If you need an Attorney, odds are that you’re going through something stressful or are faced with a big problem.  The last thing you want to find out is that your Lawyer isn’t licensed to practice in your state.  You should check into any attorney you’re interested in working with before you sign on the dotted line. 

Read on to learn how to check if your lawyer is licensed by your state bar, how to gather information and how to use Spokeo in your search to verify an attorney. 

Why Would You Need To Check a Lawyer’s Credentials? 

In every state, attorneys must be licensed in order to practice law.  This is to ensure that they can meet the stringent expectations of a public attorney and prevent vulnerable clients who are in difficult positions from being taken advantage of by people who only claim to have legal knowledge. 

If an attorney provides legal representation or even advertises themselves as a lawyer while they are unlicensed, they could be subject to criminal charges.  Not only is the unauthorized practice of law a crime, it can also be a big problem for the clients who unwittingly retain them. 

What’s likely to happen is you’ll get bad advice or lackluster litigation, possibly costing you the entire case.  When you retain a lawyer, you need to be confident in their skills and ability to provide you with qualified representation — otherwise, you’re at risk of a poor outcome. 

Ways to Check If an Attorney Is Licensed in Your State  

One of the first steps to starting any legal case is engaging an attorney.  It may be tempting to just retain someone instead of dealing with the hassle of doing research and going to multiple consultations, but the outcome of your case depends on the skills and capabilities of who you retain. 

There are multiple ways to find out whether or not an attorney is authorized to provide legal services, including but not limited to: 

Checking with your state’s bar association 

One of the easiest ways to see if a lawyer has their license and is currently eligible to practice is to check with the Bar Association. 

Each state has its own Bar Association that keeps a directory of lawyers who practice or have practiced in that state.  If an attorney isn’t in the directory, they’ve never been licensed in that state.  If the lawyer is listed, the Bar will tell you most, if not all, of the following: 

• The lawyer’s assigned Bar number. 
• The type of license they have. 
• Their current status. 
• The date they were admitted to the bar. 
• What law school they attended. 
• Business contact information. 
• If they have professional liability insurance. 
• What areas of law they practice. 
• Any history of judiciary, administrative or disciplinary action against the attorney. 

It’s important to note that the information that’s available about each attorney varies between states and you won’t necessarily find all of the above data on every lawyer in every state.  To find an attorney’s credentials, find your state below and click on the link to go to the Bar Association’s search feature: 

Alabama 

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware

Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

Checking the attorney’s website  

Some lawyers will list their license information on their website, including their bar number, status and the date they were admitted.  You can usually find this in the About section, along with their firm’s address and contact information.  However, it’s important to keep in mind that lawyers who are facing disciplinary action or who are unlicensed generally won’t advertise this information themselves. 

If in doubt, you can always call the attorney’s office and ask them for the license number and status yourself.  If they’re unable to provide this information or seem hesitant to, this is a red flag you should pay attention to. 

Checking their social media profiles 

While a Facebook or Twitter profile is unlikely going to feature a lawyer’s license number like your state Bar Association’s website does, it can give you a lot of helpful information about an attorney and what they’re like. 

By browsing their public profiles, you can get a better idea of the types of law they practice, how experienced they are, if a lot of people in your area use their services and what those people are saying on social media about the attorney.  You can also see if they’re producing helpful content for potential clients and if they’re engaged with their audience in the comments of posts. 

Looking for public reviews & third-party info

You can also do a good old-fashioned Google search on any lawyer you’re considering engaging to see what data comes up.  Look specifically for public reviews on sites like Google Business and Yelp and for information published by unbiased third parties.  This is especially a good idea if you’re looking for possible disciplinary action or public complaints. 

Looking Out 

You can also use people-search engines like Spokeo to quickly and easily find information about attorneys.  You can find information unrelated to their career that may affect your decision on whether or not to engage them.  For example, you may find criminal records (additional fees may apply)  or family links that would make an attorney-client relationship problematic or a conflict of interest.  Or, say you’re retaining a lawyer for your divorce and you find out they’ve been divorced in the past; their having personal experience with the process may be a huge benefit to you. 

Spokeo aggregates publicly available data from multiple sources in one place, so you don’t have to go to different websites to find bits of information that you have to put together yourself.  You can use Spokeo to search by name, phone number, address or email to anonymously look up information about a lawyer before you decide to engage or retain them. 

Attorneys are expensive — you don’t want to pay an attorney thousands of dollars only to find out after the fact that they’re not really an attorney at all.  Maybe they didn’t renew their license, or maybe they were disbarred on account of misconduct.  Either way, an unlicensed attorney isn’t someone you want to work with.  Making sure your lawyer is qualified to practice can give you peace of mind and set the stage for your case’s success.