Don’t fake your résumé. Don’t fudge a few details; don’t be tempted to embellish just a smidge, I don’t care how cute Second Act was. The consequences, particularly for lawyers, can be quite severe if (when) you’re caught. Just ask Seth Asher Nadler.
Nadler has received a one-year suspension from the New Jersey Supreme Court over an inflated résumé and a falsified transcript that he submitted to Williams & Connolly. The highlights of his grade inflation include bumping up his GPA to 3.825 from 3.269, claiming he received honors in legal writing when the class was pass/fail (he got a P), and listing an article that he researched and wrote with three other people only without listing his co-authors. As the Disciplinary Review Board notes, his deception was quite extensive. In addition to the résumé boosting he did, Nadler admitted to a whopping 26 misrepresentations on the unofficial transcript that he submitted to Williams & Connolly. Yikes.
Williams & Connolly become hip to Nadler’s scheme when an alumnus of his law school — University of Minnesota — suspected something was amiss:
Sanjiv Laud, Esquire, a Williams & Connolly attorney and alumnus of the law school, reviewed respondent’s employment application. In August 2015, Laud contacted Erin Keyes, the [University of Minnesota] law school’s assistant dean of students, and expressed concern about respondent’s unofficial transcript. Keyes compared the unofficial and official transcripts, and confirmed that there were significant discrepancies. After Keyes contacted the law school’s career center, she concluded that inaccuracies existed between the résumé and unofficial transcripts that had been uploaded to the career center’s program and those that respondent had sent to Williams & Connolly.
Nadler reportedly says he had a justification for some of his résumé entries:
Nadler maintained that his legal writing professor told him that he could truthfully represent that he received honors in legal writing because of his arguments in the appellate advocacy section of the course. He also said he was told that he could cite the article without reference to the co-authors.
But the majority of the disciplinary review board did not cotton to the excuses:
The degree and scope of respondent’s deception, his steadfast commitment to demonstrably false claims, and his attempt to place blame on someone else, demonstrate a disturbing pattern of dishonesty, a refusal to admit wrongdoing, and an arrogant lack of contrition that cannot be countenanced. Moreover, nothing in the record serves to mitigate his misconduct, including his alleged depression, which is undiagnosed and untreated, other than a weekly conversation with someone at the NJLAP. Moreover, although respondent was an inexperienced attorney at the time of these events, one need not have experience to know that one should not lie. Inexperience may serve as mitigation for some shortcomings, but not for engaging in repeated acts of dishonesty, deception, and fabrication of documents.
That opinion pulls no punches. After reading that, you might think Nadler had the book thrown at him. But, though a majority of the disciplinary review board recommended a two-year suspension, the New Jersey Supreme Court settled on a one-year suspension. Let’s hope he’s learned a valuable lesson about embellishing your résumé.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).