What Makes an Attorney Board Certified: Exams, Peer Review, and Recertification

An attorney is board certified when they have met the formal requirements of a specialty certification program run by either their state bar or one of the eight private organizations accredited by the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Specialization.¹ Every licensed lawyer passed a bar exam. A board-certified lawyer has gone further in a single practice area: years of concentrated work in that field, a specialty examination, peer review by judges and other attorneys, additional continuing legal education, and a recertification cycle that repeats every five years.

The ABA sets a floor that its accredited programs must meet. A certified lawyer has to show substantial involvement in the specialty, pass a written exam in it, complete peer review, log extra CLE hours in the field, and remain in good standing with the state bar.² Individual organizations are free to go beyond those minimums, and most do.

Years of Concentrated Practice in One Area

The experience requirement is the gatekeeper. Most programs require at least five years of active practice before an attorney can even apply, and the ABA’s guidance indicates certified lawyers likely devote at least 25 percent of their practice to the specialty.²

Programs can and do set higher thresholds. The National Board of Trial Advocacy requires family trial law applicants to show that 30 percent of their time went to the specialty over the three years before applying, and to have served as lead counsel in at least 15 trials personally.³ The point of the requirement is that the credential cannot be earned on paper. The applicant has to have been in the room, repeatedly, doing the work.

A Specialty Written Exam

Every ABA-accredited program requires applicants to pass a written exam covering substantive and procedural law in the specialty.² This exam is not the bar exam over again. It assumes the applicant already knows the basics of practicing law and tests depth in one field.

The NBTA’s exam runs six hours, with a multiple-choice morning session and an essay session in the afternoon, and candidates must clear a combined 75 percent to pass. The test also contains an ethics component embedded in the multiple-choice section; failing the ethics portion fails the entire exam no matter how well the applicant did elsewhere.⁴

Peer Review by Judges and Other Attorneys

Every accredited program requires peer review in which attorneys and judges who have worked with the applicant evaluate competence, ethics, and professionalism.² This is the part of the process an applicant cannot cram for.

The references are not chosen for friendliness. In NBTA’s family trial law program, applicants must submit 10 to 12 references, and current partners, associates, and family members are excluded. At least three must be judges before whom the applicant tried a case within the past three years, and at least three must be opposing or co-counsel from recent matters.³ The reviewers are people who watched the applicant work and had reason to form a candid opinion.

Extra Continuing Legal Education

Applicants must complete at least 36 hours of continuing legal education in the specialty area during the three years before applying.² This requirement sits on top of whatever general CLE the attorney’s state already demands. It is additional, and it has to be in the specialty.

Recertification Every Five Years

Board certification is not permanent. Certification runs on a five-year cycle, and an attorney who wants to keep using the credential must apply for recertification, which typically requires continued substantial involvement in the specialty, further CLE in the area, and good standing. An attorney who does not recertify has to stop using the designation.⁵

Which Specialties Can Be Certified

The ABA currently accredits 19 specialty programs through eight private organizations.¹ Recognized areas include civil trial law, criminal trial advocacy, family law trial advocacy, complex litigation, patent litigation, and truck accident law (all through NBTA); business bankruptcy, consumer bankruptcy, and creditors’ rights (through the American Board of Certification); legal and medical professional liability (through the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys); and standalone areas including immigration law, Social Security disability law, estate planning, elder law, juvenile law (child welfare), DUI defense, and privacy law.

Some state bars run their own certification programs for lawyers licensed in that state, and those may cover fields the national organizations do not, such as tax law or workers’ compensation.⁶ The specialty list has grown over time. Privacy law became the 15th ABA-accredited specialty when the International Association of Privacy Professionals received accreditation; its Privacy Law Specialist designation requires that at least 25 percent of an applicant’s practice over the prior three years involved privacy work, including cybersecurity counseling, breach response, data protection litigation, and regulatory investigations.⁷

What a Legitimate Claim of Board Certification Looks Like

The title is regulated. ABA Model Rule 7.4 prohibits lawyers from stating or implying they are certified specialists unless the certification comes from an organization approved by the state or accredited by the ABA, and the certifying organization’s name is clearly identified in the communication.⁸

Several states layer their own disclaimers on top. Colorado requires certified attorneys to include a statement that “Colorado does not certify lawyers as specialists in any field.” Illinois requires a similar disclaimer noting that the state Supreme Court does not recognize specialty certifications. Mississippi and Missouri have their own versions. States with their own certification programs may exempt lawyers certified through those programs, but a national certification alone may still trigger the disclaimer requirement.

Two practical signals follow from these rules. A lawyer saying “I specialize in criminal law” is making a general practice description, not a certification claim. A lawyer saying “board certified in criminal trial advocacy by the National Board of Trial Advocacy” is making a specific, verifiable claim. If an attorney advertises as board certified without naming the certifying organization, the claim does not meet the rule.

How to Verify a Lawyer’s Certification

Confirming the credential takes a few minutes.

Check the state bar directory. Many state bars maintain searchable databases of certified specialists, including the State Bar of California’s Find a Certified Specialist tool and the North Carolina State Bar’s Directory of Legal Specialists.⁹¹⁰
Check the certifying organization’s own directory. If the attorney names the organization, go to its site; NBTA, for example, has a searchable directory filtered by specialty and location.¹¹
Ask the attorney for the certifying organization and the year the certification was granted or last renewed. Vague answers to those questions are themselves information.

1
American Bar Association. Private Organizations with ABA Accredited Lawyer Certification Programs
2
American Bar Association. Resources for the Public
3
National Board of Trial Advocacy. NBTA Family Trial Law Certification Standards
4
National Board of Trial Advocacy. NBTA Online Examination FAQs
5
NALS. Maintain Your Certification Through Recertification
6
American Bar Association. About the Standing Committee on Specialization
7
IAPP. Privacy Law Specialist
8
American Bar Association. Ethics 2000 Commission Report – Rule 7.4 Communication of Fields of Practice and Specialization
9
The State Bar of California. Find a Certified Specialist
10
North Carolina State Bar. Directory of Legal Specialists
11
National Board of Trial Advocacy. Find a Board-Certified Attorney