Robert Bowman 今年47岁，他一生的梦想就是要成为一名执业律师，一直以来他都在为这个目标而努力。不过他一直都很不顺利，他在少年时被车撞伤，害得他差点失去左腿。他用了10年时间才获得大学学历，因为这期间他要用很多时间用于恢复和重新练习走路。2000年他在加州大学学习法律，2003年开始他在伦敦攻读法律课程硕士学位，2004年毕业，这时他已欠下助学贷款23万美元。从此他开始在美国考律师，他考了4次直到2008年才通过律师考试。倒霉的是，他在通过律考后在海边游泳时又被失控的Jet Ski撞伤。 2009年1月，纽约州一个负责审查律师资格授予的委员会的律师对Bowman 进行复审和面试，审查报告认为Bowman持之以恒的精神非常显著，并推荐授予其律师执照。到这时Bowman应该是胜利在望了，因为这是他二十多年以来孜孜追求的目标。

　　可是，2009年4月纽约州5名上诉法官组成的小组审查Bowman申请后罕见地拒绝了委员会的推荐，决定“Bowman欠债太多而他没有努力地解决债务问题，因此他没有资格(不适于)当一名执业律师”。原来，在长达26年的学习和考试期间，Bowman基本上没有什么收入，依靠借钱来维持学业和律考，至2009年，他欠债本息等已超过40万美元，这期间他没有作出实质性的努力来解决债务问题，因此他的品行不适宜当一名执业律师。

　　现在，Bowman一边请求5名上诉法官组成的小组改变决定，一边委托律师，准备起诉一个债权人Sallie Mae，他认为正是Sallie Mae对其债务的不当处理导致他未到得律师执业证书。Bowman发誓，不管怎样，他都要实现从“客户到律师”的转变。

　　本文引发我的思考主要有：

　　1、美国律师执业准入在专业上很可能比中国要高得多(从近年我国司考高通过率可见一斑)，其复审和面试也相当严格。Bowman并没有恶意逃债，只是他还债努力不够，而这也构成了他不能成为执业律师的障碍。由此可见美国社会对律师行业的要求很高。

　　2、美国社会、政府整体上诚信度都很高。对律师行业的要求也无法脱离律师赖以存在的环境。我国律师行业中存在一些不好的现象，这固然有律师自身修养、行业自律不够的原因，但整体执业环境不好也是重要原因，律师不是在真空中执业，要完全独善其身也存在一定难度，律师也是人，律师有解决生存和发展问题的现实需要。

　　3、尽管中国律师执业环境不够好，作为中国律师，应珍惜职业荣誉，既要练就扎实熟练的专业技能，又要养成良好的执业操守，为客户提供优质高效的专业服务，为更好地展现中国执业律师的形象和创造更好的执业环境而努力。

　　All his life, Robert Bowman wanted to be a lawyer. He overcame a troubled childhood, a tragic accident that nearly cost him a leg and a debilitating Jet Ski collision.

　　He put himself through community college, worked and borrowed heavily to help pay for college, graduate school and even law school. He took the New York bar examination not once, not twice, not three times, but four, passing it last year. Finally, he seemed to be on his way.

　　In January, the committee of New York lawyers that reviews applications for admission to the bar interviewed Mr. Bowman, studied his history and the debt he had amassed, and called his persistence remarkable. It recommended his approval.

　　But a group of five state appellate judges decided this spring that his student loans were too big and his efforts to repay them too meager for him to be a lawyer.

　　“Applicant has not made any substantial payments on the loans,” the judges wrote in a terse decision and an unusual rejection of the committee’s recommendation. “Applicant has not presently established the character and general fitness requisite for an attorney and counselor-at-law.”

　　Mr. Bowman, 47, appears to have crossed some unspoken line with his $400,000 in student debt and penalties, accumulated over many years.

　　New York’s courts have overlooked misconduct like lawyers’ solicitation of minors for sex, efforts to deceive judges and possession of cocaine. Those instances have led merely to temporary suspensions from practice.

　　“It usually takes a pretty significant record of some underlying misconduct to keep you out permanently,” said Deborah L. Rhode, a law professor at Stanford who has studied bar admissions across the states. Excluding someone for having too much debt was odd, she said; the hard questions about loans usually involve applicants who have used bankruptcy to try to escape loans, she said, and Mr. Bowman has not.

