speeding ticket and NY bar admission Forum

[cattail]

Does speeding ticket count as criminal record? Thanks!

[SJU2010]

Great question....bump

[I.P. Daly]

Section F. Question 12:
Have you ever, either as an adult or a juvenile, been cited, arrested, taken into custody, charged with, indicted,
convicted or tried for, or pleaded guilty to, the commission of any felony or misdemeanor or the violation of
any law, except minor parking violations, or been the subject of any juvenile delinquency or youthful offender
proceeding?

[nealric]

Just disclose. A speeding ticket is unlikely to cause any problems. I disclosed the $10 ticket I received on a bicycle on my NY bar app. It never came up.

[Jordan77]

Depends. Was it a criminal speeding ticket (e.g., 21+ mph over the speed limit) or just a routine speeding ticket? Most C&F applications will specify that they are not talking about traffic violations such as a speeding ticket. If in doubt, err on the side of disclosing it just to be safe. They are far more concerned with honesty rather than a speeding ticket.

[I.P. Daly]

In NY, you should disclose all traffic infractions (e.g., speeding, failure to obey a traffic control device, etc.) other than minor parking tickets. The C&F committee may even question the candidate if they show an inability to pay parking tickets on time. The only instance where you may not have to disclose a traffic ticket is if the court bumped it down to a parking ticket (some municipalities do this), and even than, sometimes it's still better to disclose.

[cattail]

I just checked my driving record, the speeding ticket I got in 2008 in CA did not show. I went to driving school afterwards, wondering if the record was eliminated. One of my friends did not disclose last year for the same reason and no question was asked during the interview. I do want to err on the safe side and disclose, but there's no way of finding out the details, e.g. which court issued the ticket. Should I attach an addendum?

[I.P. Daly]

I just checked my driving record, the speeding ticket I got in 2008 in CA did not show. I went to driving school afterwards, wondering if the record was eliminated. One of my friends did not disclose last year for the same reason and no question was asked during the interview. I do want to err on the safe side and disclose, but there's no way of finding out the details, e.g. which court issued the ticket. Should I attach an addendum?

It depends on the state, but after a set period of time, many states expunge minor traffic infractions from a driver's abstract. For example, in New York, it's three years. However, it's best to disclose everything you can remember because regardless of the time period, expunged violations will generally still show up when C&F runs a background check.