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Foreign-trained lawyers in New York

New York is the state where the most lawyers trained outside the United States take the bar exam: 5,812 of 9,859 in 2025, according to NCBE. Its rule allows it with a foreign law degree, but if you studied in a civil-law country (every Spanish-speaking country, Brazil and France among them), you also need an LL.M. from a U.S. law school. Without the exam, a lawyer admitted in another country can be licensed as a Foreign Legal Consultant, register as in-house counsel for a company, practice temporarily, or ask permission to appear in a single case.

The five routes in New York

For a lawyer admitted only in another country. Each route has its own section below, with the official rule. What each one is (in Spanish)

Admission without exam from another state
Yes
Last reviewed
October 25, 2026

The New York route

The path a lawyer trained outside the United States takes to a full New York license.

  1. Ask for an evaluation of your legal education

    With your NCBE number you open an account with the Board of Law Examiners and ask it to evaluate your degree. It is required before you apply for the exam for the first time. If you will do an LL.M., ask by May 1 of the year before a February exam, or by October 1 of the year before a July exam: the decision can take up to six months.

  2. Complete your education with an LL.M.

    If you studied in a civil-law country, your degree cannot be equivalent in content, because the rule allows that only for countries whose law is based on the English common law. You make up for it with an in-person LL.M. of at least 24 credits at an ABA-approved law school, as long as your degree is equivalent in length.

  3. Take the exam

    The UBE, in February or July. You also complete the New York Law Course (NYLC), online and free, and pass the New York Law Exam (NYLE), also online. And the MPRE, the professional responsibility exam, with a score of 85 or higher.

  4. Meet the requirements before admission

    50 hours of law-related pro bono work, which you can do in your own country, and the skills competency requirement, which you can meet with one year of practice in your own country.

  5. Apply for admission

    Once you pass, the Board certifies you to the Appellate Division for your department, which reviews your character and fitness, including an interview. You have three years from the exam to file a complete application.

Before you start, it helps to know where this leads: with a foreign degree, a New York license does not open most other states to you without an exam. We explain it at the end, in "After New York."

Foreign Legal Consultant

Part 521 of the Rules of the Court of Appeals allows a lawyer admitted in another country to be licensed as a legal consultant (Foreign Legal Consultant) and advise in New York on the law of that country, without taking the bar exam. You apply to the clerk of the Appellate Division for the department where you live or intend to practice, and that same Appellate Division grants the license, at its discretion.

Requirements

  • Be a member in good standing of a recognized legal profession in your country, subject to effective regulation and discipline.
  • Have practiced for at least 3 of the 5 years before your application, in your country or elsewhere, as long as your work dealt substantially with the law of your country.
  • The same good moral character and general fitness required of a member of the New York bar.
  • Be over 26 years of age.
  • Maintain an office in New York to practice as a legal consultant.
  • A certificate from the authority with final jurisdiction over the discipline of lawyers in your country, showing your date of admission and your standing, and a letter of recommendation from a member of its executive body, or from a judge of your country's highest court or of a court of original jurisdiction. If they are in another language, with an English translation that is authenticated or that gives the translator's qualifications and a statement that it is accurate.
  • Professional liability insurance in the amount the court sets, your commitment to follow New York's rules and to report any change in your standing in your country, and the designation of the court clerk as your agent for service of process.
  • Register every two years with the Office of Court Administration.
  • Watch out: the Appellate Division may also consider whether a New York lawyer could set up in your country to give legal advice.

What a Foreign Legal Consultant cannot do

  • Appear for others in New York courts, except with permission for a single case (pro hac vice).
  • Prepare documents to transfer or register title to real estate in the United States.
  • Prepare wills or trusts that dispose of property in the United States owned by someone who lives here, or documents to administer a deceased person's estate in the United States.
  • Prepare documents on the marital or parental rights and duties, or the custody of the children, of someone who lives in the United States.
  • Give advice on New York or U.S. law, except on the basis of advice from someone authorized to give it in New York.
  • Hold yourself out as a member of the New York bar, or use any title other than your name, your firm's name, your professional title in your country (with the country's name) or "legal consultant," together with the country where you are admitted.

Costs and fees

  • To apply: There is no application fee today.
  • To keep it: You register every two years; no fee today.
  • Paid to: Nothing for now. If that changes, the Appellate Division of your department will say so.

Compare with other states (in Spanish)

Official forms

You apply to the clerk of the Appellate Division for the department where you live or intend to practice. Each department publishes its own instructions.

Read the official rule

With NAFA: we go through each requirement with you and your documents and, if you choose one-on-one guidance, we prepare the application together.

The bar exam

Section 520.6 of the Rules of the Court of Appeals allows you to take the exam with a foreign law degree if your legal education is equivalent to that of an ABA-approved law school in length and in content. Equivalence in content also requires that your country's law be based on the English common law. If you fall short on one of the two, you can make it up with an LL.M. in the United States; if you fall short on both, you cannot.

