Concept
Licensing and Gatekeeping
Admission to the profession
Admission to the Bar
Licensing and Gatekeeping
A lawyer's authority to practice comes from the state that admits her. Lawyers are admitted by individual states and are permitted to practice only in the state of their admission.1 Admission in one state therefore does not, by itself, authorize practice in another. Later sections take up the ways a lawyer can lawfully practice beyond her home state.
The American Bar Association shapes the admission process, but the license does not come from it. Most states require an applicant to have graduated from an ABA-approved law school, and a few permit graduates of non-ABA-approved schools to apply.2 ABA approval matters because a state makes it a condition of the state's own admission.
A state's power over admission has limits. The Supreme Court has held that the Privileges and Immunities Clause applies to admission to practice, so a state may not discriminate against nonresidents without a substantial reason.3 Constitutional limits get their own treatment below.
The gate also depends on accurate information from the people who pass through it. An admissions authority that screens applicants must be able to rely on what they tell it. That is why dishonesty in the application process, including failure to disclose information, counts against an applicant even when the information by itself would not have justified denial of admission.4
The Model Rules state this dependence as a duty. Rule 8.1 imposes a duty of candor on lawyers and applicants for admission to the bar. They must be truthful in making statements, they have an affirmative duty to volunteer information to correct a misapprehension, and they must cooperate with lawful demands for information from admissions or disciplinary authorities.5
The rule's text divides those duties in two. Subsection (a) forbids knowingly making a false statement of material fact.6 Subsection (b) forbids failing to disclose a fact necessary to correct a misapprehension known by the person to have arisen in the matter. It also forbids knowingly failing to respond to a lawful demand for information from an admissions or disciplinary authority. It excepts information otherwise protected by Rule 1.6.7 Later sections take each clause apart. The point here is what they do together: they keep the gate supplied with the truthful information it needs.