Can you hire an attorney licensed in another state (or working remotely from one)?

The rule that governs this hire is the ABA's Model Rule 5.5 — unauthorized practice of law; multijurisdictional practice of law — as your state has adopted it.

Model Rule 5.5(a) provides that a lawyer shall not practice law in a jurisdiction in violation of its regulation of the legal profession, "or assist another in doing so".

That second clause is why this is a firm question and not just the candidate's: the model text carries the exposure to the employer side of a hire.

What the model text allows runs in two lanes.

Rule 5.5(c) lets a lawyer admitted in another U.S. jurisdiction — and not suspended or disbarred — provide legal services on a temporary basis in four situations, one of which is in association with a lawyer admitted in your state who actively participates in the matter.

Rule 5.5(d) lets a lawyer admitted elsewhere practice from a local office when the services are for the lawyer's employer or its organizational affiliates — the in-house pattern — or are authorized by federal or other law; the model text excludes services for which the forum requires pro hac vice admission from that employer exception.

The model text also draws the lines an unadmitted lawyer cannot cross.

Rule 5.5(b)(1) bars an unadmitted lawyer from establishing an office or other systematic and continuous presence in the jurisdiction for the practice of law, except as the Rules or other law authorize.

Rule 5.5(b)(2) bars holding out to the public — or otherwise representing — that the lawyer is admitted to practice law in your jurisdiction, which is the clause that reaches titles and bios.

One framing rule covers everything on this page: the Model Rules are a model — they bind no one until a state adopts them, and each state's version differs in places.

States adopt 5.5(d) differently — the note in our research flags that many add a registration step for in-house counsel, though it did not verify that state by state.

The rule that governs your hire is your state's version, so confirm the pathway with your state bar's ethics counsel.

Rule 5.5 is also only one gate in the wider process — our guide to hiring for your law firm covers the sequence around it.

Rule 5.5(d)'s second lane — services authorized by federal or other law — is where a lawyer admitted in another state can do work for your firm without local admission at all.

Our research documented three of them — immigration practice, USPTO patent practice and Tax Court; bankruptcy-court admission requirements are the part it did not capture.

Immigration.

Federal immigration regulations define an "attorney" as a member in good standing of the bar of the highest court of any U.S. state, territory or the District of Columbia — so a license from any one state is enough to practice immigration law nationwide.

The definition covers federal practice before the Department of Homeland Security and the Executive Office for Immigration Review; advice on one state's law still takes that state's license.

If you are building the practice area, our guide to hiring an immigration attorney covers the role itself.

Patent.

Practice before the USPTO runs on a USPTO registration rather than on state bar admission — a law degree is not required to sit for the registration examination, and a passer who is not an attorney in good standing is registered as a patent agent rather than a patent attorney.

USPTO practitioners are also subject to the USPTO's own Rules of Professional Conduct, at 37 C.F.R. § 11.101 et seq.

The practical screen for an IP hire: confirm which registration the candidate actually holds before you assume a state bar admission sits behind it.

Tax.

The United States Tax Court admits attorneys on a certificate of good standing issued within 90 days of applying; a nonattorney can be admitted only by passing the Court's own nonattorney examination, under Tax Court Rule 200.

That makes the Tax Court's attorney route a document check on existing admission rather than a second bar exam.

Bankruptcy.

This is the honest gap: our research for this page did not capture bankruptcy-court admission requirements, so we cannot tell you what a district's bankruptcy court requires of an out-of-state lawyer.

The court where the matter is pending is the body to ask before you staff it with a lawyer admitted elsewhere.

The remote-lawyer pattern puts the question directly: a lawyer licensed in one state lives and works from home in another, practicing the first state's law for your firm.

Whether that is permitted does not come from your state's rule alone — the state the lawyer is physically present in has its own say on whether the conduct is the unauthorized practice of law.

ABA Formal Opinion 495, issued December 16, 2020, addresses that pattern: lawyers may practice the law of the jurisdictions in which 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 the unlicensed or unauthorized practice of law, and they do not hold out as locally licensed, advertise a local office, or offer local legal services.

