Title: Lanning v. State Board of Bar Examiners
Citation: 383 P.2d 578, 72 N.M. 332
Docket Number: 7254
State: new-mexico
Issuer: new-mexico Supreme Court
Date: July 8, 1963

383 P.2d 578 (1963) 72 N.M. 332 Harley A. LANNING, Petitioner, v. STATE BOARD OF BAR EXAMINERS of the State of New Mexico, Respondent. No. 7254. Supreme Court of New Mexico. July 8, 1963. Sutin &amp; Jones, Albuquerque, for petitioner. Earl E. Hartley, Atty. Gen., James E. Snead, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., Santa Fe, for respondent. Morton S. Jaffe, Staff Judge Advocate, White Sands Missile Range, amicus curiae. COMPTON, Chief Justice. The petitioner asks us to review and overturn the decision of the Board of Bar Examiners in refusing its recommendation for admission to the bar on motion, and to direct the Board to move his admission. But due to an incomplete record, our review is limited to a determination whether petitioner, having served in the Judge Advocate General's Corps of the Armed Services of the United States, can claim such service as the practice of the law for the purpose of admission to the Bar on Motion within Rule II(a) (10), effective July 1, 1961, of the rules governing admission to *579 the Bar of the State of New Mexico. The rule in part reads: Petitioner was born March 10, 1906, in Poland, New York, and was admitted to practice law in the Court of Appeals of the State of New York on June 1, 1933, and continuously practiced law in that state until June, 1943, when he was drafted into the United States Army. He served in the United States Army until his retirement as a Colonel on August 31, 1961, having served in the Judge Advocate General's Corps continuously and actively from July 11, 1944 to August 31, 1961. On September 10, 1961, he established residence in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and applied for admission to the Bar on Motion. His service record is reflected as follows: We take notice of an enviable military record. His practice in the corps, we think, constitutes the practice of the law within the meaning of the rule, though entirely in a separate field of the law, and that such practice was within one jurisdiction within the intent of the rule requiring practice to have been continuously in one jurisdiction for three of the last eight years. We thus conclude that petitioner had actively and continuously practiced law for a period of 8 years immediately preceding the filing of his application. It was the decision of the Board that applicant had failed to meet the requirements of the rule in the following respect: We think it is clear that the Board based its decision principally on subsections (b) and (c) under the belief that applicant's military service did not come within the meaning of the rule. Having concluded otherwise, the decision of the Board of Bar Examiners is set aside and the cause is remanded to the Board with instructions to proceed in a manner consistent herewith. It is so ordered. CARMODY, CHAVEZ, NOBLE and MOISE, JJ., concur.