Methodology & Data Sources

Data Sources

PlainAttorney's primary dataset comes directly from the New York Office of Court Administration (OCA), published as open data via the state's Socrata portal. This is the official registry of all attorneys admitted to practice in New York. Secondary context comes from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Consumer Complaint Database for firm-level consumer-finance complaint scale, and from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for attorney compensation context on fee pages.

• NY OCA Attorney Registrations – primary source. CSV download · data.ny.gov
• NY OCA Attorney Search – live attorney lookup interface (use to verify any record before relying on it). iapps.courts.state.ny.us
• CFPB Consumer Complaint Database – firm-level consumer financial complaints (debt collection, mortgage, student loan). These are voluntary, self-filed complaints that CFPB logs without verifying merit; a larger firm naturally accumulates more complaints from serving more clients, so raw counts describe complaint volume, not a substantiated-wrongdoing rate. consumerfinance.gov
• BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics – Lawyers (SOC 23-1011) – per-state hourly and annual wage statistics for attorney fee context. bls.gov/oes/231011
• U.S. Department of Justice – Office of Professional Responsibility – federal-level attorney discipline framework reference. justice.gov/opr
• USCourts.gov – Federal Court Locator – cross-reference for federal-court admissions when state-bar status alone is insufficient. uscourts.gov

Data Coverage

The NY OCA dataset includes:

• 429,620 attorney registrations from New York State
• Bar status for each attorney, active, suspended, disbarred, deceased, and other statuses
• Law school information for each registered attorney
• Practice location data covering 2,609+ cities
• Registration number and admission year
• Judicial department and registration dates for each biennial cycle

New York has one of the largest attorney populations in the United States, with attorneys practicing from all 50 states and numerous foreign countries maintaining their New York registration. The dataset captures both actively practicing attorneys and those in retired, suspended, or other non-active statuses.

How We Process the Data

1. Download raw attorney registration dataset from the NY OCA Socrata open data portal
2. Parse attorney name, registration status, law school, practice location, and registration number
3. Normalize city and law school names for consistent searchability
4. No data is modified, interpolated, or editorialized, names, statuses, and fields appear exactly as the state publishes them, preserving the official record
5. Compute geographic distribution statistics at the city and law school level, including active attorney counts and discipline rates
6. Load into our search-optimized database organized by name, city, law school, and bar status

Discipline Transparency

PlainAttorney prominently surfaces disbarred, suspended, and otherwise disciplined attorneys, because consumers deserve straightforward access to this public information. Discipline status is sourced directly from the NY OCA records and is not editorially filtered or downplayed.

Verify an Attorney at the Official State Bar

PlainAttorney presents public New York registration data. Before making any important legal decision, users should cross-check the attorney with the official licensing board for every jurisdiction in which the attorney practices. Each state bar publishes a free, authoritative lookup tool, those links are the definitive source of truth for bar status, discipline, and licensure:

• New York: NY OCA Attorney Search
• California: State Bar of California
• Texas: State Bar of Texas
• Florida: The Florida Bar
• Illinois: Illinois ARDC Lawyer Search
• Pennsylvania: PA Disciplinary Board Attorney Search
• Ohio: Supreme Court of Ohio Attorney Directory
• New Jersey: NJ Courts Attorney Index
• Massachusetts: MA Board of Bar Overseers
• Georgia: State Bar of Georgia Member Directory
• ABA (all states): American Bar Association, State Bar Links

If an attorney is not listed on their state bar's official registry, treat that as a red flag and do not rely on third-party directories, including this one, as a substitute for the state's authoritative record.

Data Currency

The New York OCA updates their attorney registration data regularly. We update our database when new data becomes available from the OCA open data portal. Due to the continuous nature of attorney registration and disciplinary proceedings, there may be a lag between a status change occurring and its appearance in our database. For the most current status of any attorney, verify directly with the NY Attorney Search.

Limitations

• PlainAttorney currently covers New York State only, attorneys registered in other states are not included
• Status shown may not reflect recent changes filed after our last data update
• This site does not provide access to full disciplinary case records, only status as reported by OCA
• This site is for informational purposes only and does not provide legal advice

How the Source Agency Collects Data

The New York Office of Court Administration maintains the attorney registration database as part of its mandate under the Judiciary Law. Every attorney admitted to practice in New York must register biennially with the OCA and report their current office address, registration status, and other identifying information. The registration system has been in effect since 1978.

Status changes (suspensions, disbarments, resignations) are entered by court clerks as disciplinary proceedings conclude. The OCA publishes this data through the state's open data portal (data.ny.gov) via the Socrata API, making it programmatically accessible for public use.

Data Accuracy Commitment

PlainAttorney presents OCA data without modification. Attorney names, statuses, law schools, and practice locations appear exactly as the state publishes them. We do not editorialize, rate, or rank attorneys. If you believe any information is displayed incorrectly, please contact us and we will verify against the source data.

YMYL Disclosure, Legal Information, Not Legal Advice

Attorney status affects real-world decisions, hiring counsel, filing a grievance, or verifying credentials before a legal proceeding, so we treat this as a YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) topic. That means:

• We publish data exactly as the state releases it. No ranking, rating, or editorial opinion is applied to any individual attorney.
• We never sell leads, referrals, or "verified" badges to attorneys. Our only revenue is contextual display advertising, which does not influence coverage.
• Bar status can change between our quarterly refreshes. For live status, always consult the state bar registry linked above.
• This site does not provide legal advice. If you need legal advice, consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction.

Editorial Review & Corrections

Methodology and data-framing decisions are set by the PlainAttorney editorial team on each data refresh, and whenever the NY OCA changes the structure or meaning of a published field. Every ETL run validates row counts, status distributions, and schema against the previous release; significant deltas are checked before publication.

If you find a record that appears incorrect, misattributed, or stale, please email hello@plainattorney.com. Correction requests are cross-checked against the source OCA record; we correct or remove within one refresh cycle.

Data Reuse & Licensing

The aggregate law-school ranking behind our Top Law Schools page is available as a downloadable CSV, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0: free to reuse, republish, or build on with attribution to PlainAttorney and a link back. Every citable page also carries a "Cite this page" block with a ready-made attribution string. We do not currently offer bulk export of individual attorney records; our Terms of Use reserve that for the underlying NY OCA source itself, which anyone can query directly.

Contact

Questions about our methodology or found a data error? Reach us at hello@plainattorney.com or through our contact page.