Requirements for a foreign degree

  • First, ask the Board of Law Examiners to evaluate your education, through its portal, with your NCBE number. It is required the first time.
  • Length: at least 83 credits in law subjects, 64 of them in classroom courses. Online or distance courses do not count.
  • If you studied in a civil-law country (every Spanish-speaking country, for example), the LL.M. makes up the content: at least 24 credits, all on the campus of an ABA-approved law school, over at least two semesters and within 24 months. It must include professional responsibility, legal research and writing, and American legal studies (2 credits each), and 6 credits in subjects tested on the New York exam. No online courses, and no more than 4 credits in the summer.
  • If you studied in a common-law country, your degree may be enough on its own, if it meets both length and content. If it falls short on length, the LL.M. makes it up, as long as you have at least two years of law studies that meet the content requirement.
  • Your academic records, sent directly by your university in a sealed envelope and showing your Board ID number. Faxes and notarized photocopies are not accepted. The English translation must be done by a certified translator, with their qualifications and a statement that it is accurate; your own translation does not count.
  • The exam: the UBE, the New York Law Exam (NYLE) and the MPRE.

Good to know

  • Applicants educated abroad pay US$750 for the exam; those educated in the United States, US$250. Watch out: if you apply before the Board decides on your evaluation and you turn out not to be eligible, the fee is not refunded. If you will do an LL.M., wait for its decision.
  • Good news: the 50 hours of pro bono work can be done in your own country, in whole or in part, under the supervision of a lawyer in good standing there. Work done since May 1, 2012 counts and, if you will do an LL.M., work done up to a year before you start it. The hours must be finished before you apply for admission, and living abroad does not exempt you.
  • Good news: the skills competency requirement (section 520.18) can be met with your practice in your own country: at least one year full-time, or two years part-time, in good standing. It applies if you started your LL.M. after August 1, 2018.
  • The New York Law Course (NYLC) is about 17 hours of online video, free, and you can take it up to a year before the UBE. Its exam (NYLE), online and open-book, has 50 questions in two hours: you pass with 30. It is offered three times a year and the score is valid for three years.
  • If you already took the UBE in another state, you can transfer your score to New York if it is 266 or higher and no more than three years old. You still have to meet rule 520.6, and you pay the same US$750.
  • New York will give the NextGen UBE starting in July 2028. The last administration of the current UBE will be in February 2028, and New York will not accept NextGen scores earned before July 2028.

Read the official rule

With NAFA: your credential evaluation shows you what you are missing, and our courses prepare you in U.S. law and legal English.

Admission without exam for lawyers from other states

This is the route for a lawyer already licensed in another U.S. state (admission on motion). A license from another country or a Foreign Legal Consultant certification does not count.

Section 520.10 allows the Appellate Division to admit without examination a lawyer with 5 of the last 7 years of practice in a U.S. jurisdiction that offers the same to New York lawyers, and with a degree from an ABA-approved U.S. law school. It is not possible with a foreign degree, even with an LL.M.: the Board of Law Examiners says so expressly.

Years of practice
5 of the last 7
Requires a degree from an ABA-approved law school
Yes
Only with reciprocity
Yes

See the official source

How it works in the rest of the country (in Spanish)

In-house counsel

Part 522 of the Rules of the Court of Appeals allows a lawyer admitted in another country to register in New York as in-house counsel (Registered In-House Counsel) for a company, without taking the bar exam. It is a registration, not a license: it authorizes you to work for your employer and no one else.

Requirements

  • Be a member in good standing of a recognized legal profession in your country, subject to effective regulation by a professional body or a public authority. If there is no such authority there, or it suspends lawyers who work in-house, it is enough to be trained and qualified as a lawyer and able to return to private practice when you leave the job.
  • The good moral character and general fitness required of a member of the New York bar.
  • Work in New York for a company or organization that does not provide legal services outside itself. Since 2020, both full-time and part-time in-house lawyers must register.
  • You do not need to live in New York or in a neighboring state.

What in-house counsel cannot do

  • Advise anyone other than your employer, its affiliates and their employees, officers and directors, and only on matters related to your work for the company.
  • Provide personal legal services to the company's customers, shareholders, owners, partners, officers, employees or agents.
  • Appear before a New York tribunal, or do anything that would require pro hac vice admission.
  • Hold yourself out as admitted in New York, except on the company's letterhead, with a statement of your limits.
  • Do pro bono work without the direct supervision of a New York lawyer. With that supervision you can, and in that case the tribunal may let you appear if you notify it first.

How to apply

  • A certificate of good standing from each jurisdiction where you are licensed. If your country does not issue one, an affidavit with supporting documents.
  • A letter from the grievance committee of each jurisdiction stating whether any charges were filed against you and how they ended. If your country does not issue one, an affidavit covering the same points.
  • Your affidavit that you will practice only as the rule allows and accept New York's disciplinary authority and Rules of Professional Conduct, and another from an officer, a director or the general counsel of the company confirming your employment.
  • A certified English translation of every document in another language.
  • The application is emailed as a PDF to the Appellate Division for the department where you live, work or will work.

