A candidate who will have to meet with the District Committee will receive a letter and a referral sheet from the State Bar of Michigan’s Character & Fitness department. The meeting will then be scheduled through the District Committee chairman’s office. The Chairman will then find three to five members of the District Committee who will agree to sit on the applicant’s panel. The panelists will have the application and the referral sheet of the applicant. The committee’s readiness is dictated by the amount of time they have had to prepare for the meeting. Most issues are straight-forward enough, but some issues do contain subtleties.
Bringing an attorney to a District Committee meeting is a matter of comfort and preference. Most issues do not require a lawyer but rather thorough preparation and honest responses. The advantage to having a lawyer and consulting with a lawyer prior to the meeting is to reduce the ’surprise’ factor and to properly prepare you to honestly answer the questions you will get. The attorney will also prepare you to meet the burden of proof for the hearing: you are responsible to prove by clear and convincing evidence that you possess the requisite character & fitness to practice law. It is not presumed.