Read a couple of things about this the other night- apparently it’s fairly easy to transfer jurisdictions/take the bar/do the UBE for about 2/3ds of states if you’re at least halfway competent, but there’s a definite unofficial downwards order. So you go “well I am too corrupt/stupid for California, but I can always move to Missouri” and then once you fail in Missouri you can always go “well kids we’re moving to Minnesota where they’ll let any huckster practice law.” But it’s also really easy to get disbarred from a second place once it happens in one, and some jurisdictions simply say “if you’ve been disbarred elsewhere you can’t register here”. And again that has a similiar unofficial pecking order, everyone knows who they look up to and down on.
But DC is more significant because it’s essentially “bottom-most respectable step”, getting disbarred from there is almost a symbolic thing, for a normal non-celebrity lawyer it’s the absolute end of your respectable career. Even in the lower jurisdictions you’ll always be recognised as a schmuck.
