How’s that for a TV pilot title? 

Traci Bryant is a first year law student at University of West Los Angeles School of Law. She has an interesting non-legal career in the meantime: she is an occasional prostitute in Las Vegas and established porn star, under her memorable professional name of “Anita Cannibal.” Her credits include “Double Air Bags 20,” “Mature Women with Younger Girls 16,” “Barnyard Babes,” “Blowjob Adventures of Dr. Fellatio,” “Gettin’ Wet: Ladies First,” and my personal favorite title, “Lesbian Ho’Down at the Bunnyranch,” among other art classics.  

I’m not making this up. 

She has decided to become a crusader in her field, according to the blog “Bitter Lawyer,” working for better and safer working conditions in the porn industry. The question is: will she any bar admit someone with her, uh, resume? 

Even in Nevada, where her prostitution activities in Las Vegas are legal, there is a moral character standard, and it is pretty typical. Among other requirements, like graduating from law school and passing a bar exam, an applicant to join the legal profession must “…Demonstrate that the applicant is of good moral character and is willing and able to abide by the high ethical standards required of attorneys and counselors at law.” Now, I know what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas and all that, but is a porn star/hooker really going to be able meet the ethical standards of the legal profession? 

She just might. The “moral character” requirement has always been disturbingly vague. The Supreme Court issued something of a warning about bar associations getting too high up on their horses in the 1957 case of Konigsberg v. State Bar of California, 353 U.S. 252, saying…

"It can be defined in an almost unlimited number of ways, for any definition will necessarily reflect the attitudes, experiences, and prejudices of the definer. Such a vague qualification, which is easily adapted to fit personal views and predilections, can be a dangerous instrument for arbitrary and discriminatory denial of the right to practice law "

After all, lawyers aren’t required to be saints, or even especially nice people. They have to be worthy of trust. That’s the key character trait that bar associations must focus on. Can an aspiring lawyer be trusted with client funds, with client interests, with clients’ lives? “Moral character” is not really the correct test, or if it is, it must be defined in a way that is relevant to the practice of law. The ABA Rules of Professional Conduct, rightly or wrongly, for example, explicitly takes such moral offenses as adultery and infidelity off the table, though a strong argument could be advanced that if you can’t trust someone to be honest and loyal to his spouse, he isn’t someone a client should trust either.

California defines “moral character” for bar admittee this way: “The information elicited by the moral character application covers not only criminal offenses (including DUI or minor in possession of alcohol), but also such matters as academic discipline in college or law school, problems with the bar admission in other states, professional misconduct in prior employment or other licensed professions, or unsatisfied judgments and debts.”

Well, that gives Anita Cannibal something to work with. Presumably criminal conduct includes criminal conduct that hasn’t been the cause of arrest or punishment. Is prostitution criminal conduct? Most jurisdictions say so; it is fair to say that our culture says so. In Las Vegas, as in other parts of Nevada (but not Reno!) being a practitioner of prostitution is legal if you are a “licensed professional,” which is what Traci is. (Rhode Island, of all places, is the only other state that smiles on sex for money, as long as it isn’t solicited on the street or sold in brothels.) Presumable, the bar of a state that regards prostitution as a crime would have to hold its nose and admit a Nevada prostitute despite her engaging in the same activity in Nevada that would get a local working girl with a law degree rejected. The argument against the local applicant would be that demonstrated disregard and disrespect of the law, not a sordid occupation, rendered her unworthy. Okay: does that mean a practitioner of, say, blackmail, from a state that allowed extortion as legal, must be admitted to the bar in a less forgiving jurisdiction? That seems strange: the bar is supposedly inquiring into character, not wisdom of residence. But maybe this is unfairly playing the hypothetical game. Presumably a state bar that found a another state’s laws excusing extortion, robbery and other objectively heinous activities repugnant could legitimately choose to reject one of their “law-abiding” law students.

Using the standards of California as our guide, it would seem that many kinds of conduct that the average American would call “immoral” won’t trigger a character-related rejection for bar membership, with the exception of law-breaking, cheating in school, lying in professional relationships of trust, fraud, and failure to pay debts and financial obligations. Wife-beating in Brazil? Maybe that’s okay…it is legal, after all. (Sorry: hypotheticals again. The addiction of all ethicists.) What about vocal support for unpopular and culturally objectionable opinions and conduct, like white supremacy, man-boy love, polygamy, child labor, and sexual discrimination? In the famous case of white supremacist Matthew Hale, the Illinois bar found his racist views made him “unfit” to practice law, although being a racist isn’t illegal anywhere in the U.S., thanks to the First Amendment of the Constitution. Somehow, I find it difficult to believe that the Utah bar, for one, would welcome Traci into its ranks.

But I might be wrong. Nothing in Traci’s background indicates that she is untrustworthy or dishonest; is there anything about her background that would create a reasonable doubt that she could be a fine lawyer, especially for her former colleagues?

Unless Traci has some undisclosed skeletons under her G-String, the Scoreboard will be rooting for her to join the legal profession. In a field where practitioners are often unfairly called whores, it will be refreshing to have someone who won’t consider it an insult.