## Facts

- Maximillian Paul Lammers, Jr. attended law school from 1981 through 1984.
- Lammers did not complete a required two-credit legal-writing seminar needed to graduate.
- He obtained an extension to complete the remaining requirement and was allowed to participate in his law school’s commencement ceremony.
- Despite knowing he had not received a law degree, and knowing a law degree was required to sit for the Ohio Bar Examination, Lammers applied to take the July 1984 Ohio Bar Examination.
- Lammers passed the examination and was admitted to practice law in Ohio.
- In August 1990, Lammers’s former law school reported to the Supreme Court of Ohio that Lammers had been practicing law without a law degree.
- The matter was referred to the Supreme Court’s Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness for investigation.
- After the investigation, the Supreme Court of Ohio issued an order on October 8, 1991 revoking Lammers’s license effective immediately and stating that, for reinstatement, he must complete his law degree and retake and pass the Ohio Bar Examination.
- Lammers applied to the Supreme Court of Ohio for relief from the revocation order, requesting that the revocation be stayed while he finished his degree.

## Issues

1. Whether the Supreme Court of Ohio should stay or modify its order revoking Lammers’s license so he could continue practicing law while completing the law-degree requirement.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Ohio denied Lammers’s application for relief from the revocation order.
- The court left in place the immediate revocation of Lammers’s license.
- The court maintained that Lammers could seek readmission only after obtaining a law degree and retaking and passing the Ohio Bar Examination.
- The court treated the law-degree requirement as a mandatory condition of admission and concluded that Lammers knowingly sat for the bar examination without meeting that condition.
- The court rejected the request for a stay despite Lammers’s request to cure the deficiency after the fact, emphasizing that the defect in his original eligibility required loss of the license until the basic admission requirements were met.

## Legal Principles

- Bar-admission educational requirements, including completion of a law degree, are mandatory conditions to eligibility to sit for the bar and to be admitted to practice.
- When an attorney’s admission occurred even though a mandatory prerequisite was not satisfied, the Supreme Court may revoke the license to protect the integrity of the admission process.
- A request for equitable relief (such as a stay of revocation) may be denied when the applicant knew of the defect and failed to correct it before or during years of practice.
- Readmission after revocation based on an admission defect may be conditioned on satisfying the missing prerequisite and requalifying through the ordinary admission process, including retaking the bar examination and additional character-and-fitness review.

## Conclusion

In Re Lammers holds that an Ohio lawyer who was admitted after taking the bar examination without having completed the required law degree was not entitled to a stay of the Supreme Court’s revocation order; the court kept the revocation in effect and required Lammers to earn a law degree and retake and pass the Ohio bar examination before he could seek readmission.


In Re Lammers, 581 N.E.2d 1359 (1991)