Man Gets Probation for Wife’s Aid on Bar Exam

A UCLA law school graduate who had flunked the State Bar exam and then allowed his brilliant wife to take the test in his place was placed on three years’ probation Tuesday and ordered to perform 500 hours of community service.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Judith Chirlin spared Morgan Lamb of Westwood from a jail term after his attorney argued that the 35-year-old defendant’s life is already “in a shambles” and “perhaps irreparably damaged” as a result of the case.

After reviewing a transcript of Lamb’s preliminary hearing, Chirlin convicted him without a jury Jan. 27 of three felony counts of forgery and false impersonation.

Placed on Probation

Lamb’s ex-wife, known professionally as Laura Beth Salant, 32, was placed on probation last year by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert T. Altman after she pleaded no contest to two false impersonation counts. Her conviction was subsequently reduced to a misdemeanor.

While Tuesday’s hearing brought an end to the 2-year-old case against the couple, it left unresolved the debate over whether it was the husband or the wife who engineered the scheme. The couple divorced in June, 1986.

Chirlin, refusing to take sides, said both parties should be considered “equally culpable,” particularly since both are law school graduates.

But Salant, 32, who lost her job as an attorney with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after her arrest and is expected to be disbarred, has portrayed herself as the desperate victim of an abusive husband who browbeat her into taking the three-day test in July, 1985. At the time, she was six months pregnant and was in danger of losing her eyesight as a result of complications from diabetes.

“I finally relented and agreed to do it for him,” Salant wrote Judge Altman. “I was at my wit’s end undergoing severe complications of my pregnancy and my diabetes and frankly did not have the energy to fight him anymore.”

Despite her medical problems, Salant, described in court documents by her supervisors at the Securities and Exchange Commission as an “outstanding” lawyer, scored third among 7,668 Bar applicants. She was hospitalized immediately after the exam, and seven days later the couple’s child was born.

At Salant’s sentencing hearing, Altman said her offense “appears to be totally out of character. . . . It appears that she did what she did to save a faltering marriage at a time when she was pregnant.”

‘Shocked’ by Leniency

In a telephone interview Tuesday, Salant, who is working as a legal secretary in a family law practice, said she was “shocked” that Lamb had been treated leniently by the court.

“I don’t see how any reasonable judge could not give him a jail term,” she said. “But then it’s not reasonable to expect that Morgan Lamb would tell the truth about what happened.”

But according to documents filed with the court, it was Morgan Lamb who was intimidated by a devious, greedy and domineering mate.

“The defendant simply does not appear to be sophisticated enough to devise and execute such a scheme,” Deputy Probation Officer Marion Mouton wrote. “. . . It appears that the co-defendant (Salant) was the brain in the family and took command.”

Mouton said Lamb signed the Bar exam application after his wife obtained it and handed it to him, saying, “Here, sign it.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Kirk Newkirk, who prosecuted both Salant and Lamb, had sought a jail term for Lamb, telling the judge: “It is a mistake to minimize his role and view him as some sort of passive toy. . . . Had we not caught this crime, he would have been more than happy to hang out his shingle as Morgan Lamb, attorney-at-law.”

The prosecutor said later: “Who in the hell is ever going to know the truth of this one? All we know is the result.”

The investigation of the couple, who met in law school, began in November, 1985, in response to a tip from an anonymous caller who recognized Salant at the Glendale Civic Auditorium, where the exam was administered.

Dramatic Change in Scores

Newkirk said State Bar officials were also flagged by a computer program that takes note of dramatic change in scores. In just five months, Lamb went from the 20th percentile to the 99th.

In addition, the prosecutor said, the pregnant Salant aroused curiosity at the test site by wearing an identification tag with a photograph in which she tried to appear masculine. The photo showed Salant wearing a button-down shirt, with her hair pulled back and eyebrows penciled.

Lamb’s attorney, Donald Re, said his client has been unemployed since last month when publicity about the case cost him his job as a researcher for an investment firm. Re said he plans to appeal.

Lamb’s probation officer pointed out that Salant has made “numerous efforts” to sell her story to a television producer.