ABA backs proposal to eliminate questions about mental health history for Washington bar applicants
The ABA is expressing support for a proposal by the Washington State Bar Association to remove questions about mental health history in its review of bar applicants.
ABA President Paulette Brown said in a letter (PDF) that questions about mental health history discriminate against people with disabilities and are likely to deter individuals from seeking mental health treatment. Brown wrote the letter to the Washington Supreme Court in response to a request for comments.
Brown says a growing number of states have eliminated discriminatory mental health questions in bar admissions, including Arizona, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. “The ABA urges Washington to follow suit,” Brown says.
Brown noted that the ABA adopted policy (PDF) in 2015 that urges bar licensing entities to eliminate questions about mental health history, diagnoses or treatment. Instead, the ABA policy says, bar admission questions should be limited to issues involving “conduct or behavior that impairs an applicant’s ability to practice law in a competent, ethical and professional manner.”
The ABA policy adds that licensing entities “are not precluded from making reasonable and narrowly tailored follow-up inquiries concerning an applicant’s mental health history if the applicant has engaged in conduct or behavior that may otherwise warrant a denial of admission, and a mental health condition either has been raised by the applicant as, or is shown by other information to be, an explanation for such conduct or behavior.”
Brown writes that such an approach “strikes the right balance and allows licensing entities to carry on in their vital role of protecting the profession and the public.”
Related article:
ABA Journal: “State bars may probe applicants’ behavior, but not mental health status, says DOJ”
