Check a Lawyer's License and Discipline Record in Any State
Pick a state and open the official lawyer search and complaint office of its bar or supreme court. All 50 states and DC in one table, what to read on the record, and the federal rule for immigration cases. Checked November 12, 2026.
Updated
Every state keeps a public record of who may practice law there, and you can read it for free in about two minutes. Search the lawyer by name on the official site of the state where your case is, confirm that the status is active, then read any public discipline. Federal immigration cases are the one exception, because an attorney in good standing in any state can take them anywhere in the country.
Choose the state where the lawyer practices
For a house closing in Ohio or a DUI in Texas, you want the regulator of that state. A lawyer in Dallas who holds only an Illinois license generally cannot take a Texas case on their own.
What to read once the profile is open
Four things on the record
- The name and the city match the firm you are about to hire. Common names produce several results.
- The status says the lawyer may practice now. A status such as suspended, disbarred, retired or inactive means they should not be taking new clients.
- The year of admission. A lawyer who says "thirty years of experience" and was admitted six years ago deserves a question.
- Any public discipline, either in the profile or on the regulator's discipline page. Read the date and the outcome of each item.
If something looks wrong
Contact the regulator before you sign anything. The complaint office named in the table below is the body that handles concerns about a lawyer's conduct, and its site says how to ask about a license.
A disciplinary complaint is about the lawyer's conduct. Read the regulator's page first to see what it covers, because a complaint is not the same thing as a claim for money or an appeal of your case.
Immigration cases break the home-state rule
Federal regulations define an attorney for immigration purposes as a person eligible to practice law and a member in good standing of the bar of the highest court of any State, territory or the District of Columbia, who is not under an order restricting their practice. So the state that matters is the one where the license is held, not where the client lives.
Two checks apply on top of the state record. The Executive Office for Immigration Review publishes a list of currently disciplined practitioners, which covers lawyers who may be in good standing in their state but are barred from appearing before immigration authorities. And a notary public or notario is not a lawyer. Besides attorneys, only accredited representatives of organizations recognized by the Department of Justice may help with a case, under the recognition and accreditation program.
EOIR list of disciplined practitioners Recognition and accreditation program
All 50 states and DC, one row each
The same lookups as the selector, in a table you can scan. The last column says whether we could open the pages ourselves on November 12, 2026.
| State | Where to look a lawyer up | Complaints go to | Opened by us |
|---|
Which of these links loaded for us
Both the lookup and the complaint page loaded for 26 of the 51 jurisdictions on November 12, 2026 and checked that they were the pages we describe. Some regulators block automated visits, a few of their pages are applications that only draw in a browser, and some responded too slowly for us. Those links are marked in the table. They are the addresses the regulators publish, but we cannot promise they load for you today. If one fails, search the regulator's name from the table.
Delaware and Kansas: we found no statewide public lawyer search we could confirm, so those rows send you to the disciplinary office only.
Official sources used
- Each state bar or supreme court page linked in the table above.
- 8 CFR 1001.1, definition of attorney for immigration purposes.
- Department of Justice: the recognition and accreditation program and the EOIR list of currently disciplined practitioners, both linked in the immigration section above.
Written by the Lawyers List editorial team. Checked November 12, 2026. Lawyers List is not a law firm and this page is not legal advice.