Financial C&F issues
Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2012 11:23 pm
So I started my second day of orientation today for my first year of law school and a representative from our states bar came to discuss the bar application and how behavior in school can affect the bar, and a brief mention was made about financial responsibility, and I am now extremely worried that my past financial history will cause my entire law school investment to go to waste. Shorthand, here are the things that I will need to be be disclosing, and please note that my reasons for these problems are not my excuses now, but merely the thought process that I used at the time I was experiencing them:
- Failed to report 8k in self-employment income in 2008 (the reason for this was because I was young/ignorant of tax system, didn't get W2's so I never even thought about it - stupid I know but not intentional defrauding). Didn't really have the money to pay and eventually the IRS filed a tax lien against me. I don't really have a good excuse for not paying other than being broke. I knew payment plans existed but failed to utilize them, figuring I would just eventually pay them back with future tax refunds or whenever I had enough money to actually make a dent in my balance. I have since paid off this debt but it still went through the process of wage garnishment, etc which looks really bad on my part.
- Had an unpaid parking ticket that went to collections that I didn't know about until I checked my credit report when applying for student loans - paid them. Was around 150.
- Had some medical bill from wisdom teeth surgery from some lab test they decided to do on a tissue sample while I was under. I don't know how I authorized this when I was under but that too went to collections. That too was around 100 and paid that off.
- I was overpaid about 100 on an unemployment check that also went to collections and they eventually just took it out of my bank account through a court order.
Other than the unpaid taxes, the amounts are rather small but as I have been informed its not the amount but how it was handled, and believe me I know these were handled very very badly. I don't have any good reasons for having these unpaid debts sitting in collections other than the fact that I made scraps for wages and didn't even really have money to pay my own rent until I started taking out student loans in my last two years of undergrad (at which point these debts had already gone through the motions into collections/garnishments).
I have corrected these problems since starting law school so these will be at least 3 years in history upon finishing. I am sure I will be dealing with a C&F hearing but given my lack of good reasons for these problems, what are my chances of being denied admission to the bar? The representative from my state bar that I spoke to today wouldn't really give me a direct answer. This is pretty important to know as I would hate to repeat my past mistakes by going into debt only to have no chance at becoming a lawyer anyway.
I know the first instinctive reply might be "well yeah look at your history you shouldn't become a lawyer anyway!," my response to that is yes, 5 years ago I was a very irresponsible individual and had to learn many things the hard way (not just financial problems) but people do change. I am aware the "not having money" is NOT an excuse, I only included those statements above as my flawed reasoning that I used at the time. I am doing what things I can now to reflect upon myself favorably but I cannot change the past.
- Failed to report 8k in self-employment income in 2008 (the reason for this was because I was young/ignorant of tax system, didn't get W2's so I never even thought about it - stupid I know but not intentional defrauding). Didn't really have the money to pay and eventually the IRS filed a tax lien against me. I don't really have a good excuse for not paying other than being broke. I knew payment plans existed but failed to utilize them, figuring I would just eventually pay them back with future tax refunds or whenever I had enough money to actually make a dent in my balance. I have since paid off this debt but it still went through the process of wage garnishment, etc which looks really bad on my part.
- Had an unpaid parking ticket that went to collections that I didn't know about until I checked my credit report when applying for student loans - paid them. Was around 150.
- Had some medical bill from wisdom teeth surgery from some lab test they decided to do on a tissue sample while I was under. I don't know how I authorized this when I was under but that too went to collections. That too was around 100 and paid that off.
- I was overpaid about 100 on an unemployment check that also went to collections and they eventually just took it out of my bank account through a court order.
Other than the unpaid taxes, the amounts are rather small but as I have been informed its not the amount but how it was handled, and believe me I know these were handled very very badly. I don't have any good reasons for having these unpaid debts sitting in collections other than the fact that I made scraps for wages and didn't even really have money to pay my own rent until I started taking out student loans in my last two years of undergrad (at which point these debts had already gone through the motions into collections/garnishments).
I have corrected these problems since starting law school so these will be at least 3 years in history upon finishing. I am sure I will be dealing with a C&F hearing but given my lack of good reasons for these problems, what are my chances of being denied admission to the bar? The representative from my state bar that I spoke to today wouldn't really give me a direct answer. This is pretty important to know as I would hate to repeat my past mistakes by going into debt only to have no chance at becoming a lawyer anyway.
I know the first instinctive reply might be "well yeah look at your history you shouldn't become a lawyer anyway!," my response to that is yes, 5 years ago I was a very irresponsible individual and had to learn many things the hard way (not just financial problems) but people do change. I am aware the "not having money" is NOT an excuse, I only included those statements above as my flawed reasoning that I used at the time. I am doing what things I can now to reflect upon myself favorably but I cannot change the past.