Quote:
Originally Posted by jlaw
Did you even read the entire article? Yes, he's faced some pretty significant obstacles in his life. However, according to the article, he has been taking out student loans for 26 years and has not made a single payment or any efforts to make payment arrangements.
A background examination including a character and fitness evaluation is part of the admissions process for every state bar in the country. I am not surprised by this at all.
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He took medical deferals for his cripple issues - reasonable to me imo.
"Mr. Bowman concedes that he has never made a payment on his loans, partly because of medical and other deferrals and problems with his lender.But he says he intends to make good, adding that his only hope is to begin practicing law — which means overturning the judges’ decision. "
The problems with lenders seems a bit gray. His claim is that he was trying to medically defer his payments and the lender was illegally denying his claim while harassing him. But seriously, if you were threatened by a creditor in the manner he was, wouldn't you fight them?
"While thousands of indebted students have complained about their treatment by lenders, Mr. Bowman has documented his personal debt crisis with remarkable, obsessive intensity.
He claims Sallie Mae overcharged him, imposing hefty and unjustified fees; did not allow him to defer payments when he was entitled to do so and improperly accounted for periods when he did defer.
According to his detailed records, a Sallie Mae representative even threatened him. “If you default, your license will be taken from you,” the representative said. “Do you understand that?”
When Mr. Bowman said that he did not yet have a law license, the representative responded that the company would prevent him from getting one."
This was one of my favorite comments from the Times that sums it all up imo:
John Brown Carrollton
July 2nd, 20095:57 am
"The judges are imposing a kind of reverse means test on admission to practice and are calling it a test of character. If you come from a family of wealth and privilege and you are financially irresponsible, no problem. Daddy and Mommy have enough money to cover your sins. If you come from foster care and you show amazing persistence and determination and you stretch yourself to human limits, you are a jerk and deadbeat, unqualified to be an attorney. I suggest that his guy is more likely to be in touch with ordinary people at the moment of life crisis than any of those privileged snobs who never had to earn a penny of their own. Yet he is not only disqualified from bar admission, his character is assaulted. This is the person we want to represent people who lose their jobs, lose their homes, lose their children, have a terminal illness or injury. He can really understand. Maybe that is the real reason the insiders what to keep him out. Such "character" disqualifications are becoming all too common and there is usually an element of economic or social elitism in these cases.
In any event, the guy will make a great CIA agent, military officer, or captain of industry. He has persistence, determination, desire, heart, and true grit. The elite that keeps him out and lets in others who have no proof of fighting and overcoming adversity are giving the legal profession the reputation it has come to deserve."
That is an EPIC summary. They're assaulting his character and unjustly portraying him as a 26 year old "professional student deadbeat" without considering his struggles
Yes 26 years is a long time to be a student but he was only in law school from 2000 - 2004. Some people take lots of twists and turns in life until they finally figure out what they are called to do. Believe me, $400k is a hefty price to pay for the lesson but I'm sure the lesson was learned. Only way to tell is to give the dude a chance. After all, HE DID PASS ONE OF THE NATION'S HARDEST BAR EXAMS.
"He enrolled at the University of California Hastings College of Law in San Francisco in 2000.After his third year, he began a masters of law program in London, where he lived with a girlfriend. He graduated in December 2004 with about $230,000 in student loan debt, and she helped support him while he studied, and studied again and again, for the bar exam."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/bu...4&ref=business