Skip to content
CASE
← All guidelines

Guideline E: Personal Conduct

Questionable judgment, dishonesty, or failure to follow rules, including falsifying or omitting information on the security forms.

Decided hearing cases

8,570

Grant rate

23%

1,982 granted · 6,588 denied

View in StatisticsSearch these cases

Specific issues and their outcomes

  • Falsified the security form

    10% granted · 305 granted · 2,758 denied

  • Personal conduct (unspecified)

    26% granted · 779 granted · 2,169 denied

  • Omission / failure to disclose

    26% granted · 692 granted · 1,946 denied

  • Lack of candor in an interview

    11% granted · 170 granted · 1,406 denied

  • Questionable judgment

    25% granted · 348 granted · 1,070 denied

  • Workplace rules violation

    20% granted · 151 granted · 600 denied

Mitigations judges credited most

  • Promptly corrected the falsification84
  • Acknowledgment & remorse72
  • Credible explanation of omission41
  • Passage of time20
  • Rehabilitation evidence19

Counted only where the judge expressly credited the mitigation, not merely where it was claimed.

What the reference material says about personal-conduct cases

  • The recurring theme across the practitioner literature: the concealment routinely weighs more heavily than the underlying conduct. Prompt, self-initiated correction of the record before confrontation is a recognized mitigating condition. (Practitioner sources; SEAD-4 mitigating conditions)

From our verified reference library: paraphrased from the named sources and reviewed before publication. Descriptive background, not legal advice about any case.

How the process worksA contested case follows a published sequence. Open this for the short version, or put a question to Ask Mode on the home page. Accounts are free and include up to 25 questions per day.

A contested case follows a published path: a Statement of Reasons, the government's written list of its concerns (an SOR), a written answer, a hearing or a decision on the written record, the judge's decision, and in some cases an appeal.

Read the stages of a DOHA case · Ask a question about the process

Other guidelines: A · B · C · D · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M

Where to go from here

Get help with my case

Send us your question, or the Statement of Reasons you received. No charge, and a CASE analyst reads it. Usually five to ten business days.

Ask a question →

I do this for clients

Rank every decision by how closely it matches a matter, see how the assigned judge has ruled, and keep it together with cited exports.

For attorneys and firms →

Descriptive statistics from decided public DOHA cases. Not legal advice or a prediction. † marks samples under 20 cases.