The opinion gives firms a concrete marker for holding out: local contact information — on websites, letterhead, business cards or advertising — would improperly establish a local office or local presence.

If your remote hire is not admitted in the state they sit in, their page on your firm's website should not present them as locally available there.

Scope the opinion correctly before you rely on it: it is ABA guidance, and — as with the model rules — no state is bound until its own rule says so.

The opinion itself conditions the practice on the local jurisdiction's UPL stance, and which states treat remote practice as UPL was not compiled in our research.

Confirm the arrangement with both bars involved: the state that licenses the lawyer and the state the lawyer works from.

One boundary note: hiring someone who lives in another state also triggers ordinary employment questions — payroll, state registrations and the like.

Those sit outside the ethics rules on this page, and our research did not cover them; route them to your employment counsel or payroll provider.

For a long-term hire the question stops being what the lawyer can do unadmitted and becomes how fast they can become admitted in your state.

The route NCBE's pages call admission on motion lets a lawyer already licensed in one jurisdiction apply for admission in another without sitting for that jurisdiction's bar exam.

Per NCBE's jurisdiction pages as of October 2026, eight states plus the District of Columbia have no admission-on-motion route: California, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Nevada, Rhode Island and South Carolina, plus DC — and, among the territories it lists, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau and Puerto Rico also have none.

The other 43 jurisdictions allow it.

The experience gate is not uniform.

On NCBE's pages, the practice requirement is typically "3 of past 5" or "5 of past 7" years, with Washington's listed at "1 of past 3".

Whatever the pattern, the admitting authority in each jurisdiction sets and administers its own terms — confirm the current requirements with the authority in your state rather than working from another state's rule.

Practice-pending-admission rules — the provisions that let a bar applicant do limited legal work while an admission application is pending — are the part of this picture our research could not verify.

The research behind this page explicitly did not verify state practice-pending-admission and graduate-practice rules, so this page will not tell you what any state allows.

If your candidate is waiting on an exam result or on character-and-fitness clearance, put the question to that state's admitting authority before you set a start date or write a job description around them.

The unadmitted hire needs a paper trail more than a different job title.

Start with verification: confirm the license with the licensing agency of every state the candidate claims — our guide to verify bar status walks the check — and keep the start date after it.

The assist clause of Rule 5.5(a) is the reason verification comes first: the model text reaches a firm that assists another in practicing law in violation of a jurisdiction's regulation of the legal profession.

Titles and bios are where Rule 5.5(b)(2) bites.

A lawyer not admitted in your state must not hold out to the public — or otherwise represent — that they are admitted to practice law there, so the website bio, signature block, letterhead and the public presentation of the job title all need to avoid implying local admission.

The research behind this page did not verify state-specific title rules for unadmitted lawyers or graduates, so treat the exact wording as a question for your state bar's ethics counsel rather than something this page can settle.

The office question is Rule 5.5(b)(1): an unadmitted lawyer must not establish an office or other systematic and continuous presence for the practice of law in your jurisdiction, except as the Rules or other law authorize.

Which exception covers your arrangement — 5.5(c)'s temporary association with a locally admitted lawyer who actively participates, or 5.5(d)'s services authorized by federal or other law — decides what the person can do from your office, and your state's adopted version decides how far each exception reaches.

Rule 5.5(d)'s employer exception describes services provided to the lawyer's employer or its organizational affiliates — the in-house pattern — so do not treat it as covering a firm's client work without your state bar's ethics counsel confirming it.

The 5.5(c) route is not a paperwork formality: the model text requires the locally admitted lawyer to actively participate in the matter, which makes supervision part of the rule itself.

Coverage closes the file.

Whether coverage is mandatory can be set by state law: Oregon's ORS 9.080(2), for example, authorizes the state bar to require all active licensees in private practice with principal offices in Oregon to carry professional liability coverage through the Professional Liability Fund.

How policies treat a lawyer who is not yet admitted in your state was not verified in our research, so confirm the position with your insurer and your state bar before the start date.

Employer information, not legal advice. The rules described here are the ABA's model text and one state's statute as examples — your state's adopted versions control. Confirm the arrangement with the authority that licenses lawyers in your state and with your state bar's ethics counsel before the hire starts.