Will Disgraced Journalist Stephen Glass Win Admission to the California Bar?

The California Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether a onetime journalist exposed for writing articles with fabricated information is eligible to become a lawyer.

Stephen Glass passed the California bar exam in 2007, but his admission to the bar was blocked amid wrangling over his moral fitness to practice law, the Metropolitan News-Enterprise reports in a Perspectives column. His journalistic misdeeds came to light in 1998 after Forbes learned that Glass had apparently manufactured facts for an article in The New Republic. TNR investigated further, and learned Glass had fabrications in 27 out of 41 articles written for the magazine, including six articles that were wholly fictitious.

The Review Department of the State Bar Court found in a 2-1 decision issued on July 13 that Glass had reformed and he was fit to practice law, the News-Enterprise says. According to the story, the State Bar Court opinion was confidential and the appeal by the Commission on Bar Examiners has not been public. If the California Supreme Court denies review, Glass will become a California lawyer.

After his firing in 1998, Glass earned a law degree from Georgetown University and passed the New York State bar exam. He withdrew his application for bar admission in the state in 2004 after learning he would likely be denied a law license there. He moved to California the same year.

State Bar Court Judge Judith Epstein detailed Glass' past wrongdoing in her majority opinion for the Review Department. Glass had fabricated all but a handful of articles to some degree written for a variety of magazines between 1996 and 1998, including The New Republic, Rolling Stone and Harper’s. “Glass invented sources, events and organizations, and he concocted quotes,” Epstein wrote. He fooled fact checkers and editors by creating notes and other documents to support the stories.

Epstein called Glass’ journalistic misconduct “appalling” but said the court’s task was to review his present moral fitness. Ten character witnesses had testified on Glass’ behalf, including two law professors, the owner of The New Republic when Glass was fired, and four lawyers, including a partner at Carpenter, Zuckerman & Rowley where Glass was employed.

Hat tip to Legal Ethics Forum.