Verify a California Attorney license

liveCA State Bar / Supreme Court attorney roll · profession key attorney

Live. We query the board directly for every check and the nightly canary is passing.

How California Attorney license verification works

A Attorney in California is licensed by the CA State Bar / Supreme Court attorney roll. PrimaryCheck looks the license up live at the board's public verification system (board lookup) by license number, or by name when no number is supplied. The record the board publishes is captured as evidence, hashed, and rendered into a proof PDF.

Fields returned for this board: bar_number name status admitted address phone email website law_school cla_sections practice_areas languages history discipline.

Board note: ca_bar live 2026-11-04 (plain httpx, ASP.NET MVC). Number → GET /attorney/Licensee/Detail/<n> (QuickSearch?FreeText=<n> only 302s there); name → QuickSearch?FreeText='Last, First' table (500-row cap). Profile prints the status/discipline/administrative history table; unknown number answers the profile shell without a License Status. No DOB so name-only >1 row = ambiguous_match.

What a Attorney license check returns

Field check	Passes when
`license_number`	Equal to the board's number, ignoring prefix and leading zeros
`name`	Last name or declared alias matches; first name exact or nickname
`license_type`	The record is a Attorney license, strictly (no near-miss types)
`status`	The board shows an active status; probation is active with a flag
`expires`	Expiration is on or after today, where the board publishes it
`disciplinary_actions`	Recorded and flagged with any order documents; never silently dropped

Verdicts: verified, discrepancy, not_found, unable_to_verify (with a reason), pending. See how verdicts are decided.

Verify a California Attorney license by API

POST https://api.primarycheck.com/v1/verifications
{
  "person": { "firstName": "…", "lastName": "…" },
  "claims": [
    { "type": "license", "state": "CA", "profession": "attorney", "number": "…" }
  ],
  "purpose": "employment",
  "consent": { "consentId": "cons_…" }
}

Quickstart · License claim reference · Run one in the dashboard

More California license checks

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