He Fights Bar to Become a Lawyer : A Quadriplegic’s Dream Falls Just 46 Points Short

When an automobile accident crippled him from the neck down at the age of 19, Michael Dooner had to put his plan to become a lawyer on hold--for six months.

Then it was back to school. Wheelchair-bound and unable to write, turn pages, type or take notes without assistance, he nevertheless earned a bachelor’s degree from Claremont Men’s College (now Claremont McKenna College) and a law degree from the University of California at Davis.

“I never lost faith that I would become a lawyer,” Dooner, 26, said the other day.

But he has yet to achieve his dream. And he believes that the Committee of Bar Examiners, which oversees the state Bar Exam, is to blame.

He is supported by the dean of the Davis law school, a state Assembly member, the director of the Western Law Center for the Handicapped at Loyola Law School and a counselor in the state Department of Rehabilitation.

Two months before he took the state General Bar examination last year, Dooner petitioned the Committee of Bar Examiners for the use of a typist and for additional time on the performance (case analysis) and essay sections of the test, requests routinely granted disabled applicants.

Dooner said he received no written response until four days before the exam. He was denied additional time and, though he was granted a typist, he said he was notified so late that he had little time to practice with a helper.

Dooner scored 1,214 on the Bar exam, 46 points short of the total needed for passage.

He then petitioned the Committee of Bar Examiners to give him a passing grade because he had come so close, despite the fact he was not given the opportunity to achieve “equitable results.”

Letters in support of him were sent by UC Davis Law School Dean Florian Bartosic; state Assembly member Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica); Joseph Lawrence of the Western Law Center for the Handicapped, and Ann Dodson of the state Rehabilitation Department.

But last week, his petition was denied after a hearing by the Bar committee. “There is no evidence of an arithmetical or clerical error or a departure from established procedures,” the committee wrote Dooner.

Written Apology

In November, however, Cheryl Waters, a petitions analyst for the committee, had written Dooner a letter in which she asked him to “accept my apologies for the delay in processing your last petition (the one requesting the typist and extra time).”

Contacted by The Times, James Tippin, executive director of the Committee of Bar Examiners, declined to comment on Dooner’s petitions on the grounds that they were confidential matters.

However, on the time issue in general, he said that “we try to duplicate what ever extra time (for the Bar exam that) the applicant was given in law school.” (Dooner was allowed double time for comparable tests while in law school).

Tippin also commented that “if a person is dictating (on the Bar exam), he is more rapid at getting his thoughts recorded than a person who is writing.”

Time-Consuming

But Dooner said that it is time-consuming for a quadriplegic to dictate to a typist. “You’re developing, then verbalizing a thought to a second person who is totally unfamiliar with the material,” he said. “And legal material can be very complex.”

Dooner ranked in the top 40% in the multiple-choice-type questions but in the bottom 14% in the essay questions. “The essay questions are much more difficult for me manually because I must tell the typist how to underline passages and outline before writing,” he said. “Surely if I’d had the extra time I would have done better.”

“Really, I hate to complain about things,” said Dooner, who has minimal movement in his left arm. “But this is a frustrating situation. I want to get on with my life.”

Dooner lives in a small apartment in Venice with his wife Linda, a singer and songwriter, and parrot Humbug. “Linda has been such a great help to me,” he said. “She even took notes for me at my Bar exam reviews.”

Worked as an Intern

Donner, who worked as an intern in the public defender’s office in Yolo County, hopes to join a law firm some day, “handling a variety of things, including disability claims. I wouldn’t cost a firm anything additional. Insurance would pay for any special expenses I might have, such as drivers. And I would be an effective advocate in the courtroom.”

Though his petition for a passing grade was turned down, Dooner believes the committee has admitted in effect that it made a mistake because it recently notified him that when he retakes the Bar exam at the end of this month, he will be granted 90 minutes additional time per each three-hour essay and performance test--the extra time he was denied for the first Bar exam.

“This is the final push, so I’m studying 10 to 12 hours a day,” Dooner said. “Every minute I sit down to study I wonder, why do I have to go through this again?

“But I’ve gotten through everything else; I’ll get through this. If nothing else, I hope my petition will cause the committee to be more careful in handling others in my situation in the future.”