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Bogus "Lawyer" Bilked 35 Clients

June 11, 2004
A Santa Monica, Calif., woman has pleaded no contest to defrauding clients for whom she performed legal services, even though she is not a lawyer. Anita Laureen Clark's plea settled ten criminal charges, including six counts of grand theft.

The Santa Monica City Attorney’s Office had filed a total of 46 counts against Clark involving 35 different victims.

Prosecutors said Clark posed as an attorney and bilked dozens of clients out of nearly $50,000. In some cases, she allegedly said she was a paralegal but then illegally performed attorney services incompetently, resulting in disastrous consequences for the victims.

Cases Clark handled, and bungled, included divorce, immigration and bankruptcy. Two of the victims had paid Clark more than $7,000 each.

Clark’s was ordered to pay back nearly $50,000 to her victims and to get a fulltime job and provide proof of her continued employment.

The Santa Monica City Attorney’s Consumer Protection Unit began investigating Clark last year after receiving complaints from several consumers who had hired her to perform legal work. She was arrested in August 2003 and spent more than a month in jail after prosecutors allegedly she was continuing to perform legal services while awaiting trial.

Under California law, it’s a crime to practice law without being a licensed attorney. “Practicing law” includes giving legal advice, making legal decisions in a case, claiming to be an expert in an area of law, contacting the opposing party, writing legal documents - almost any task that a lawyer typically does.

Non-attorneys are limited to two roles: providing purely clerical assistance, or doing paralegal work directly under a supervising attorney.

The law is similar in most other states.

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