluded that she would never be able to establish her 
character and fitness to practice law.  Therefore, the board recommended that her 
application be disapproved and that she not be permitted to reapply for admission 
to the practice of law in Ohio. 
McKinney’s Objections to the Board’s 
Recommended Sanction 
{¶ 15} McKinney objects to the board’s recommendation that she be 
forever barred from applying for the Ohio bar exam.  She contends that she has 
January Term, 2012 
7 
 
matured since her first year of law school, that her life is more stable, and that the 
lengthy admissions process she has endured has had a profound impact on her. 
She contends that although she was in her second semester of law school when 
she falsified letters to avoid her lease, she had not received any instruction in 
professional responsibility.  Having completed her legal education, she argues that 
she has a much better understanding of the high level of honesty and integrity that 
attorneys must strive to maintain. 
{¶ 16} In her objections, however, McKinney maintains that she was 
honest and forthright in her character and fitness interview because she answered 
“yes” when asked if she drafted the letter regarding her lease.  She argues that 
when asked how she dealt with the remainder of the lease, she replied that she 
found someone to sublease the apartment.  McKinney characterizes this answer as 
“fully and honestly disclosing the facts.”  McKinney contends that the board has 
placed undue weight on the reason given for her termination and her decision to 
falsify the letters—even though she never sent them.  She asserts that her 
piecemeal disclosure of the relevant facts was not caused by any intent or attempt 
to conceal her conduct, but was a defensive response to what she perceived as an 
adversarial proceeding. 
{¶ 17} McKinney urges this court to reject the panel’s assessment of the 
credibility of the witnesses and to find that her testimony was more credible than 
that of Faris.  She points to alleged inconsistencies in Faris’s testimony, argues 
that much of that testimony is hearsay because Faris did not speak during the 
termination meeting, and suggests that Faris destroyed or altered evidence and 
had a motive to lie to place herself and her firm in a good light. 
{¶ 18} Much of Faris’s testimony was based upon her personal knowledge 
of (1) the investigation she conducted into McKinney’s improper use of the firm’s 
e-mail system for personal purposes, (2) the discoveries she made during that 
investigation, (3) the recommendation she made to Miller, and (4) the actions she 
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observed Miller take in immediate response to that recommendation.  That 
testimony is not hearsay because it is not the statement of someone other than 
Faris.  See Evid.R. 801(A) (defining hearsay as “a statement, other than one made 
by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to 
prove the truth of the matter asserted”).  Moreover, to the extent that Faris’s 
testimony and written statements relate what Miller said at the meeting, they are 
not hearsay because they are not offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted, 
i.e. the actual reasons why the firm terminated McKinney’s employment.  Rather, 
they are offered to demonstrate what McKinney was told about her termination.  
As such, we do not find Faris’s testimony or her March 21, 2008 memorandum 
objectionable.  Further, we reject McKinney’s claim that Faris’s destruction of her 
handwritten notes after preparing her typewritten memorandum was somehow 
suspect. 
{¶ 19} The panel and board found that Faris’s testimony and her 
memorandum memorializing the events of the termination meeting were more 
credible than McKinney’s own self-serving testimony.  In our independent review 
of professional-discipline cases, we generally defer to a panel’s credibility 
determinations unless the record weighs heavily against those findings because 
the panel observed the witnesses firsthand.  Cincinnati Bar Assn. v. Statzer, 101 
Ohio St. 3d 14,  2003-Ohio-6649,  800 N.E.2d 1117, ¶ 8, citing Cleveland Bar 
Assn. v. Cleary, 93 Ohio St.3d 191, 198, 754 N.E.2d 235 (2001).  In admissions 
matters, the panel of the Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness is, 
likewise, in the best position to assess the credibility and weight of testimony 
because it hears the testimony firsthand and can evaluate a witness’s demeanor, 
tone, and inflection, which are not preserved in the record.  Therefore, we find 
that the credibility determinations of a panel of the Board of Commissioners on 
Character and Fitness should receive the same deference. 
January Term, 2012 
9 
 
{¶ 20} McKinney’s testimony that she did not link the termination of her 
employment to the falsified documents she created on her employer’s letterhead 
and sent through her work e-mail just hours before her employment was 
terminated strains credulity.  Even if she did not recall the stated reasons for the 
termination of her employment or had blocked the events from her mind due to 
the passage of time and difficult personal circumstances—including her sister’s 
illness, her own difficult pregnancies, and the premature births of her two sons 
during the pendency of this admissions matter—she bears the burden to prove by 
clear and convincing evidence that she possesses the requisite character, fitness, 
and moral qualifications for admission to the practice of law.  See Gov.Bar R. 
I(11)(D)(1). 
{¶ 21} We have stated: 
 
