NJ Attorney Lookup: How to Check a New Jersey Lawyer's License

Three records, kept by three offices, for one lawyer

A New Jersey lawyer's public record is not in one database. The Board of Bar Examiners admits lawyers and defines the status words. The Judiciary's Statewide Attorney Index publishes each lawyer's admission date, business county, and Good Standing Status. The New Jersey Lawyers' Fund for Client Protection runs the annual registration whose lapse puts a lawyer on the Supreme Court's Ineligible List. The Office of Attorney Ethics investigates and prosecutes misconduct, and the Disciplinary Review Board publishes the outcomes. A search that stops at the first screen misses two of the three.

It also helps to know what is not a record. The New Jersey State Bar Association describes itself as a voluntary professional membership organization and says the regulatory body for attorneys is the New Jersey Judiciary, so membership there is not a license. Lawyer directories and rating sites sell placement and show no status, admission date, or discipline. And the first result many people see for this search belongs to the Law Society of Jersey in the Channel Islands, a British Crown dependency, which lists advocates and solicitors and has nothing to do with New Jersey.

• Statewide Attorney Index (Judiciary): admission date, business location, Good Standing Status, insurance certificate on file, certifications.
• Ineligible List (Supreme Court order, reported by the Lawyers' Fund): lawyers who did not complete the year's registration and payment, or the separate CLE and IOLTA lists.
• Disciplinary Review Board portal (Judiciary): every public sanction since 1988, searchable by name, county, decision date, docket number, and rule violated.
• Office of Attorney Ethics: quarterly lists of disciplined attorneys and an annual report with each disciplined lawyer's history.

Searching the Statewide Attorney Index, step by step

The Index sits behind the Attorneys page on njcourts.gov under Search the Statewide Attorney Index. The search form asks for the exact last name, which is required, and the first name, where at least the first initial is required. City and County of Business are optional. The county list carries the twenty-one New Jersey counties plus entries for Not Available, Out of State, and Out of Country, so a lawyer whose office is in New York or Pennsylvania can still be found. A separate option searches by Area of Certification, which returns lawyers the Supreme Court has certified in a specialty such as civil trial or matrimonial law.

The results list shows the Attorney ID, suffix, last name, first name, city, county, and Good Standing column for every match. Common surnames return many rows. The Judiciary's own instruction is to use the Attorney ID Number to confirm the information applies to the correct individual, because there may be more than one New Jersey attorney with the same name. Ask the lawyer for the ID before you search, or match the business city and admission year against what you were told.

Two practical notes. The search is protected by a reCAPTCHA and its terms forbid automated programs, so it is a person-at-a-keyboard tool, not something a directory can scrape for you. And the Index is the Judiciary's record for New Jersey only; it will not show a license issued by another state, which is covered further down.

What the Attorney Detail screen shows

Opening a row shows the Attorney Detail. The fields below are the ones the Judiciary documents in its own quick reference guide to the Index, which uses a sample record with Attorney ID 007242004 and a Good Standing Status of ACTIVE. Read the status first, then the admission date, then the employer lines, and match the ID.

The Current Certificate of Insurance line deserves a careful reading. The Judiciary's note on that screen says most attorneys are not required to maintain professional liability, that is malpractice, insurance. A blank there is normal for a solo practitioner. Where a certificate is on file, the screen shows the employer, the policy dates, and a link to a redacted copy. If coverage matters to your matter, ask the lawyer directly rather than inferring it from the record.

What each Good Standing status means before you hire

The Board of Bar Examiners lists the Good Standing statuses as Active, Resigned, Administratively Ineligible, and Administratively Revoked, and points to the Statewide Attorney Index to verify a lawyer's current status. The Judiciary's registration FAQ adds one rule that surprises many clients: there is no inactive status in New Jersey. A lawyer who is not practicing is either exempt from the annual payment, for example after retirement, or is ineligible.

Administratively Ineligible is the status that needs the most explanation. The registration FAQ says it is not a disciplinary action akin to suspension or disbarment, but that ineligible attorneys are considered not in good standing in New Jersey and may neither practice nor be admitted pro hac vice. In plain terms, the lawyer missed the year's registration payment, the CLE reporting, or the IOLTA trust-account filing. It is cured by paying the fee and a reinstatement charge, not by a hearing. It is still a reason to ask before you sign anything, because a lawyer in that status cannot appear for you.

