Katie Zacharia has a problem with the law. Of all things, the very field she spent years relying on to establish her public credibility. The White House’s new spokeswoman admitted Thursday that she failed the California bar exam. She is not licensed to practice law anywhere in the United States. Yet she publicly called herself a lawyer. Donald Trump even explicitly introduced her as a licensed attorney. Apparently, in Washington these days, you can start using the professional title while the credentials that go with it are still nowhere to be found.
Zacharia tried to clear things up during a conversation with Jack Posobiec, the far-right political commentator known for spreading the so-called Pizzagate conspiracy theory. The new administration spokeswoman explained that much of the confusion stemmed from her calling herself a “lawyer.” She said she had spent considerable time consulting numerous people in the legal profession. Her question was whether she could use that title as long as she did not present herself as an “attorney at law,” did not use the designation “Esquire,” and merely provided legal analysis. According to Zacharia, everyone she consulted said yes.
Apparently, that is supposed to settle the matter. A professional title becomes a question of clever wording, and the lack of a license becomes a linguistic technicality. Zacharia’s argument essentially comes down to claiming that a law degree is enough to publicly present yourself as a lawyer, provided you avoid certain additional titles. The law, however, has the inconvenient habit of refusing to be defined solely by what the person involved says about herself.
Zacharia attended Pepperdine University, earning her Juris Doctor degree in 2011. She subsequently took the California bar exam and failed. By her own admission, there is no question about that. As an explanation, she pointed to her upcoming wedding. She said she had been distracted, excited about getting married, and preparing to move to China to join her husband. The exam therefore no longer seemed particularly important. Quite an explanation from someone who later publicly presented herself as a legal expert. Zacharia described her attitude at the time in roughly these terms: She simply took the exam and waited to see what happened. The result had been largely irrelevant because she would not need an American law license in China. After moving, she therefore gave little further thought to having failed.
In China, she said, she worked in international legal transactions. Her law degree was sufficient for that work. She also claimed that China had no comparable bar exam. In fact, China does have a national legal qualification examination. Foreign nationals, however, are generally not eligible to take it. The fact that Zacharia did not need an American law license therefore says little about which legal activities she was legally permitted to perform elsewhere.
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The State Bar of California is now even dealing with the public claims about her professional status. The organization Campaign for Accountability filed a formal complaint, demanding an investigation into whether Zacharia violated regulations prohibiting the unauthorized practice of law by misrepresenting her professional status. Under California law, falsely claiming to be authorized to practice law can itself carry criminal consequences. No decision has yet been issued in this particular case. Particularly uncomfortable for Zacharia is the fact that her own public statements contradict the careful linguistic distinction she is now relying on. According to published investigations, she explicitly described herself as an “attorney” in numerous posts. Legal positions also appeared in her professional background, raising questions about the precise qualifications required for those roles. The president himself called her an attorney when introducing her. Trump, of all people, who has repeatedly mocked political opponents for supposedly failing bar exams, now has to have someone explain why failing the exam is suddenly beside the point when it comes to his own spokeswoman.
Nobody needs a law license to serve as a government spokeswoman. Zacharia could do her job without using any legal professional title whatsoever. That makes the question of why the title mattered so much in the first place all the more pressing. Trust usually comes from accurately describing your qualifications. At the White House, they are currently more interested in explaining why a failed exam supposedly says nothing about a professional title used for years. The law degree exists. The license does not.
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