What we know about Katie Zacharia’s legal work in China

White House press secretary Katie Zacharia gave a surprising answer when asked on Tuesday where she passed the bar exam: “When I moved to China,” she told reporters.

Whether Zacharia passed the bar exam at all is in growing doubt. A watchdog group filed a complaint Wednesday with the State Bar of California asking it to investigate whether she broke the law by claiming to practice law.

Zacharia received a law degree from Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law in 2011, but the Popular Information newsletter reported that she is not licensed to practice law in the U.S. or Washington, D.C.

The White House has not provided any evidence to prove otherwise.

Zacharia’s LinkedIn says she was “general counsel” of Fix California — an organization started by Richard Grenell, a former Trump administration official — from January 2024 to March 2025 and that she was an “associate” on the International Practice Team for Zhong Lun Law Firm in Beijing from August 2011 to June 2013.

The Hill has reached out to both organizations for comment.

The White House said Zacharia moved to China with her husband after graduating law school and worked in international transaction law. She told NewsNation that she practiced “with all the appropriate credentials.”

Experts told The Hill that even if Zacharia worked at a law firm in China, that didn’t necessarily make her a lawyer.

“I don’t believe that she could have taken the Chinese bar exam — American citizens are not, by rule, allowed to sit for it, and there’s no apparent reason to believe that she could have made some special arrangement (if she did, I’d love to learn how she managed that, as it would be extremely difficult),” Taisu Zhang, a professor at Yale Law School who works on contemporary Chinese law and politics, wrote to The Hill.

“It is possible, however, to do some international transaction-related legal work without ever having passed a bar exam,” he wrote. “Many international law firms allow junior associates to begin work on transactional work without having passed a bar exam but will limit the tasks they can perform until they do.”

He added that there’s usually a certain period of time that people can work at law firms in China without having passed the bar until they’re forced to leave.

“But until that grace period runs out, she could have been working at an international law firm without any bar admission,” he said.

Donald Clarke, a professor at George Washington University School of Law and a specialist in Chinese law, pointed The Hill to a specific provision in Chinese law that says a person must be of Chinese nationality to take the bar exam.

“To the best of my knowledge, Zacharia has never claimed to be a Chinese national,” Clarke said.

Mark Jia, a law professor at Georgetown University who is a scholar of comparative and transactional law, wrote on social platform X that “the work category Zacharia likely had in a China was ‘foreign legal consultant,’ typically reserved for foreign trained lawyers working at Chinese law firms who are limited to advising on foreign and international law.”

While he noted that the rules may have been different when she was employed between 2011 and 2013, he said, “It is possible that she wasn’t barred anywhere when she took on this role, though I have to imagine this was somewhat rare even back then.”

Judd Legum, the journalist behind Popular Information, pointed out multiple examples of Zacharia referring to herself as a lawyer on television.

The Campaign for Accountability, which filed the complaint in California, notes that if Zacharia has “repeatedly held herself out to the public as entitled to practice law without a license to do so,” then she may have violated state law.

“In California, calling yourself a lawyer without a license isn’t puffery; it’s a crime. The State Bar should investigate whether Ms. Zacharia has misled the public about her credentials and hold her accountable if she has,” Campaign for Accountability Executive Director Michelle Kuppersmith said in a statement.

President Trump also referred to Zacharia as an attorney when he announced that she would be the new press secretary.

“Katie is a distinguished Graduate of Pepperdine University, and the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, an attorney, and a frequent Commentator on outlets, including Fox News and Newsmax,” he wrote on Truth Social last week.

A State Bar of California spokesperson told The Hill that it had “no record of Kate Sharon Zacharia or Kate Sharon Black (or each with Katie) having been licensed to practice law in California.” Zacharia’s maiden name is Black.

White House communications director Steven Cheung attacked the watchdog group as a “radical leftist-organization run by rabid numbskulls” in a social media post Wednesday, but he did not offer any new information on his colleague’s legal qualifications.