In 1989, Robert Fulghum came out with a book titled “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” The book became a best-seller. It contained such wisdom as “Play fair,” “Don’t hit people,” and “Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.” Twenty years ago today, the Supreme Court emphasized the importance of those and other kindergarten lessons in In re McLaughlin, 144 N.J. 133 (1996). There, in a unanimous opinion by Justice Handler, the Court adopted the recommendation of the Committee on Character and denied Frank McLaughlin’s application for admission to the New Jersey Bar, in significant part due to McLaughlin’s failure to maintain appropriate civility in his dealings with the Committee.
The Committee on Character had found that McLaughlin had demonstrated a disqualifying lack of candor in addressing two incidents in which he had been arrested, as well as his conduct surrounding his automobile insurance and his failure to submit a driver’s abstract as required of every Bar applicant. The Court agreed. But Justice Handler went on to expound at length how McLaughlin’s “attitude and demeanor in his dealings with the [Committee on Character] panel and with court administrative personnel demonstrated a lack of respect for the administration of justice.”
The Court’s opinion is well worth reading in full, in order to appreciate the extent of the scorn and abuse that McLaughlin heaped on the Committee on Character panel members, the Committee’s staff attorney, and the Clerk of the Supreme Court, orally and in writing. [Disclosure: I was a member of the Committee on Character for fifteen years, and I knew and worked with the staff attorney involved in McLaughlin, as well as with the Clerk of the Supreme Court, whom I had known since I clerked for Justice O’Hern in 1982-83). But Justice Handler summed it up tersely as follows:
“McLaughlin was condescending and inappropriately sarcastic while addressing the panel members. He denigrated inquiries into substance abuse even though his own submissions and testimony indicated the legitimacy of the Committee’s concerns. He treated dismissively observations and comments by panel members intended to elucidate their inquiry. Also, he twisted highly relevant questions seeking the truth as to when material documents were submitted. McLaughlin compared the panel to the infamous inquisitor, Torquemada, and characterized the proceedings as a ‘ritual slaughter’ and a ‘pharisaical inquiry.’ Additionally, he resorted to extreme personal vilification against court employees, indirectly characterizing one as lethargic, slothful, and torpid; as incompetent, negligent, and ability-deficient; and as odious, lying, hostile, malicious, and malevolent.”
McLaughlin was on the law review at his law school, he had worked in the insurance industry, in the specialized area of reinsurance, and his vocabulary of abuse demonstrated that he was well-educated in a certain way. But he apparently did not learn, or did not retain, the lessons of kindergarten.
The Bar admission process is a stressful one, and it is the culmination of many years of schooling and many thousands of dollars invested in the quest to become a lawyer. With the “brass ring” of Bar admission in sight, it may be tempting for some Bar applicants to behave uncivilly in dealing with the Committee on Character process. But McLaughlin stands as a warning that Bar candidates must resist any such temptation, or face the adverse consequences of failing to live up to kindergarten standards of interpersonal relations.