Lawyers moving to Arizona can’t practice their profession without having to jump through onerous government-imposed hoops that restrict their right to earn a living. Now, the Goldwater Institute is asking the Arizona Supreme Court to amend its licensing rules for lawyers and to remove unfair obstacles that stand in their way.
Government red tape makes it difficult—if not impossible—for some Americans to get to work by requiring them to obtain costly occupational licenses when they move to a new state, even if they’ve already been licensed elsewhere. But in 2019, Arizona broke down those barriers to work by adopting Goldwater’s universal occupational licensing law. Now, more than 10,000 people can practice their professions thanks to that reform. However, the law does not apply to lawyers who have already been licensed in other states. So, if a lawyer moves to Arizona, she has to expend significant time and money to practice law in the state.
Goldwater’s petition suggests four changes to the system for lawyers in “good standing” who are licensed to practice in other states to become licensed in Arizona.
- It eliminates the requirement that an attorney seeking admission in Arizona must be admitted in a state that also offers Arizona attorneys a path for admission without examination. It makes no sense to punish an individual attorney and Arizonans that need better access to legal representation for the policy decisions of another state.
- It eliminates the requirement that an attorney must have been engaged in the “active practice of law” for three of the past five years. Among other things, this requirement excludes new attorneys, part-time practitioners, recent retirees, and attorneys who stepped away from practice for family or caregiving reasons. Indeed, the existing Rules disproportionately punish parents who may have prioritized raising a young family before returning to the practice of law.
- It eliminates the requirement that attorneys have graduated from an ABA-approved law school if the attorney has graduated from a foreign law school whose education has been determined to be “substantially equivalent” to that of an ABA-approved law school.
- It proposes that certain attorneys be “conditionally” approved to provide services in Arizona while their “character and fitness” investigation is pending. All lawyers go through an investigation to ensure they are of good and sound character, and those applying under this rule have already gone through at least one character and fitness investigation.
The change is needed, in part, because Arizona has a shortage of lawyers, which strains the state’s ability to grow economically and ensure that individual rights are defended. A recent American Bar Association study highlighted the problem: Arizona was one of three states with the lowest number of attorneys per capita, with only 2.1 lawyers per 1,000 residents. Two-thirds of Arizona counties have fewer than one lawyer per 1,000 residents.
Arizona’s costly and time-consuming re-licensing process only creates unnecessary barriers that ultimately drive up costs for legal services. A larger supply of such services will reduce prices, bringing legal assistance within the reach of more Arizonans.
Simply put, lawyers don’t forget how to practice law when they move to a new state. And as the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated, lawyers can work from anywhere as many laws and legal requirements are the same from state to state.
Under the U.S. Constitution, Americans have the right to earn a living in the profession of their choice—free from burdensome government regulations. More than half the states followed Arizona’s example and enacted Goldwater’s universal licensing reform. It’s time for Arizona to once again lead the way and extend the nationwide movement to universal licensing to lawyers, too.
Adam Shelton is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation.
