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Hi. So long story short, a few years back I was separated from my position of employment. It was a situation which required steps to report something which I did, but it was deemed later on that I didn't do it quickly enough. I reported it within 24 hours but not right away. I have some questions with this in mind:

1) If a law school application doesn't ask about employment history and reasons for leaving would I even mention my employment separation? Would I do this in an addendum? I don't ask this question with the intention to see what I can get away with but I don't want to unnecessarily hurt myself either. I hope that makes sense.
2) On an application with the employment history, should I simply state separated from position (can elaborate if needed) or should I write that with an addendum as well?
2) This is my bigger concern. Assuming the law school that I eventually matriculate into doesn't ask why I left each position per say and I don't mention it, will this result in a ding when I'm completing C&F later for the bar. The state that I would want to practice law is CA.

Some other potentially useful info. I secured a letter of recommendation from my supervisor at the time saying that I was a good employee and am eligible to return to work in the future if it came to it. Simply it was the mishandling of the situation which led to my termination unfortunately. Any input or feedback would be appreciated.

What is a separation from a job?

splitmuch wrote:What is a separation from a job?

I guess to be specific I was fired from my position due to the incident.

They can't fire you because YOU ALREADY QUIT. Ergo, you resigned and no issues here

Happy Gilmore wrote:They can't fire you because YOU ALREADY QUIT. Ergo, you resigned and no issues here

Not sure what you mean by this reply. I was fired because of the incident. I didn't quit beforehand.

I don't see this causing any problems for law school.

Unless applications have changed since I applied (a couple of years ago), all that law schools ask about is where you were employed and when -- i.e., names and dates. They don't check up on you -- they don't have the time to do that.

While I know nothing about the bar, I would be amazed if your being fired from a job many years before your application would cause any serious problems. Even if it indicated some kind of character flaw at the time, you could reasonably claim you have reformed/learnt since.

You'd be insane to use that LOR from your employer.

AntipodeanPhil wrote:I don't see this causing any problems for law school.

Unless applications have changed since I applied (a couple of years ago), all that law schools ask about is where you were employed and when -- i.e., names and dates. They don't check up on you -- they don't have the time to do that.

While I know nothing about the bar, I would be amazed if your being fired from a job many years before your application would cause any serious problems. Even if it indicated some kind of character flaw at the time, you could reasonably claim you have reformed/learnt since.

This.

Thank you to everyone who has replied. In case people were wondering, I don't plan on using that rec from that employer. I have it merely to show that I was a solid employee until the incident occurred.

I still am curious though to the specific answers to my questions whether to disclose or not and how that will affect C&F when applying for the bar later. Any takers?

Bump. Can anybody please help clarify for me? I am willing to disclose to law schools that don't specifically ask on their applications whether I have been dismissed from a place of employment, but just need to know if I need to regardless of them asking. I'm more concerned about it affecting my entrance to the CA bar later on.

If there is a reasonable interpretation of a C&F question on an application that brings it close to asking about being fired from a job, then I would go ahead and disclose. But if they don't ask the question at all, then you don't need to.

They're asking specific questions, and you should answer them. You don't need to interpret their C&F questions as a disguised way of asking "is there anything in your past that could potentially cause us to look negatively on you?" If they wanted to ask that question, they would.