A local legal aide can officially call herself a lawyer after
recently receiving her law license from the California State Bar
Association
– something she said is a hard-earned victory after spending the
last year fighting a criminal charge claiming she practiced law
without a license.
Hollister – A local legal aide can officially call herself a lawyer after recently receiving her law license from the California State Bar Association – something she said is a hard-earned victory after spending the last year fighting a criminal charge claiming she practiced law without a license.
Amanda Hernandez, a legal aide to Los Valientes attorney Michael Pekin, worried that a misdemeanor practicing law without a license charge District Attorney John Sarsfield filed against her in April – which he dropped five months later due to a lack of evidence, – would prevent the state bar from issuing her a license, said her attorney, Patrick Pekin. But after reviewing the matter, the state granted the license last week, he said. Hernandez, who graduated from law school and passed the bar, had been waiting to get her license for more than a year.
Hernandez still isn’t sure what area of law she wants to work in, but said the ordeal was a learning experience.
“I’ve been exposed to a lot of different legal procedures that I wouldn’t necessarily have been exposed to,” Hernandez said. “I feel vindicated – it’s a huge weight off my back.”
Sarsfield did not return phone calls Monday.
The charge against Hernandez stemmed from her involvement in a lawsuit against former Supervisor Richard Scagliotti, filed by Michael Pekin on behalf of an anonymous group known as Los Valientes. Hernandez conducted an interview and prepared a declaration for a portion of Michael Pekin’s lawsuit. Sarsfield said he charged Hernandez because she did not have a law license at the time she prepared the declaration, and that her involvement was illegal.
But Patrick Pekin claimed Sarsfield discriminatorily prosecuted Hernandez in an attempt to impede the lawsuit against Scagliotti.
