• The State Bar plans to make applications available in the Applicant Portal beginning January 4, 2023.
• Attorney applicants need to provide an original Certificate of Good Standing from each jurisdiction in which they are licensed.
• Law school graduates (JD or LLM) need to provide official, sealed transcripts.
• The application will be considered complete when, in addition to the CGS and transcript referenced above, the following are received:
  • Applicant declaration;
  • Supervising Attorney Declaration: The declaration must be submitted within the Applicant Portal; declarations sent via email and USPS are not automatically associated with the online application and may delay processing. Please ensure that you are submitting as instructed in the Applicant Portal; and
  • Payment.

You can look up IOLTA-funded organizations here.

A PLL must:

• Expressly refer to themselves orally and in writing as a Provisionally Licensed Lawyer and/or participant in the State Bar’s Provisional Licensure Program and not describe themselves as a fully licensed lawyer or imply in any way orally or in writing that they are a fully licensed lawyer.
• Follow the same professional conduct rules as all fully licensed lawyers.
• Agree to be subject to the disciplinary authority of the Supreme Court of California and the State Bar with respect to the law governing the conduct of lawyers.
• Attest that they will not practice California law other than under the supervision of an approved supervising lawyer during the time they are provisionally licensed.
• Be employed by or volunteering at the firm (as defined) where the supervising lawyer works and that firm must have an office located in California.

Maybe. Please carefully review the instructions and questions to determine the disclosure requirements.

The guidelines contain a non-exhaustive list of examples of issues that may be relevant to a moral character determination. Applications are considered individually, and the guidelines neither bind nor limit the discretion of the decision-makers, but rather provide a framework to assist the decision-makers and provide applicants with information about the process. The severity of an act of misconduct, length of time since the act, and the frequency with which the act occurred are among the factors that will be taken into consideration in making a moral character determination.

Yes. You are required to disclose all administrative matters in which you were a party.

Please submit documentation of your unsuccessful attempts to obtain law enforcement or court records, such as a letter from the relevant entity explaining why the record is unavailable.

Maybe. 

For the Determination Application, you must report all driver’s licenses issued to you within the last 10 years. For each jurisdiction, other than California, in which you have held a driver’s license within the last 5 years, you must provide a copy of your driving record that meets the following requirements: an original, certified copy; issued within 6 months of the date on which the current application is submitted; containing at least 5 years of your driving history, unless the jurisdiction is only able to provide a shorter history.

For the Extension Application, you must report all driver’s licenses held since your prior application. For each jurisdiction, other than California, in which you have held a driver’s license since your prior application, you must provide a copy of your driving record that meets the following requirements: an original, certified copy; issued within 6 months of the date on which the current application is submitted; and contains at least 3 years of your driving history, unless the jurisdiction is only able to provide a shorter history.

If a driving record is in a language other than English, you must provide a certified English translation with the driving record. You may not translate your own documents.

If the jurisdiction that issued the driver’s license will not provide a copy of a driving record, a letter from the agency stating that no record will be provided should be submitted in lieu of the driving record.

Provide the name of your direct supervisor. If you had more than one supervisor, provide the name of the individual most familiar with your conduct. If your supervisor is no longer at the company and you do not have their contact information, please list “Human Resources.”

If your supervisor is related to you by blood; is your spouse, partner, or significant other; or related to you through your spouse, partner, or significant other, please list a non-related colleague who is familiar with your work. If no such person is available, you may list your relative as your supervisor. Please note how the supervisor is related to you on your application.

Some applicants have traveled extensively in the past three years and have numerous addresses to report on the moral character application. You are encouraged to provide as much information pertaining to each residence as can be reasonably recalled. You are responsible for the complete and accurate reporting of information on the application to the best of your ability, and the failure to provide complete responses could result in a delay in the processing of the application.

No. However, you can view the documents you have successfully uploaded to your case in the Applicant Portal. You will receive confirmation once staff reviews the information.

The State Bar takes reasonable precautions and has security measures in place to protect the personal information we collect and maintain against loss, unauthorized access, use, modification, or disclosure. We take the following measures to secure the information that is stored within our applications: 

• Protecting the security of individuals’ personal information during transmission by using encryption protocols and software.
• Storing personal information in secure locations in an encrypted format.
• Ensuring staff is trained on procedures for the management and release of personal information. This information can only be accessed by staff whose work requires it.
• Conducting periodic audits to ensure that proper information management policies and procedures are being followed.

If you do not maintain a trust account, a trust account is not maintained on your behalf, and you do not need a trust account because you are not responsible for complying with any of the requirements or prohibitions in rule 1.15—other than the disclosure and agreement requirements in rule 1.15(b) pertaining to depositing a flat fee paid in advance into a lawyer’s or law firm’s operating account—you can answer “no” to the Screening Question: “At any point during the reporting period of January 1, 2025–December 31, 2025, or, if you are a new licensee who must pay your initial license fees pursuant to rule 2.12 of the Rules of the State Bar, from your date of admission through the following December 31, 2025, or the due date for payment of fees, whichever is earlier, were you responsible for complying with any of the requirements or prohibitions governing the safekeeping of funds of clients and other persons under rule 1.15 of the California Rules of Professional Conduct?” After submitting that response and declaring the information is true, your compliance with CTAPP will be deemed complete.

