Lawyer Who Took Bar Test for Spouse Regains License

SAN FRANCISCO — A woman who lost her legal license after impersonating her husband and taking the bar exam for him will once again be allowed to practice law under an order Wednesday by the California Supreme Court.

Laura Beth Salant lost her attorney’s license 10 years ago after she dressed as a man and took the bar test under her husband’s name. She was seven months’ pregnant at the time and said her husband, whom she later divorced, threatened to kill her and their unborn child unless she impersonated him.

In her effort to win back her license, Salant, 43, prevailed before two state bar courts. But prosecutors for the bar asked the Supreme Court to review her case, arguing that she had failed to provide enough evidence that she was rehabilitated. Salant had said she turned her life around and had sought professional counseling.

Meeting in a closed conference, the high court without comment ordered her reinstated after she pays her bar dues and takes the legal oath. Neither she nor her attorneys could be reached for comment Wednesday.

Salant, whose name was Laura Beth Lamb when the fraud occurred, worked at the time as an attorney with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Her then-husband, Morgan Lamb, had already flunked the bar once and had been fired by a Los Angeles law firm.

Under pressure from him, she said, she cut her hair, signed his name and smudged her thumbprint at the July 1985 exam. She achieved one of the highest scores in the state.

Bar officials became suspicious after her husband’s score soared from the 20th percentile to the 99th. An anonymous tipster also told the bar of the impersonation.

Seriously ill, Salant was immediately hospitalized after the examination and gave birth to a daughter. She eventually pleaded no contest to impersonation charges, paid a $2,500 fine and was ordered to perform community service. Her husband received three years’ probation and community service.

Salant told investigators that her former husband regularly screamed at her, smashed lamps and threw heavy objects at her. But the California Supreme Court, in a 1989 6-1 ruling, upheld the bar’s decision to take away her license.

Since 1990, she has worked as a paralegal for the Internal Revenue Service in Los Angeles. In a previous interview with the Los Angeles Daily Journal, a legal newspaper, Salant said she expected to be readmitted by the state high court but also would enjoy continuing in her present job.

“I enjoy life, working for the government,” she said.