The 2026 registration calendar and fees

Every New Jersey lawyer must complete the online registration and payment at the beginning of each calendar year. The Lawyers' Fund for Client Protection collects the payment, which also funds the Disciplinary Oversight Committee and the Lawyers Assistance Program. For 2026 the on-time deadline is March 20, 2026. Payment after that date carries a $40 late fee. The Judiciary's May 4, 2026 notice gave June 5, 2026 as the last date to complete registration before being declared ineligible, and the Supreme Court's 2026 Attorney Ineligibility Order, effective June 29, 2026, placed the lawyers who had neither paid nor shown an exemption on the Ineligible List. The order and the list are posted on the Judiciary's website and published in the New Jersey Law Journal.

The fee depends on the year of admission. The registration page also notes that attorneys admitted pro hac vice in federal court in New Jersey are obligated to pay, and the registration FAQ says there is no exemption for practicing out of state. For a client, the dates matter in one way: a lawyer who shows Administratively Ineligible in July most likely missed the spring registration, and the Index will update once the Fund processes the late payment and reinstatement fee.

• Late fee after March 20, 2026: $40. Reinstatement from one year's Ineligible List: $50. From two or more years' lists: $100.
• Questions about payment go to the Lawyers' Fund for Client Protection at 855-533-3863, option 1. Registration system help is at 609-421-6100.

The Ineligible List: what it is and what it is not

The Ineligible List is a Supreme Court order, issued under Rule 1:28-2, naming the lawyers who did not complete the year's registration and payment or prove an exemption. The 2026 order recites that every reasonable effort was made to notify attorneys of their obligations, that warning letters went out with a May 8, 2026 deadline, and that the named attorneys were declared ineligible to practice law effective June 29, 2026. There are two more lists on the same model: a CLE ineligible list for lawyers who did not report their continuing legal education, and an IOLTA list for lawyers who did not file the trust-account registration.

What the list is not is a finding of wrongdoing. The Judiciary's own words are that it is not a disciplinary action akin to suspension or disbarment. What it is, for a client, is a hard stop: a lawyer on the list is not in good standing and may not practice until reinstated. If a lawyer you are considering shows Administratively Ineligible, the right question is simply when the payment and reinstatement will be processed, and the right move is to wait for the Index to read Active before you sign an engagement letter.

• Registration and payment lapse: cured by the fee, the $40 late fee, and the $50 or $100 reinstatement fee.
• CLE reporting lapse: the Board on Continuing Legal Education assesses a $50 noncompliance fee, rising to $100 in total after the grace date, and the lawyer may be placed on the CLE ineligible list and may not practice New Jersey law until compliant.
• IOLTA filing lapse: the annual notice and order for the IOLTA Ineligible List follows the same pattern.

Discipline: the Office of Attorney Ethics and the Disciplinary Review Board

The Statewide Attorney Index does not show discipline. For that you use the Disciplinary Review Board portal, which the Judiciary says holds a database of all attorneys disciplined since 1988. The portal searches by name, county, decision date, docket number, and the Rule of Professional Conduct involved, and offers a recent-cases view covering the last three months. Each entry gives the respondent, the case type, the docket number, the final action, and the date the Court's order was filed. Entries write the lawyer's number with a hyphen after the fifth digit, for example 01836-2010, while the Index shows the same nine digits run together, so 01836-2010 and 018362010 are the same lawyer.

The Office of Attorney Ethics is the investigative and prosecutorial arm of the Supreme Court in these matters. Each quarter it publishes a list of attorneys disciplined by the Supreme Court of New Jersey, and its annual report sets out the disciplinary history of each attorney disciplined that year. The sanctions run from a letter of admonition, to a reprimand, to a censure, to a term suspension, to disbarment, and the Disciplinary Review Board holds a public hearing in every case where the OAE recommends a sanction greater than admonition. A portal result that reads 3 MOS. SUSP. is a three-month suspension; CONSENT/DISBAR is a disbarment the lawyer agreed to.

Read the date and the sanction together. A twenty-year-old admonition and a current suspension can both appear as a hit, and the Index status alone will not tell you which; the decision gives the sanction, its term, and any conditions. If the portal shows anything, read the decision itself, which the portal links, before any further conversation.

Continuing legal education: what the record will and will not show

New Jersey lawyers must complete 24 credit hours of continuing legal education every two years, including five credits in ethics or professionalism of which at least two must cover diversity, inclusion, and elimination of bias, with at least half of all credits earned live. Lawyers report in alternating years by birth month group. The program is self-reporting, and the Board on Continuing Legal Education says it does not track an attorney's credit-by-credit course work. Exemptions cover lawyers admitted for 50 years or more, those who have reached age 75, full-time military and similar service, and lawyers who are fully retired. A new requirement for technology-related subjects takes effect January 1, 2027.