If your practice does not require a client trust account, you do not need to open one to report it to the State Bar as part of the CTAPP requirements. If you have questions about using trust accounts, including whether you are responsible for complying with any of the requirements or prohibitions in rule 1.15 or whether you need a trust account, please contact the State Bar’s Ethics Hotline research service at 800-238-4427 (toll-free in California). The Ethics Hotline might be able to provide helpful citations and resource references. The Ethics Hotline cannot provide legal advice, nor tell you how to comply with any of the CTAPP requirements, including the self-assessment.

A lawyer who has no responsibility to comply with any of the requirements or prohibitions in rule 1.15 and a lawyer who is responsible for complying only with the disclosure and agreement requirements in rule 1.15(b) pertaining to depositing a flat fee paid in advance into a lawyer’s or law firm’s operating account, can comply with their reporting requirements by answering “no” to the screening question as to whether they were responsible for complying with any of the requirements or prohibitions governing the safekeeping of funds of clients and other persons under rule 1.15 of the California Rules of Professional Conduct and thereafter submitting their declaration. Lawyers who have no such responsibilities include:

• A government lawyer-employee who is not responsible for the safe keeping of entrusted funds;
• An in-house counsel who is employed by their client and does not receive or hold client funds or funds entrusted by others;
• Law professors who do not represent clients that involve any entrusted funds and do not otherwise receive or hold entrusted funds;
• A lawyer in a large firm who only performs document review, has no interaction with any clients, and has no responsibilities to carry out any of the duties under rule 1.15;
• A lawyer who bills for fees and costs after completion of the work and therefore does not take advance fees and their practice does not involve the receipt of any other funds in which a client or third party has an interest (e.g., client settlement funds, etc.); and
• A lawyer who does not receive or hold any entrusted funds except for flat fees paid in advance and properly deposited into a lawyer’s or law firm’s operating account in accordance with the disclosure and agreement requirements in rule 1.15(b) of the Rules of Professional Conduct.

Please check column 2 (Application Type) of the Step 2 account grid. If the account was registered through Agency Billing you can only update the Account Connection to “Disassociated/Added in Error.” To do so, please see FAQ 3.3.4. For all other changes, including adding a balance, firm name changes, etc., please contact your firm administrator. 

If your account was previously registered as a “Ind. CTA or Non-CA IOLTA” account type, you will be required to update your account type to “IOLTA,” “non-CA IOLTA,” or “non-IOLTA.” 

If you were not previously required to provide an open date, you will be required to provide the open date for each of your registered accounts. 

If the account was registered through My State Bar Profile, you can edit some details of an existing account. To do so, you should:

1. Locate the account you wish to disassociate in your list of accounts.
2. Click on the plus sign (+) on the right-hand side of the screen to expand options.
3. Select the “Edit Balance,” “Update Connection,” “Update Account Type,” “Edit Close Date,” “Edit Open Date,” or “Edit Firm Name” tab depending on what information you want to update.
4. Update the information.
5. Click the “Save” button.

Under Business and Professions Code section 6212, attorneys that established an IOLTA account pursuant to subdivision (a) of Business and Professions Code section 6211, may hold IOLTA accounts only at eligible financial institutions. Rule 1.15(a) of the California Rules of Professional Conduct generally requires that trust accounts for California clients be maintained in California. You are permitted to hold client funds in an IOLTA account outside California if your client is from somewhere other than California or if your California client has a substantial relationship with the other jurisdiction and has provided written consent. If your practice meets those criteria and you do not have a California IOLTA, you may select “I do not have a California IOLTA” as your response.

For purposes of this reporting requirement, board service for a legal aid nonprofit would qualify because all board work with such an organization is enabling the delivery of legal services to the indigent (since these organizations primarily serve indigent California residents). Please note that some legal aid providers and other nonprofits for which attorneys provide pro bono legal services may also ask attorneys to report pro bono hours, but the definition for pro bono legal services may vary for their purposes. Attorneys should confirm definitions with the entity before reporting pro bono hours to the entity.  

No. Working in a law office or judge’s chambers is insufficient to get credit for legal study under the LOS Program.

An applicant becomes eligible to take the FYLSX after completion of their first year of law study. If your second session, which completes the first year, ends prior to the final eligibility deadline for the current FYLSX, you are strongly encouraged to apply for the FYLSX, as it will be considered your first eligible administration in the calculation of your legal study credit.

The final eligibility deadline is two weeks prior to the exam. All deadlines for the FYLSX can be found on our First-Year Law Students’ Examination webpage.

No. All persons newly admitted to the State Bar of California must take the New Attorney Training Program courses produced by the State Bar and offered through this e-learning portal. 

No other courses will satisfy completion of the New Attorney Training requirement for new admittees.

Payments will be made through a third-party vendor, Wells Fargo, using their E-Bill Express platform.