Now the Wall Street Journal has dug a little deeper and found that Zacharia at least tried<\/em> to become a real lawyer. She just failed.<\/p>\n As I first reported on Monday, Katie Zacharia is not a lawyer and has never been licensed to practice law. The WSJ reports that she took the California Bar Exam but failed. Nevertheless, Zacharia appeared on media programs for YEARS and repeatedly called herself a lawyer.Here’s a super cut:<\/p>\n \u2014 Judd Legum (@juddlegum.bsky.social)<\/a> 2026-10-15T13:20:46.444Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n Did she try wishing upon a star? Because that works just about as well.<\/p>\n Just what you\u2019d expect from the party that never stops belly aching about \u201cparticipation trophy culture.\u201d Rewarding children for trying is important for self-esteem. Rewarding non-lawyers for failing the bar exam is not. <\/p>\n And the bar exam IS stupid. A closed-book memory test of general doctrinal knowledge does little to prove competence. Lawyers are rarely generalists anymore and dispensing knowledge from memory would be malpractice in the real world. But the need for licensing reform is not an invitation to ignore it altogether. The bar exam exists now, and anyone holding themselves out as a lawyer needs to pass it, get sworn in, and maintain their license by watching hours of mind-numbing CLE. It\u2019s the American way!<\/p>\n Perhaps Katie Zacharia believes she can be a lawyer if Mike Pence has the courage. <\/p>\n Earlier<\/strong>: Trump Press Secretary Katie Zacharia Speaks For Everyone Who Put \u2018Attorney\u2019 On LinkedIn Before Bar Results<\/a><\/p>\n \n The post Trump Press Secretary Zacharia Took Bar Exam, Failed, Called Herself Lawyer Anyway<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n Much like her boss with the 2020 election, Katie Zacharia failed and claimed success anyway.<\/p>\n New White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia came to the job from the ranks of cable news punditry, where she routinely appeared as a \u201clawyer.\u201d She also served, by her own description, as \u201cGeneral Counsel\u201d of a right-wing non-profit based in California. <\/p>\n Except there\u2019s no record of her being licensed in any jurisdiction<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now the Wall Street Journal has dug a little deeper and found that Zacharia at least tried<\/em> to become a real lawyer. She just failed.<\/p>\n As I first reported on Monday, Katie Zacharia is not a lawyer and has never been licensed to practice law. The WSJ reports that she took the California Bar Exam but failed. Nevertheless, Zacharia appeared on media programs for YEARS and repeatedly called herself a lawyer.Here’s a super cut:<\/p>\n \u2014 Judd Legum (@juddlegum.bsky.social)<\/a> 2026-10-15T13:20:46.444Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n Did she try wishing upon a star? Because that works just about as well.<\/p>\n Just what you\u2019d expect from the party that never stops belly aching about \u201cparticipation trophy culture.\u201d Rewarding children for trying is important for self-esteem. Rewarding non-lawyers for failing the bar exam is not. <\/p>\n And the bar exam IS stupid. A closed-book memory test of general doctrinal knowledge does little to prove competence. Lawyers are rarely generalists anymore and dispensing knowledge from memory would be malpractice in the real world. But the need for licensing reform is not an invitation to ignore it altogether. The bar exam exists now, and anyone holding themselves out as a lawyer needs to pass it, get sworn in, and maintain their license by watching hours of mind-numbing CLE. It\u2019s the American way!<\/p>\n Perhaps Katie Zacharia believes she can be a lawyer if Mike Pence has the courage. <\/p>\n Earlier<\/strong>: Trump Press Secretary Katie Zacharia Speaks For Everyone Who Put \u2018Attorney\u2019 On LinkedIn Before Bar Results<\/a><\/p>\n \n The post Trump Press Secretary Zacharia Took Bar Exam, Failed, Called Herself Lawyer Anyway<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Much like her boss with the 2020 election, Katie Zacharia failed and claimed success anyway. New White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia came to the job from the ranks of cable news punditry, where she routinely appeared as a \u201clawyer.\u201d She also served, by her own description, as \u201cGeneral Counsel\u201d of a right-wing non-profit based […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":165081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n
\nJoe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n