Can You Practice Law in a State Where You Are Not Licensed?

The starting position is no. Under the ABA's Model Rule 5.5, a lawyer admitted in one jurisdiction does not carry that license across state lines — the model rule treats practicing law where you are not admitted as unauthorized practice of law.

What makes multijurisdictional work possible at all is the set of exceptions written into the model rule.

The exceptions and guidance cover three situations:

• Temporary practice. Model Rule 5.5(c) allows a lawyer admitted elsewhere to practice on a temporary basis in limited situations — for example, with active local co-counsel, on matters tied to a tribunal or an ADR proceeding, or when the work is reasonably related to the lawyer's home practice.
• In-house and federal-law work. Model Rule 5.5(d) covers in-house counsel and practice authorized by federal law.
• Remote work. ABA Formal Opinion 495 (2020) addresses lawyers working remotely from a jurisdiction where they are not licensed.

Which situation fits your lateral offer or client work — and whether the exception survives in the state involved — is a state-by-state question, because states adopt the model rules as their own, with changes.

Model Rule 5.5 is the ABA's model rule on unauthorized practice of law and multijurisdictional practice of law — the problem it addresses: a lawyer doing legal work in a jurisdiction that has not admitted the lawyer.

Its starting position bars practicing law where you are not admitted.

Two subsections build the exceptions.

Rule 5.5(c) governs temporary practice by a lawyer admitted in another jurisdiction — limited situations only.

Rule 5.5(d) covers in-house counsel and practice authorized by federal law, in a separate subsection from the temporary-practice exceptions.

None of it applies anywhere on its own.

The ABA's Model Rules are a model: they bind no one until a state supreme court adopts them, and every state's version differs in places.

The rule that governs your cross-state work is the adopted version where the work happens.

Remote work splits the question in two: where the firm or client sits, and where you physically sit when you do the work.

ABA Formal Opinion 495 (2020) addresses that scenario — lawyers working remotely from a jurisdiction where they are not licensed.

The opinion, issued Dec.

16, 2020, says lawyers may remotely practice the law of the jurisdictions where they are licensed while physically present in a jurisdiction where they are not admitted, if the local jurisdiction has not determined that the conduct is unauthorized practice of law.

The conditions: no holding out as licensed there, no advertised local office and no offer of local legal services.

The opinion also says local contact information on websites, letterhead or business cards would improperly establish a local office or presence.

For a remote seat, the jurisdiction in that scenario is the one you work from, not the one your employer works from.

A formal opinion is not a rule.

It is the ABA's interpretation of its model rules, and ABA opinions are not binding on any state — so Opinion 495 does not settle what State B will and will not permit.

That answer comes from the state's adopted unauthorized-practice rules.

Confirm your situation with that state's disciplinary authority before you settle into a remote role from a state where you hold no license.

Model Rule 5.5(c) is the temporary-practice lane: it allows a lawyer admitted in another jurisdiction to practice on a limited basis in defined situations.

Examples the model rule gives include working with active local co-counsel, handling a matter tied to a tribunal or to an arbitration or mediation, and work reasonably related to the lawyer's home practice in a state where the lawyer is admitted.

A matter tied to a tribunal can mean a court appearance, and for a lawyer not admitted to that court, appearing is what pro hac vice admission is for — permission from the court to appear in a case there, not bar admission; our pro hac vice guide covers how it works.

Two cautions.

These are exceptions for temporary practice in limited situations — not open-ended practice in the new state — and work that outgrows them points to the second-license question below.

And the exceptions are only as good as the state's adopted version of them: states revise the rule, so read the version where the work happens rather than assuming the model text.

Strip the exceptions away and the line is clear.

If the work in the other state is ongoing rather than temporary, is not tied to a specific tribunal matter, and does not fit the in-house or federal-law situations, the model rule's exceptions offer no way around admission there: an associate seat in an office there, a partner role there or a regular book of clients in the state is practicing law in a state where you are not licensed.

The one other route the ABA describes is the remote scenario in Opinion 495 above — practicing your own licensing state's law from where you sit, with no local office or holding out — and it holds only where that state has not treated the conduct as unauthorized practice.

Admission in the new state is the route.

For a lawyer already licensed elsewhere, one path is admission on motion — our bar reciprocity guide covers the waiver route in detail.

What a state accepts, and on what conditions, is that state's admission authority to say.

In-house roles get a separate look under the model rule: Rule 5.5(d) addresses in-house counsel and federal-law authorization.

But the same rule of thumb applies — what a state actually permits an in-house lawyer licensed elsewhere to do comes from that state's adopted rule, not from the ABA's model text.

Career information, not legal advice. Multijurisdictional and remote-practice rules differ by state and change over time; confirm what applies to your situation with the disciplinary authority in the state where the work will happen.