Oops! Law Firm Promotes Associate Who Likely Wasn't A Lawyer To Partner

Whoa! The lawyers at this firm must have been pretty shocked by the unexpected news.

Our office was notified, for the first time, late Friday afternoon, December 19, 2014 by the court, regarding serious concerns relative to the legitimacy of Kimberly Kitchen’s license to practice law. Sadly, it would appear that our firm was the last, in a long line of professionals, to have been deceived by Ms. Kitchen into believing she was licensed to practice law.

— An excerpt from a statement given by BMZ Law Offices, a Pennsylvania firm, suggesting that Kimberly Kitchen, one of the firm’s newest partners, was likely not a lawyer at all. After claiming to have graduated from Duquesne University School of Law in 2005 and working for the firm for about a decade, Kitchen was promoted to partner in April 2014.

Following an investigation by the state Attorney General’s office, it became clear that Kitchen had been using someone else’s attorney ID number to “practice.” The state’s Attorney Registration Office has no record of anyone named Kimberly Kitchen on file. BMZ Law Offices now plans to conduct a “thorough review of each and every file” Kitchen ever handled.

(It’s worth mentioning that per her LinkedIn profile, Kitchen also claims to have worked as a paralegal for Reed Smith for 11 years.)

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