This woman got a job with a law firm, made partner and was head of the county bar association. Only thing is, she never went to law school.
http://www.pennlive.com/news/2017/05/good_fake_lawyer_cant_argue_he.html
wow.
that takes a tremendous amount of chutzpah, and/ or a seriously overblown vision of ones self value.
kinda like some one claiming they would be a great P… without having served one day as a elected official… :))
So her defense after being caught was "O.K. I never went to law school " but I was “a good fake lawyer!” OMG she is really too much.
In some states, law school attendance and degree is not required to be licensed… If she really was not that into law school, she should have picked her hometown wisely and strategically instead of breaking the law!
Think there are 4 states where that is applicable but you still have to sit for and pass the state bar. She did not sit for a bar exam but submitted forged documents to the local bar association. I just don’t get how she pulled off becoming partner in a firm with no legal background.
So whomever hired her didn’t confirm that she was a graduate? Didn’t request a transcript? Unbelievable.
That was a sarcastic comment from me. Even the guy from Catch me if you can took the bar exam. This lady is a criminal super cheater.
Loved her argument that being a member of the legal profession disqualified the judge… That would disqualify all judges - except a few fake judges. 
I see movie rights being sold! :))
One reason why most large firms pay the annual license fees of their attorneys. If one of their attorneys is not a member of the bar, the state supreme court (or other licensing authority) will note the firm overpaid and flag the issue.
@saillakeerie She was head of the county bar association!
Does anybody know how she was caught? I can’t seem to find that.
@TomSrOfBoston Many bar associations are in bad shape financially. A lot of attorneys do not see the need/benefit of being a member of one. Local bar associations often have the toughest time attracting members. Local associations are merging with each other (county associations merging with city associations, etc) to stay around.
Per the link below, the bar association she was president of has 27 members. I suspect she was selected president by volunteering to do so because no one else was interested. At that point, you don’t want to ask too many questions lest you be searching for a president because you found out the only person willing to serve isn’t qualified.
http://www.pabar.org/CountyDir/index.asp?county=48
You do not need to be a member of a bar association to be a licensed attorney or to practice law legally. Most attorneys I know are not members of bar associations because there no longer is a perceived benefit that justifies the cost (and many firms will not pay dues unless the attorney is an active member). Now you still must pay licensing/registration fees to some state agency (often the state supreme court) to have a valid license.
Several large firms were caught with attorneys (sometimes partners) who did not hold valid licenses (for a variety of reasons ranging from never having sat for/passed a bar exam (or never attending law school much less graduating) to never having applied for a license). To prevent the issues that result, firms now submit license renewals and pay fees directly rather than having attorneys handle that on their own. Helps insure fees are actually paid. Also helps flush out anyone who does not have a license (supreme court will bounce back).
When I got my first job as an admitted attorney in the 1980’s, the offer was contingent on my bringing in the original of my admission certificate - a framed 11 x 14 document! It turns out that a year earlier, an attorney at my national company was going to be profiled for an article in a local paper. The background checked revealed that he was not a licensed attorney, he had not passed a bar exam, perhaps because he had not taken one, he had not graduated law school, he had not attended or been admitted to law school and in fact, he had never attended college - he had a GED! He was one of the company’s top trial attorneys!
Twenty plus years later, I had to bring in my SS card but the company I now work for checked me out on the online database. However, in the case of this woman, she apparently stole another attorney’s ID number. In NY, name and ID number go together but I know nothing about Pennsylvania. My company doesn’t pay for our renewal fees but it does reimburse what we lay out when we provide proof.
Someone did not do their due diligence. Not that it excuses her, but would I hire that law firm? Probably not.
Wow! In our state the ID# also is individusl to each attorney’s name so the # would only match the original name it was assigned to. I don’t recall having my annual registration fees ever paid by anyone but myself. It would be nice to be reimbursed, but I figure it’s part if doing business. Our state is pretty small and folks really know one another and who took and passed the bar with one another.
Ey, she can sue 'suits ’ for copying her life story.
Strictly speaking, if she was a good attorney, it raises questions as to the value of law school and the bar exam…
@MYOS1634 : Feel the same way about fake doctors?
^I would think at a hospital, it would quickly get noticed by the other doctors and nurses if someone didn’t know anything about medicine. Most fake doctors tend to be one man shops.
I guess it doesn’t make sense to me how you can be a good lawyer without formal study of the law. She MUST have studied the law, right, or how could she handle her job? Same thing for a doctor : someone recognized as a good doctor would have to know some medicine. Fake doctors aren’t good doctors, that’s how they’re revealed to be fake.