Once you are certified or registered

  • You register every two years with the Office of Court Administration, like New York lawyers.
  • You notify the Appellate Division of any disciplinary action in another jurisdiction.
  • If you leave the company, your registration ends, unless another employer hires you within 30 days and you file the affidavits again. If there is no new employer, you file a statement within those 30 days.
  • It also ends if you stop meeting the requirements, for example if you lose your license in your country.
  • Watch out: your time as registered in-house counsel does not count as practice for admission without examination in New York (section 522.6).

Costs and fees

  • To apply: There is no application fee today.
  • To keep it: You register every two years; no fee today.
  • Paid to: Nothing for now. The application is emailed as a PDF to the Appellate Division of your department.

Compare with other states (in Spanish)

Official forms

Use the forms for attorneys not admitted in the U.S.: there are others for those already licensed in a state. They are filed with the Appellate Division.

Read the official rule · How it works in other states (in Spanish)

Appearing in a single case (pro hac vice)

Section 520.11 of the Rules of the Court of Appeals allows a New York court, at its discretion, to admit a lawyer in good standing in another state or another country to take part in a single case for which the lawyer was retained.

Requirements

  • Be admitted and in good standing in your country.
  • At trial or in pretrial proceedings, be associated with a New York lawyer, who is the attorney of record.
  • Follow the New York Rules of Professional Conduct: for what you do in the case, you are subject to New York's courts.
  • You apply to the court hearing the case. Its clerk or the judge's chambers will tell you how.

Read the official rule

Temporary practice, without a state license

Handling a matter in the state on a temporary basis, without a license or registration there, as some rules allow a lawyer from another country to do: usually matters tied to the law of their own country or to international law.

Since 2015, Part 523 of the Rules of the Court of Appeals has allowed a member of a recognized and regulated legal profession in another country to practice temporarily in New York, without a license or registration, in certain situations.

Conditions

  • Be a member of a recognized legal profession in your country, subject to effective regulation and discipline, and be in good standing in every jurisdiction where you are admitted.
  • The services must be ones you could provide in your own country and that a New York lawyer may provide.
  • And they must fall within one of these situations: together with a New York lawyer who actively takes part and shares responsibility; related to a proceeding before a tribunal where you are, or expect to be, authorized to appear; related to an arbitration, mediation or other alternative dispute resolution proceeding that does not require pro hac vice admission; or arising out of, or reasonably related to, your practice in your own country.
  • You are subject to New York's Rules of Professional Conduct and disciplinary authority.

What it does not allow

  • Open an office or keep a systematic and continuous presence in New York to practice law.
  • Hold yourself out as a lawyer admitted in New York.
  • It is not for those who already have another authorization: a Foreign Legal Consultant or a registered in-house counsel cannot practice this way.

Read the official rule

Other routes

  • Court Navigator, as a volunteer: in New York City's housing and civil courts, people who are not lawyers, trained and supervised by the program, give general information to people without a lawyer, help with forms and access to interpreters and, in some courts, go with them into the courtroom, without speaking before the judge. The program asks for at least 50 hours within three months, after a three-hour training. For a lawyer trained abroad it is a way to see New York's courts from the inside; the program decides whom it accepts.

After New York

What a New York license opens for you in other states, or does not, if your degree is from another country.

  • Watch out: admission without exam rarely helps you. 32 jurisdictions require a degree from an ABA-approved law school for it, according to NCBE's 2026 guide, and a foreign degree with an LL.M. is not one. New York requires it too.
  • Florida: with a New York license and an LL.M. that meets the criteria of its Board of Bar Examiners, two years of practice let you take the Florida exam (rule 4-13.4); without that LL.M., five. Florida does not admit lawyers without examination.
  • California: if you are already admitted in your country, you do not need a New York license to take its exam. But with four years of active licensure in New York you can take a shorter one, the Attorneys' Examination: only the written part, in one day.
  • Your UBE score: each UBE state decides whether to accept it and whether your foreign degree meets its requirements. Check that state's rules before you ask for the transfer.

Good to know

In New York, the Court of Appeals sets the admission rules; the Board of Law Examiners gives the exam and evaluates your education; and the Appellate Division in each of the four departments reviews your character and fitness and admits you. New York does not use NCBE for that review. The statewide bar association, the New York State Bar Association, is voluntary.

If you come from a common-law country and qualified by combining study with training in a law office, as in the English conversion route (GDL and LPC), the rule has its own route, 520.6(b)(2): it requires admission in that country and an LL.M. in the United States.

If complying with a rule would cause you undue hardship, you can ask the Court of Appeals for a waiver (section 520.14), with a verified petition. The Court decides at its discretion.

Good news: working from home. Section 523.5 allows a lawyer authorized in another jurisdiction, including a member of a recognized legal profession in another country, to work from home or another location in New York in what the lawyer could do where authorized. Under conditions: no advertising, letterhead, website or business cards suggesting that you are authorized in New York or have an office there; no New York residents as clients on matters that mainly require New York law; no regular in-person meetings with clients in the state, except as temporary practice allows; and correcting anyone who believes you are authorized in New York.

General information, not legal advice. Rules change: always check the official source before you make a decision. Last reviewed: October 25, 2026.

Sources

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