Wesley Smith is an excellent lawyer and a thoughtful writer. But unlike the current White House press secretary, he became a lawyer (or attorney) only when he passed the bar exam. The distinction he draws between an unlicensed “lawyer” and licensed “attorney” may have some semantic appeal, but it has no support in the law. The terms are generally synonymous. Merely graduating law school allows you to hold yourself out to the world as a juris doctor (JD) — a degree that law schools made up when they decided that “bachelor of laws” was unbecoming — but it does not permit you to hold yourself out as a lawyer or attorney.
Take, for instance, the rules of my home state (er, Commonwealth) of Virginia:
No non-lawyer shall engage in the practice of law in the Commonwealth of Virginia or in any manner hold himself or herself out as authorized or qualified to practice law in the Commonwealth of Virginia except as may be authorized by rule or statute. The term ‘non-lawyer’ means any person, firm, association or corporation not duly licensed or authorized to practice law in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Any person or entity who practices law without being licensed or otherwise authorized to practice law shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. Va. Code § 54.1-3904 [Emphasis added]
This recent article by Scot Goins thus warns law school graduates against holding themselves out as lawyers or attorneys before passing the bar exam and being sworn into the bar. I am unaware of anything in California law that would support a distinction between non-licensed “lawyers” and licensed “attorneys,” though I also don’t see anything in the California legal ethics rules that explicitly defines what it means to be a “lawyer.”
If Katie Zacharia has not passed a bar exam in California, she may not hold herself out as a lawyer there. Reports that she acted as general counsel of a nonprofit in California are thus cause for concern. Apart from that, whether her holding herself out as a lawyer merely to bolster her credibility on television appearances (when she isn’t actually doing any legal work) is cause for anything more than an eye roll presents a different question. The chyron descriptions are often provided by the television program rather than the on-air guests. I’m often amused by the chyron description that has been provided for me when I’ve appeared on television — I’m an expert in what?