Robert M. Joost v. Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners
AdministrativeLaw DueProcess JusticiabilityDoctri
Whether the Massachusetts bar's educational requirements violate a legal practitioner's constitutional rights by preventing admission based on extensive legal experience rather than formal academic credentials
No question identified. : ‘ Questlon Presented I. Whether, under the particular facts of this case, the Respondents and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, have violated Petitioner’s constitutional rights by refusing to allow him to take the bar exam because he does not have a formal education consisting of a four-year college degree and a three-year law school degree by an accredited ABA law school, when, in fact, Petitioner is fit and capable of representing clients in the courts and before other entities owing to his more than 50 years of legal experience in writing briefs, memorandum of law, complaints, etc_—including more than a dozen petitions for certiorari to this Court and several briefs to the several U.S. courts of appeals—and conducting trials when permitted, all of which is equal to, or better than a formal education, and in fact is more in line with “reading law” and apprenticeship that was in existence at the foundation of the United States? JI. Whether the Respondents and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are violating Petitioner’s constitutional rights by denying him the right to | pursue his chosen occupation—that is, representing people in legal actions before the courts and other entities? i.