The problem with Katie Zacharia calling herself a lawyer

• Two watchdog groups asked the California state bar to investigate White House spox Katie Zacharia.
• She worked as a general counsel in California. The state bar has no record she was licensed there.
• It is a misdemeanor in California to advertise yourself as an attorney if you don’t have a license.

A growing chorus is voicing concern about White House press secretary Katie Zacharia’s self-described legal career.

Two watchdog groups Wednesday filed complaints with the State Bar of California, asking it to investigate whether she violated California law by calling herself a lawyer.

It is a misdemeanor in California to practice law or advertise yourself as an attorney if you don’t have a license to do so.

Several law and legal-ethics professors told Business Insider that if Zacharia misrepresented herself as an attorney, or used a title like general counsel without having been admitted to the bar, that could land her in trouble with state bar officials should she try to join in the future.

President Trump’s new press secretary has repeatedly referred to herself as a lawyer. Her LinkedIn page says she worked as a general counsel in California and later worked for a law firm in China as an associate on an international practice team.

“I practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials,” Zacharia said in a statement provided to Business Insider by the White House.

Business Insider reviewed records for all 50 states and the District of Columbia and found no evidence that Zacharia had been admitted to practice law in the US. The Substack publication Popular Information previously reported that Zacharia hasn’t been admitted to any state bar. In China, only Chinese nationals can become a member of the country’s bar and practice law, experts in the Chinese legal system told Business Insider.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Zacharia failed California’s bar exam after graduating from law school there in 2011, and never passed any state bar in the US.

“Katie is a fabulous and wonderful addition to the team,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said Thursday. “She is uniquely qualified and whip smart to help inform the American people about all the great things President Trump and his Administration have been doing, and she will do an incredible job as Press Secretary.”

Democracy Defenders Fund and the Campaign for Accountability filed separate complaints Wednesday with the California bar. Zacharia used her legal pedigree to give herself credibility in her White House role, the Campaign for Accountability said.

“The public is entitled to rely on the representation that a person who calls herself a lawyer is in fact licensed to practice law,” the group wrote.

In an X post Wednesday, Cheung referred to the watchdog group as a “radical leftist-organization run by rabid numbskulls suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

“Nobody takes them seriously because they are deranged low lifes,” his post said.

‘Character and fitness’

There is no record that Zacharia has ever been licensed to practice law in her home state of California, a spokesperson for the state bar told Business Insider.

Zacharia earned her law degree at California’s Pepperdine University in 2011, then moved to China, according to her LinkedIn page.

Later, she served as general counsel for Fix California, a political advocacy group, between January 2024 and March 2025, her LinkedIn page says. Richard Grenell, the founder of Fix California and a state department official in the Trump administration, didn’t respond to requests for comment about Zacharia’s work for the organization.

That résume entry could hurt her chances of entry to the bar in future, legal-ethics professors told Business Insider.

The bar admissions process in most states includes a step in which the bar evaluates prospective members’ “character and fitness,” according to Richard Zitrin, a legal-ethics professor at the University of San Francisco’s law school.

Claiming to be a general counsel in California would cut against her if she didn’t have a license to practice law at the time, Zitrin said.

A law firm in China

Zacharia moved to China with her husband after she graduated law school in 2011 because of his job at an American private equity firm, the White House said.

According to her LinkedIn page, Zacharia worked for Zhong Lun, a large law firm in Beijing, between 2011 and 2013. Asked by a reporter on Tuesday which state she passed the bar exam in, Zacharia responded, “When I moved to China.”

Unlike the United States, where the bar admission process varies by state, China has a single unified bar exam process. It is available only to Chinese nationals and generally requires a degree from a Chinese university, according to Jacques deLisle, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania law school who studies the Chinese legal system.

“The odds that she is a member of the Chinese bar are essentially zero,” he said. “Both because of the citizenship requirement and the education requirement.”

It’s possible for employees of international law firms to do some work on transactions without passing a bar exam, but the scope of the work they’re permitted to do is limited, according to Taisu Zhang, a professor of Chinese law at Yale Law School. Those firms generally require employees to pass a bar exam within a few years, he said.

Law firms like Zhong Lun often hire recent foreign law school graduates to review contracts and advise on elements of US law for transactions, but they need to “stay within the edges” of their work so that they don’t cross into practicing law, which is illegal in China, deLisle said.

“She was never a lawyer in China. It doesn’t mean she didn’t do law-related work, but she was never a lawyer in China,” deLisle said.

Representatives for Zhong Lun didn’t respond to Business Insider’s requests for comment.