Public record
How New York attorney registration works
Updated 2026-11-02. This is general information, not legal advice, and not a recommendation of any lawyer.
Admission and registration are two steps
A person is admitted to the New York bar by the Appellate Division. After that, lawyers file a registration with the Office of Court Administration and renew it on a two-year cycle. The court's public attorney search is the record of that registration.
A current registration means the lawyer has met the filing requirement the court describes. It is not a grade, a specialty certificate, or a promise about a particular case.
What you can look up
The Unified Court System lets the public search by a lawyer's name. The useful fields are the registration status and the year of admission, when the court displays them. Discipline, when it exists, is a separate public record. Read both before you treat a website biography as complete.
This directory leaves registration number, status, and year off a profile unless the firm's own site states them. We would rather omit a fact than guess it.
Names that confuse people
A law firm name is not a person. Several lawyers can practice under one firm, and a named partner may not be the person who will handle the file. Ask who the lawyer of record will be.
A notary public is not a lawyer. In immigration matters especially, “notario” is not a New York law license.