For a client this means the Index will never show credit hours. What it shows is the consequence of not reporting: a lawyer who misses the CLE report and the grace period is assessed the noncompliance fee and can be placed on the CLE ineligible list, which appears in the Index as Administratively Ineligible. If you want to know whether a lawyer keeps current in a field, ask about recent courses directly; the public record only tells you whether the biennial report was filed.

Lawyers who will not appear, or who appear differently

A blank search does not always mean an unlicensed lawyer. A lawyer admitted only in New York, Pennsylvania, or another state has no New Jersey entry and may lawfully handle matters that do not require New Jersey admission, such as a federal matter or advice under another state's law. For that lawyer, the record to check is the home state's: New York, for example, publishes its own attorney search through the Unified Court System. If a New Jersey matter is involved, ask which New Jersey-admitted lawyer will appear, and check that person.

Two limited licenses show up in their own way. In-house counsel who move to New Jersey with an employer may hold a limited license under Rule 1:27-2; the Board of Bar Examiners says the application is due within sixty days of starting, carries a $750 fee and a $150 late fee, and remains in effect while the lawyer works for the same business entity. That lawyer may act solely for the designated employer and cannot represent you. A lawyer admitted pro hac vice is admitted for one case by court order, pays the Fund $267 for each year the matter is pending, and, the Bar Examiners note, is not eligible for a Certificate of Good Standing. Neither is a general New Jersey license.

Finally, a lawyer admitted in 2026 is exempt from the 2026 registration payment and will show Active with a 2026 admission date. Newly admitted is not a flaw; it is a fact to weigh against the complexity of your matter.

• Licensed in New Jersey: check the Statewide Attorney Index first, then the DRB portal.
• Licensed only in another state: check that state's court or bar record, and ask who will appear in any New Jersey court.
• In-house counsel license: valid only for the employer; the lawyer cannot take you as a client.
• Pro hac vice: a single-case admission that depends on a New Jersey lawyer of record.

Certificates, when a screen is not enough

Most clients never need paper. When a court, another state's bar, or an employer asks for proof, New Jersey issues two documents. A Certificate of Good Standing is requested through the Judiciary's annual attorney registration and payment system, using the Good Standing/Other Certificate tile; the Judiciary's quick reference guide gives the fee as $20 per requested document, plus expedited shipping if requested. Retired attorneys receive letters indicating their status rather than certificates of good standing. A Certificate of Ethical Conduct, which is the lawyer's disciplinary history, comes from the Office of Attorney Ethics.

The certificate is the lawyer's to request, not yours. If you are asked to verify a lawyer for an institution, point the institution to the Index and the DRB portal, both of which are public and free, or ask the lawyer to order the certificate.

What a clean lookup does not tell you

An Active status, a matching Attorney ID, and no Disciplinary Review Board record settle one question: on the day you checked, New Jersey showed a lawyer in good standing with no public discipline. They do not show whether the lawyer handles matters like yours, who at the firm will do the work, how fees are set, whether there is a conflict with the other side, or how quickly the office answers. Those answers come from a conversation and a written engagement agreement.

The profile pages on this site keep the same separation. A lawyer's profile states what the lawyer confirmed in writing and the date, links the official records, and says plainly that current bar registration and matter-specific fit should be checked directly. No profile here carries a badge, a ranking, or a result claim. This guide is educational: LA Trusted Professionals does not rank lawyers, endorse anyone, or award a status through this page.

To see how a reviewed profile is built around that separation, read Don Savatta's attorney profile, which lists his offices, practice focus, response standard, and the official sources behind each fact.

For the method behind every page on this site, read how review works: how a regulator's record, a firm-authored statement, a submitted document, and an unresolved gap are kept apart.

Before a first call, the questions to ask before hiring a professional cover authority, responsibility, money, confidentiality, and timing.

If the matter is clearing an old New Jersey record, read how expungement in New Jersey works before you hire anyone: the waiting periods, the free filing, and when a lawyer is worth having.

Keep a dated record of the check

A lookup is true on the day it is run. Write down the lawyer's name as the Index shows it, the nine-digit Attorney ID, the admission date, the Good Standing Status, the business county, the DRB result, and the date you looked. If the matter will run past the next March 20, check again after the registration deadline. If something does not match what you were told, ask the lawyer first. If the mismatch is about honesty rather than paperwork, the Judiciary's attorney ethics and discipline pages explain how a grievance is filed with the Office of Attorney Ethics.

The same approach for an accountant is in the NJ CPA license lookup guide, which walks the Division of Consumer Affairs record the way this page walks the Judiciary's.

Questions to settle before you rely on a lawyer's record.