States Ranked by Attorney Discipline Rate

What "discipline rate" actually measures

The rate is a simple ratio: registered attorneys whose status field equals "Disbarred", contains "Suspended", or contains "disciplinary", divided by total registered attorneys with a recorded office in that state. We use the NY OCA's own status values verbatim, no normalization, no interpretation. An attorney listed in California with a "Suspended" status from a NY proceeding counts toward the California rate because her registered office is in CA.

This is a NY-bar dataset: every attorney here is admitted to NY. Disciplinary actions captured are NY OCA actions. The rate says nothing about discipline imposed by California, Texas, or any other state bar, those datasets are not yet in our coverage.

Why state-to-state comparisons are tricky

A higher discipline rate does not mean higher attorney misconduct. It usually means the OCA's reporting for attorneys at that location is more complete, typically because attorneys at NY-headquartered offices are easier to track than NY-admitted attorneys who relocated decades ago. Out-of-state offices accumulate "stale" registrations: attorneys who moved, retired, or stopped practicing without formally resigning their NY admission. The OCA flags these eventually, often as "Suspended, delinquent" - which counts toward the discipline rate but reflects administrative status, not misconduct.

For the NY in-state population specifically, the discipline rate is more meaningful. Most disciplinary status changes (disbarment, suspension after grievance, resignation under investigation) are recorded promptly. The four NY judicial departments, First (Manhattan/Bronx), Second (Brooklyn/Queens/Staten Island/Long Island), Third (upstate east), Fourth (upstate west) - each maintain grievance committees that file status updates with the OCA after appellate division rulings.

Categories of discipline status

The NY OCA tracks several distinct statuses that fold into our "disciplined" total:

• Disbarred - license to practice removed. Reinstatement is rare and requires a separate application proceeding.
• Suspended, delinquent - administrative suspension for failure to register or complete CLE. Typically restored on payment + filing.
• Suspended, currently registered - disciplinary suspension during an active grievance; the attorney remains in the registry but cannot practice.
• Resigned from bar, disciplinary reason - attorney resigned admission rather than face a final grievance ruling.
• Suspended, due to reregister - administrative status during the biennial registration cycle.

We count all five in the discipline rate because each represents a non-active practice status with an underlying disciplinary or compliance issue. Click into the Discipline Records page to see the breakdown by status type and to filter records by category.

Verifying any individual case

For any specific attorney listed in this discipline ranking, the live status of record is the NY OCA Attorney Search tool - maintained by the state itself in real time. Click the attorney's name in our directory to reach the profile page, then use the "Verify with NY OCA" link to confirm the live record. Historical disciplinary opinions are published by the four NY Appellate Division departments and are searchable through the New York Reports.

Per-state discipline reporting variability

Different state bar associations report attorney discipline at different cadences and with different levels of granularity. Some states publish disciplinary actions monthly with full case opinions; others publish only quarterly summaries; a small number publish only annual aggregate statistics. The discipline counts we surface in this ranking reflect what the NY OCA records as of the most recent quarterly refresh, they cannot capture out-of-state disciplinary actions taken against a NY-admitted attorney unless those actions trigger reciprocal NY discipline (which they typically do, but with lag).

Reciprocal discipline under New York Judiciary Law Section 90(2) requires the state Appellate Division to impose substantially equivalent sanctions when a NY-admitted attorney is disciplined in another jurisdiction. The lag between the originating state's order and the NY reciprocal order is typically several months. During that window, the attorney's NY status may show "Currently registered" while their actual practice authority elsewhere is suspended or revoked. For consequential decisions, always check the registries of every state in which the attorney is admitted.

Why disbarment is rare in absolute numbers

Of the 429,620 NY-admitted attorneys in the registry, fewer than 2,200 are disbarred, roughly half a percent. Disbarment is the most severe sanction and requires a finding of serious misconduct (misappropriation of client funds, fraud, criminal conviction, repeated violations of rules of professional conduct). Most disciplinary outcomes fall into less severe categories: censure, suspension for a defined period, probation with monitoring, or required completion of additional CLE.

The majority of disciplinary cases never produce a published opinion. Many are resolved through admonitions (private warnings) that do not affect the attorney's registry status. Cases that result in formal discipline are reported in the New York Law Journal and the regional Appellate Division reporters; PlainAttorney's discipline aggregations capture only the status changes that the OCA records, not the underlying case content.