The paramount concern in proceedings before the Board of 
Commissioners on Character and Fitness is whether the applicant 
possesses those moral traits of honesty and integrity which will 
enable him to fully and faithfully discharge the duties of our 
demanding profession.  We view such proceedings as being 
different from the adversary contest associated with, for example, 
disciplinary cases.  A hearing to determine character and fitness 
should be more of a mutual inquiry for the purpose of acquainting 
this court with the applicant’s innermost feelings and personal 
views on those aspects of morality, attention to duty, forth-
rightness and self-restraint which are usually associated with the 
accepted definition of “good moral character.”  Such a view 
commands the utmost in cooperation between the applicant and the 
board, and leaves little room for the employment of doctrines 
which work to keep relevant information from the board.  
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Although those devices are valid and proper in many instances, 
they should not be invoked before a body whose sole function is to 
fully determine all the facts which can logically reflect upon the 
wisdom of admitting an applicant with a questionable background 
to the practice of law. 
 
In re Application of Davis, 38 Ohio St.2d 273, 274-275, 313 N.E.2d 363 (1974). 
{¶ 22} Here, McKinney was less than candid throughout the admissions 
process.  Regardless of her understanding of the reasons for her termination, once 
the committee members began to ask questions about the letters she had falsified, 
McKinney should have fully disclosed the circumstances surrounding her drafting 
of the letters, the content of those letters, and the reason that she failed to send the 
letters.  Instead, she disclosed only that she had “drafted a letter for personal use 
on law firm letterhead.”  She did not voluntarily divulge that the purpose of the 
letter was to breach her legal obligations under the lease, that she had contrived a 
fictitious human resources representative, or that she had planned to have one of 
her sisters portray the fictitious representative if the landlord attempted to confirm 
the content of the letter. 
{¶ 23} McKinney’s explanations for her conduct were ever changing.  
Though she admitted she had received a copy of her personnel file, she testified 
that she had not reviewed it in its entirety before her interview with the full 
admissions committee of the Cincinnati Bar Association.  She later admitted that 
her husband had read the file, noticed the memorandum from Faris, and advised 
her that the falsified letters were discussed in the memorandum.  Despite her 
possession of her personnel file and her husband’s statements, she told the full 
admissions committee that she did not recall the details of the circumstances 
giving rise to her termination.  At the panel hearing, however, McKinney 
January Term, 2012 
11 
 
admitted that it had crossed her mind that her termination may have been related 
to the letters she had falsified on the firm’s letterhead. 
{¶ 24} An applicant’s failure to provide complete and accurate 
information concerning his or her past false statements, including omissions, and 
acts involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation are all factors that 
may constitute a basis for disapproval of the applicant.  See Gov.Bar R. 
I(11)(D)(3).  McKinney admitted that she knew that it was against firm policy to 
use her employer’s e-mail for personal purposes, but she did it and tried to cover 
up her deceit by immediately deleting the sent e-mails.  She knew that it was 
wrong to falsify letters on her employer’s letterhead, but she did it anyway.  And 
although McKinney attempted to portray her drafting of the falsified letters as the 
act of a caring sister stepping in to help her gravely ill sister, in truth, McKinney 
was contractually bound by the lease.  Moreover, McKinney’s dishonesty and 
misrepresentation did not end with her first year of law school, but continued on 
her application as a candidate for admission to the bar and throughout the 
admissions process. 
{¶ 25} Despite McKinney’s recent and troubling pattern of dishonest 
conduct, the panel members expressed their belief that with time McKinney could 
rehabilitate herself and one day prove that she possesses the requisite character, 
fitness, and moral qualifications for admission to the practice of law.  We agree.  
McKinney applied herself in law school, has engaged in valuable volunteer 
experiences, and has presented testimony and letters from three of her law school 
professors, a former employer, and her current employer who represented her 
before this court and hopes she will one day work as an attorney in his office.  
Furthermore, McKinney appears to be genuinely remorseful for her conduct in 
drafting the falsified letters on LSR letterhead.  We believe that McKinney may 
mature with time and may one day be able to demonstrate that she possesses the 
requisite character, fitness, and moral qualifications to be admitted to the bar of 
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Ohio.  We therefore adopt the board’s findings of fact, disapprove McKinney’s 
current application to take the bar exam, sustain McKinney’s objection in part, 
and adopt the panel’s recommendation that she be permitted to reapply as a 
candidate for the July 2014 bar examination by submitting a new application to 
register as a candidate for admission to the bar and an application to take the bar 
examination.  At that time, she shall submit to a full character and fitness 
investigation. 
Judgment accordingly. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’DONNELL, 
LANZINGER, CUPP, and MCGEE BROWN, JJ., concur. 
____________________ 
Thomas D. Richards, for applicant. 
Mann & Mann, L.L.C., and Michael T. Mann; and Thompson Hine, L.L.P, 
and Christopher D. Wiest, for the Cincinnati Bar Association. 
_______________________