Reference from Coast to Coast - Finding Lawyers - Directories, Web Sites & State Bar Sources
By Jan Bissett and Margi Heinen, Published on December 17, 2001
Those of us in the law business often need contact information for other practitioners in our profession. Sometimes we need basic information to return a call when the cell phone or speaker phone static makes that information a crackle. Or we may need background information to assess the attorney on the other side. We occasionally seek to identify attorneys who can handle a matter for us in a different jurisdiction or legal arena. The goal of this column is to help you find attorney information from a variety of sources, especially State Bar directories of members. We don't describe the process and caveats of finding an attorney to handle your personal legal problem - that is a journey for another day.
Myriad directories
of legal professionals exist. Access depends upon the information you
may have and that you seek. Several pathfinders illustrate the types of
information available as well as describing specific sources:Duke University
School of Law Library's Directories
of Lawyers provides information on web and print resources
including identifying general and state directories as well as practice
related and international materials.
The lawyer directory
we all cut our teeth on, Martindale-Hubbell,
is still our instinctive choice. Just remind yourself there are two web
sites from Martindale Hubbell. Martindale.com's
lawyer locator with listings of over one million lawyers and law firms
in 160 countries includes corporate and faculty legal professionals listings
as well as national and international attorney searches by location, language,
name, practice or firm. This web version and the print source include
ratings for 43% of the
Martindale-Hubbell, part of the LexisNexis family of products, has as its counterpart West Group's Findlaw/West Legal Directory. The Findlaw directory has the same advantage its predecessor West Legal Directory had: contact information for solo practitioners or small firms. One of the drawbacks of the classic Martindale-Hubbell search is the possibility of finding nothing or only the name of a small law firm you are seeking, no address or telephone number, much less any biographical information. West's product, on the other hand, is a great place to check for basic information on attorneys in all size firms.
A serious drawback to the Findlaw directory (not a problem on the Martindale site) is the requirement that a lawyer search use a surname. The necessity of a surname means every misspelling makes the site useless. We too often are taking notes from people on speaker phones, static-filled lines or the requester simply has no idea how to spell an unfamiliar name or isn't sure of which common spelling might be used. Painful as a search by first name might be, narrowing that search by geographical area will yield at least a list of attorney possibilities. A number of Web-based attorney directories suffer from this restriction of a required surname so you may want to find out if the professional has a specialty or where he/she practices to determine if other directories are available. You may also want to try a simple Google or Yahoo search with variant spellings to see if you can find a web site for the attorney or a reference with the correct spelling.
When you cannot find an attorney in one of these directories one option is to go directly to the Bar Association to which he/she may belong. A majority of states have what is known as a "unified bar" which regulates the licensing of attorneys in the state. The Vermont Bar Association provides a list of state bar associations and their unified or voluntary status. Even the voluntary state bar associations usually maintain lists of members with contact information.
Going directly to the bar association can be especially helpful if you are finding outdated material in the national directories: changes in address or location may be more quickly updated by the bar associations. These bar associations' directories fall into roughly three categories:public access/searching of their membership on the Web;membership only access; and a third group publishes in print only and may require a telephone call to verify an attorney's membership. We have noticed that while it is easy to locate state bar web sites, it is often not clear if they have a searchable member database or just how searchable the database may be. Often the referral service of the bar is clearly linked but the listing of members is not. We offer the listings we've identified below of available attorney directories/ member information at the state bar association level.
Member Search
Search template offers name, location and law school
search options.
Bar Association Member Directory
Search by
last name or bar number only. Information is provided at the discretion
of the member but includes inactive and deceased member names.
Arizona
State Bar Member Finder
Especially helpful
search template - includes language as a search field.
http://www.arkbar.com
Search
options include surname, practice area or location.
California
State Bar of California Member Records Online
Search by number or name in a database that indicates
active or inactive membership status.
Membership Directory
Only available to members. Requires a login and password.
[Print directory available http://www.dsba.org/direct98.htm]
Member
Lookup
Search choice of 2
templates:attorney name or company/geographic location.
Florida Bar
Attorney Search
Active,
inactive and retired members of the Bar; search by last name, first name
and city optional.
Georgia
State
Bar of
Search by
last or first name, company, city, state or zip code.
Idaho
Search by
attorney's last name.
Illinois Lawyer Finder
[Illinois State Bar Association's lawyer directory]
Entries include members of the State Bar with a specified minimum
coverage of professional liability insurance in good standing as determined
by the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission. Search by field
of practice, name, city, zip code or county.
Michigan
State Bar of Michigan Member Directory http://www.michbar.org/member/content.html
Search by first or last name; city (mailing city) can be used to refine
the search.
Mississippi
Database
of
"The Mississippi Bar,
in conjunction with LawNetCom, maintains an online membership directory
that can be searched by first name, last name, address, city, phone number,
fax number, e-mail address, or any combination of two of the above."
Missouri
The
[Members only
login].
Nebraska
Search by
last or first name, address (street, city, state), phone, fax or e-mail
in this database of all active Nebraska Bar attorneys.
New Hampshire
New Hampshire
[Members
only login].
New Mexico
State Bar of New
Mexico Attorney Finder – Online Attorney Directory
Search by
last or first name, employer, certified specialization, practice area,
foreign language ability, city, state or counties in which cases are accepted
for active, licensed State Bar members.
New
York
[
North Carolina
North Carolina
State Bar Member Directory
Search by
name (first, middle or last), city or state.
North Dakota
North
Dakota
Query by word or phrase; Boolean searching (AND; OR; AND NOT; NEAR); truncation possible as well as free-text queries.
Ohio
Ohio
State Bar Association Membership Directory
Search by
name (first, last), address (city, state, zip code), Firm name, county
or type of practice.
Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Includes only those members who give permission to be included.
Search by practice area, city, county and/or last name.
Oregon
Oregon State
Bar Membership Directory
Search by bar number,
first or last name.
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
Subscription service.
South Carolina
South Carolina
Search by
last name, city, county or state.
Tennessee
Tennessee
Search by name
(first, middle, last), firm/organization, city, state, zip or BPR number.
Texas
State
Bar of Texas Member Search
Find an
attorney in
Utah
Utah State Bar
Find A Lawyer
Key word, case-sensitive searching of all licensed members of the
Utah State Bar.
Washington
Washington
Current
contact information for lawyers currently licensed to practice in
West Virginia
West Virginia State Bar Membership Directory
View a list
by active, inactive members or interactive search. Template includes
law i.d., last name, county, city and status.
Wisconsin
WisBar Lawyer
Search
Find licensed
Wyoming
Wyoming State Bar Lawyer
Directory
Search by lawyer's
last name or city.
Sabrina I. Pacifici
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