　　Mr. Bowman concedes that he has never made a payment on his loans, partly because of medical and other deferrals and problems with his lender. But he says he intends to make good, adding that his only hope is to begin practicing law — which means overturning the judges’ decision.

　　While thousands of indebted students have complained about their treatment by lenders, Mr. Bowman has documented his personal debt crisis with remarkable, obsessive intensity.

　　He claims Sallie Mae overcharged him, imposing hefty and unjustified fees; did not allow him to defer payments when he was entitled to do so and improperly accounted for periods when he did defer.

　　According to his detailed records, a Sallie Mae representative even threatened him. “If you default, your license will be taken from you,” the representative said. “Do you understand that?”

　　When Mr. Bowman said that he did not yet have a law license, the representative responded that the company would prevent him from getting one.

　　Martha Holler, a Sallie Mae spokeswoman, said that such threats would violate the company’s rules.

　　“The size of this account is extremely unusual, but not surprising given that the customer took out 32 loans to pursue undergraduate, law and masters of law studies and has not made a single monthly payment over his 26-year student loan history,” Ms. Holler said. “We are performing an extensive review of his extraordinary case, and if we identify any errors we will quickly rectify them.”

　　Mr. Bowman has not had an easy time of it. He was shuffled through foster care and various legal proceedings as a child. He was impressed by the lawyers who represented his interests and saw a possible life’s work.

　　Getting a college degree took 10 years because he had spent nearly six in rehabilitation, relearning how to walk after an all-terrain vehicle hit him while he was stopped on his motorcycle. The accident nearly cost him his left leg; he graduated from the State University of New York in Albany in 1995.

　　He enrolled at the University of California Hastings College of Law in San Francisco in 2000.

　　After his third year, he began a masters of law program in London, where he lived with a girlfriend. He graduated in December 2004 with about $230,000 in student loan debt, and she helped support him while he studied, and studied again and again, for the bar exam.

　　In 2007, Mr. Bowman asked for an accounting of his loans, the payment deferrals he had used and his repayment options. He said he did not receive that information for nearly two years — a point disputed by Sallie Mae, which said it tried to reach Mr. Bowman several times in 2007.

　　Mr. Bowman passed the New York bar in February 2008. Soon after, while living with his once-estranged mother in Miramar, Fla., he was swimming at a beach when a Jet Ski lost control and slammed into him, breaking his good leg in four places.

　　“My luck on these things,” Mr. Bowman said. “So I contacted Sallie Mae and I’m like, I need a medical deferment and advice. Their response is, none available.”

　　Sallie Mae transferred Mr. Bowman’s private student loans, the ones not guaranteed by the federal government, to a collection agency, which tacked on a 25 percent fee. That agency transferred the loan again, and he said the next collection agency tacked on another 25 percent fee. Sallie Mae denied this, saying he was charged the fee only once. But suddenly, Mr. Bowman found that he owed more than $400,000.

　　Knowing it would be difficult to explain his debt to New York’s Committee on Character and Fitness, which reviews applications for admission to the bar, Mr. Bowman gathered correspondence with Sallie Mae, loan statements, even the emergency room report on the Jet Ski incident.

　　The three lawyers who interviewed him in Albany in January found Mr. Bowman’s “determination to pursue a postsecondary education remarkable,” according to the written evaluation. As for the loans, they continued, “it appears unconscionable that a student loan indebtedness could go from $270,000 to $435,000 in four years.”

　　Two of the committee members did not return calls seeking comment; the third could not be reached.

　　In April the judges rejected the committee’s recommendation and ruled Mr. Bowman could not be a lawyer. Michael J. Novack, the clerk of the court that handled Mr. Bowman’s application, declined to comment specifically on his case.

　　“Generally speaking, if the committee on character and fitness recommends admission of an applicant, the court approves of it,” Mr. Novack said. “But not always.”

　　Along with asking the court to reverse its decision, Mr. Bowman has consulted lawyers and is preparing a lawsuit against Sallie Mae. One way or another, he vows, he will make the switch from client to lawyer.