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Short answer to the question you actually asked:Can a disbarred attorney move to another state and take their bar exam?Yes.Short answer to the question you implicitly asked:Can a disbarred attorney move to another state and get a license to practice law?It would be almost impossible.Longer answer:All US states perform character and fitness background checks on applicants for bar admission. As a practical matter, whatever the attorney did that caused them to be disbarred in Jurisdiction X will almost certainly cause them to flunk the C&F background check in Jurisdiction Y.In both of the states where I am admitted to practice, I took the bar examination before the state had completed my C&F background check. So, yeah, they’ll let you take the bar exam without a completed background check. But they won’t hand you a license to practice law.Passing the bar exam is only one of several requirements you have to satisfy in order to become a lawyer. If you flunk the background check, you don’t get a license to practice law.

In 30 years working for the State Bar, investigating attorney misconduct, I’ve heard a few unexpected remarks from lawyers. The one that sticks out in my memory the most involved an applicant for licensing who was the subject of a moral character proceeding. I don’t recall what discrepancy in this young man’s application brought on the proceeding, but the application is VERY thorough and calls for a huge number of disclosures about one’s past, including the usual— past addresses, employment, etc. Any omission from the written application can be considered an intentional misrepresentation. We had just concluded our first hearing on the matter, just a trial setting conference, and our team asked applicant if he would be willing to sit down with us and answer some questions. He agreed and the two State Bar attorneys and 2 investigators assigned to his case, myself included, sat down in a conference room for the discussion. I had just been assigned to the matter and had only had about 30 minutes to review the whole file.At first blush, this guy looked like a pretty good candidate for admission. He seemed forthright and cooperative, seemingly eager to help in any way he could.The first question my partner asked involved past addresses, because applicant had spent time in Nevada, but didn’t disclose a residence address there. Applicant stated that he’d lived in Las Vegas for over a year. Everyone else was focused on that misrepresentation (failure to disclose is considered a misrep to the State Bar), but the light bulb went off in my head. I indicated I had a couple questions and the fun began. Were you employed while living there? Yes. Misrep #2. What was your job? I was an attorney for a law firm. Misrep #3— he didn’t disclose this employment. Were you admitted to the Nevada Bar? Yes. Misrep #4— he didn’t disclose admission to another state bar. Are you currently a member in good standing in Nevada? No, I was suspended. Misrep #5— discipline by another bar has to be disclosed. All of this took a couple minutes to learn, and he was totally matter of fact about the whole thing. He clearly had no idea he was putting a torch to his chances for admission in our state!At the conclusion of this meeting, it was our sad duty to inform this earnest young man that his chances of getting licensed in California were virtually nil, since we’d be arguing that he’d been disciplined in another state and all his misrepresentations indicated a pattern of deception to conceal that fact. He withdrew his application a week later.

Not as a judge or attorney, but in my 30 years as a State Bar investigator I saw it happen a few times. The most memorable for me, because I played a pivotal role in it, was an applicant for admission who had been turned down by the Committee of Bar Examiners based on discrepancies in his moral character application. In that situation, an appeal basically results in a trial in State Bar Court, which is where this occurred. This gentleman was older than the average applicant, a businessman with a lengthy career. In the course of my investigation, I discovered over 80 positions with various corporations this man held, an additional application for admission that he’d filed in another state, and numerous civil suits filed against both himself and the various companies he founded and/or worked for as a CEO, all of which should have been disclosed on his application for determination of moral character.Those were nothing compared to what else was uncovered. Among other things, this guy founded and ran an auto loan company (though not it’s real name, let’s call it “Acme Loans” for ease of reference) which, after giving out the loans, sold the paper to various banks and financial entities, marketing these securities as “A grade” paper— basically, fully secured loans with reliable payment histories. All of that was untrue. Acme would essentially give an auto loan to anyone with a pulse, regardless of credit history. Since they weren’t holding onto the paper that didn’t matter to them. What mattered was volume, because the more loans they gave out the more loan accounts they had to sell. Eventually, of course, the whole thing collapsed like the house of cards it was, because they were giving loans to people who had no ability or desire to repay them, but explaining this complex snake nest to a judge was going to be daunting. We ended up with 80 volumes of evidence, when a normal trial takes just a few.In any case, right before the trial commenced, I was trying to track down the Acme corporate secretary, who was present for all the meetings of this auto loan corporation and kept the minutes. As luck would have it, I located her the day before trial. In the course of interviewing her, she stated that in one meeting the applicant in talking about selling paper to these banks remarked that he was really “just blowing Acme smoke”, meaning he was knowingly selling bad paper to the unsuspecting.Come the trial, I’m sitting in the gallery right behind the State Bar table where State Bar counsel and co-counsel are seated. By the time the corporate secretary is called, you could tell the judge was really at sea trying to make sense of this mess. Co-counsel’s questioning really didn’t clarify things much, consisting of yes or no questions with little explanation. As he was finishing, I passed him a note to ask about the phrase “Acme smoke”. When he did, the secretary really took the reins in her teeth, agreeing that she was familiar with the phrase and then she broke into this explanation about the whole scheme that was remarkable for its clarity and first hand knowledge. You could literally see the light bulb go on over the judge’s head. He sat up, began scribbling notes furiously, and questioning the witness himself (which is allowed in such proceedings). Trial for the applicant went downhill from there and he was denied admission with a scathing 60 page ruling.As an aside, at a State Bar office function the next day, I was pleasantly surprised by the judge’s legal secretary, who was present for the whole trial. She congratulated me on what appeared to be a successful trial, noting that she and the judge were impressed by the information I’d been clearly feeding the attorneys throughout the proceeding, and stated that she was glad to see there was somebody present for the State Bar that knew what they were doing!