California Bar Adds Dropdown Option: ‘When I Moved to China’

Sacramento, Calif. — The State Bar of California added a new jurisdiction to its attorney lookup tool this week: “When I Moved to China,” after White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia’s answer broke the site’s search form.

“The dropdown used to stop at Wyoming,” said Glenda Stapleton, 54, a licensing clerk who verifies lawyers for the public. “Now China sits between Chile and Connecticut, which is not how geography works, but it is how the help-desk ticket was worded.”

Zacharia, who earned a Juris Doctor from Pepperdine University in 2011, has long called herself a lawyer. Asked on Oct. 13 where she passed the bar, she replied, “when I moved to China.” Searches in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., show no license under her name. A Chinese-law expert has said foreigners cannot sit for China’s bar exam.

The menu option does not grant a license. It does stop the page from flashing red. “We were getting thousands of errors an hour,” said IT contractor Miles Softfail, who patched the select list with a sticky note that read SHIP IT. “Validation was the problem. Truth was never in scope.”

In an emailed statement, Zacharia said she “practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials.” The White House has not produced a state bar number. A watchdog asked California’s State Bar whether calling oneself a lawyer without a license violates state law.

Failed-bar applicant Harlan Almost, 38, updated LinkedIn to “Attorney (Jurisdiction: When I Moved to China)” within minutes. “I’ve taken the exam twice,” he said, holding a laminated practice essay. “If the country’s top spokesperson can clear the dropdown, I’m not waiting for July.”

At the time of writing, Stapleton’s queue listed three timeshare disputes, one divorce, and fourteen requests to verify “whatever Katie has,” all marked pending geography.