Comments on: Debt bars would-be lawyer

By: Dave J

Dave J — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:28:02 +0000

This is absurdity. I have around $100k in combined undergrad and law school debt: most of it, the Stafford loans, is in forbearance, accruing interest but not presently requiring repayment, since I’m a poor state employee (for the moment). I worked with my private creditors to do partial payments. One of my private loans went into default and my wages were garnished (just finished paying that off). But all I had to do was what I could in good faith: lenders want to work with borrowers and get something rather than nothing.

The court got it completely right. If this entitled sleazoid admits never once making a payment on his loans, then he borrowed them with fraudulent intent from the outset. It’s his burden to prove he’s fit to practice law, and he fails miserably. This is someone we’re supposed to believe can be trusted not to rob his own clients blind? That’s what attorneys most often get disbarred for, so spare the public the necessity of doing it after the fact.

By: Mike in Texas

Mike in Texas — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:58:21 +0000

Substitute the word “teacher” for lawyer and I bet there’d be a whole different headline and discussion.

By: thaprof

thaprof — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:29:18 +0000

I have lawyer relatives who worked paid summer internships in law firms while in school. They thought the money was horrible, but felt better when they discovered that a 12-week internship paid as much as a 9-month TA job.

By: Nick B.

Nick B. — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 02:24:03 +0000

David, “the fact that he’s clearly been irresponsible and made lousy choices” is plenty of reason to tell him that he can’t be an attorney. In spite of all the jokes and the well-publicized bad examples, attorneys in all states follow a strict code of ethics. Keeping people who are likely to perform poorly and do more harm than good for their clients out of the profession is, in my mind, a perfectly acceptable goal of a state bar association. (This is why many people who have non-trivial prior criminal backgrounds aren’t even admitted to law school, much less allowed to pass the bar.)

Further, most character & fitness examiners worry (sensibly enough) that someone buried beneath such an enormous mountain of debt may well look out for their own financial interests over those of their client. It’s not a given that people would behave in that way – but they might.

Basically: it’s possible that this guy may have gotten completely shafted. But it’s also possible that this guy is utterly irresponsible and should be kept out of a profession where he would hold people’s lives and livelihoods in his hands.

By: Richard Nieporent

Richard Nieporent — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:00:55 +0000

Forget about Mr. “I’ve never made a payment on my loans” Bowman. The real irresponsible party here is that bastard child of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Sallie Mae.

The size of this account is extremely unusual, but not surprising given that the customer took out 32 loans to pursue undergraduate, law and masters of law studies and has not made a single monthly payment over his 26-year student loan history,” Ms. Holler said. “We are performing an extensive review of his extraordinary case, and if we identify any errors we will quickly rectify them.”

How can Sallie Mae continue to give Mr. Bowman loan after loan when he has not repaid one cent of his previous loans?

By: David McElroy

David McElroy — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:17:09 +0000

I don’t have a lot of sympathy for him, given the fact that he’s clearly been irresponsible and made lousy choices, but why should that be a legal reason to deny him the ability to work in the field? He’s completed the training and passed the tests that are supposed to prepare a person to become a lawyer. Why should anyone have a right to tell him that he isn’t good enough to be a lawyer? That should be up to his potential clients to determine, not agents of government.

By: Cardinal Fang

Cardinal Fang — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:24:22 +0000

This NYT article illustrates the annoying he-said, she-said style of journalism that is all too common now. The journalist falls back on relating the claims of the two sides, without telling us the facts, facts that are in this case readily available. The article says “Mr. Bowman has documented his personal debt crisis with remarkable, obsessive intensity.” Great. So when Bowman says he got smacked twice by 25% fees from collection agencies and Sallie Mae disputes this, the journalist ought to take a look at the dossier Bowman has accumulated and let us know who’s telling the truth. How did the debt mount up from $230,000 to $400,000 in five years?

Moreover, why wasn’t Bowman working during the time he was studying for the bar? Normally, students graduating from Hastings get jobs after graduation so they can start paying back their loans.