Pro hac vice is the permission a court gives a lawyer who is not licensed in its jurisdiction to appear in one specific case. The Latin phrase means "for this occasion", or more literally "for this turn". Lawyers are licensed state by state in the United States, and each federal district court keeps its own bar, so a New York litigator has no automatic right to stand up in a courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia, or San Francisco. Pro hac vice admission exists so that clients can keep the lawyers they chose when a dispute lands somewhere those lawyers are not admitted, while the court keeps control over who practises before it.

In advertising technology litigation, motions to appear pro hac vice are often the first entries after a complaint and keep arriving until the final judgment.

How admission works

The mechanics differ by court, but the pattern is consistent. A member of the local bar files a motion asking the court to admit the visiting lawyer for that case only. The applicant supplies a sworn statement listing the bars to which they belong, confirms that they are in good standing and discloses any discipline. A certificate of good standing from a home court or state bar is usually attached. A fee is paid, and a judge or the clerk approves or refuses the application.

The Eastern District of Virginia, which tried the Department of Justice (DOJ) case against Google's advertising technology business, sets its terms in Local Civil Rule 83.1. Admission requires a written motion by a member of that court's bar, and the applicant's home district must "extend a similar privilege to members of the bar of this Court". The visiting lawyer must be accompanied by local counsel "at all hearings, pretrial matters, or trials", an obligation that "may not be avoided or delegated without leave of Court", and no filing can be lodged unless a locally admitted lawyer also signs it. On the court's application form, the sponsoring lawyer must certify that they know the applicant personally, are not related to them and believe their character and standing are good. The fee charged in the Google case was $75 per lawyer, according to docket entries from January 2023 to June 2026.

The Northern District of California, where many privacy class actions are filed, works under Civil Local Rule 11-3. The certificate of good standing must be no more than one year old, and the applicant must name a co-counsel who is a member of the court's bar and keeps an office in California. Applicants must also state how many times the court has admitted them pro hac vice in the previous 12 months. Lawyers who live in California or regularly practise there are disqualified. Meta paid a $328 filing fee on each of two motions granted by Judge Vince Chhabria on April 27, 2026.

Not every court insists on a local chaperone. The Eastern District of Texas, where Texas and other states sued Google, processes a written application through the clerk for a $100 fee under Local Rule AT-1, and the approved lawyer then dockets a "Notice of Attorney Appearance - Pro Hac Vice".

Admission is narrow in three ways. It covers one case, not the court generally. It is discretionary: in Leis v. Flynt, decided on January 15, 1979, the Supreme Court held in a per curiam opinion that appearing pro hac vice is "not a right granted either by statute or the Constitution". And it can be withdrawn. Visiting lawyers submit to the court's disciplinary rules, and a judge who revokes the privilege removes them from the case.

From the Court of Common Pleas to the federal rules

Legal historians trace the practice to the English Court of Common Pleas in 1629. Its best-known colonial use came in 1735, when the Philadelphia lawyer Andrew Hamilton defended the printer John Peter Zenger against a seditious libel charge in New York.

The 1979 Leis v. Flynt case arose when two New York lawyers sought to represent Larry Flynt and Hustler magazine in an Ohio criminal case. The Court's holding that Ohio owed them no hearing left admission to each court's discretion, which is why requirements still vary so widely.

The American Bar Association (ABA) tried to bring order on August 12, 2002, when its House of Delegates adopted the recommendations of its Commission on Multijurisdictional Practice, including a Model Rule on Pro Hac Vice Admission and a rewritten Model Rule 5.5 on unauthorised practice. In February 2013, the House of Delegates amended the model rules so that foreign lawyers could appear pro hac vice in limited circumstances, according to the Daily Journal. Federal practice already allowed a narrow version of this at the top: Rule 6.2 of the Supreme Court's rules provides that "an attorney qualified to practice in the courts of a foreign state may be permitted to argue pro hac vice."

Multidistrict litigation (MDL) produced a further exception. Under Rule 2.1(c) of the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, a lawyer of record in a case transferred under 28 U.S.C. Section 1407 may keep representing the client in the transferee court, subject to its requirements, and "parties are not required to obtain local counsel".

Why the term matters in advertising cases

The volume is the first reason. The United States filed its case against Google in the Eastern District of Virginia on January 24, 2023. The next day, local counsel for the plaintiff states filed motions for lawyers from California, Colorado, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Tennessee. Judge Leonie Brinkema granted most of them on January 25, 2023, and denied two the same day. Google's first visiting lawyer, Eric Mahr, was admitted on February 15, 2023. As of October 2026, a CourtListener search of that docket returns 765 documents mentioning pro hac vice, a count that includes both motions and orders.

The case produced a liability ruling on April 17, 2025 and a remedies decision on September 2, 2026 that left Google with AdX under six years of conduct rules. Pro hac vice filings track who joined the fight along the way. In September 2025, ahead of the remedies trial, non-parties including Amazon, Index Exchange, OpenX and the French exchange Equativ moved to admit outside lawyers while asking the court to seal confidential data due to be used at trial. Equativ's motion attached a certificate of good standing. Two of them also sued Google in that district, OpenX on August 4, 2025 and Index Exchange on November 10, 2025, as did Magnite on September 16, 2025.

The Texas-led case shows the same pattern. Filed on December 16, 2020, it returned to the Eastern District of Texas after a period in the MDL in New York, and the trial was postponed in July 2025 pending the Virginia case, according to Bloomberg. In July and October 2025, lawyers for Louisiana, South Dakota and Google were admitted there pro hac vice. Similar entries appear in privacy suits under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA): in a tracking claim against Ace Hardware filed in San Jose on March 12, 2026, a Levi & Korsinsky lawyer appears pro hac vice.

Limits, criticism and revocation

Revocation is the sharpest tool. On August 14, 2025, Judge Alison Bachus of the District of Arizona revoked a lawyer's pro hac vice status after finding that a brief in a Social Security appeal contained citations fabricated by generative artificial intelligence (AI). The order also struck the brief and required notice to state bar authorities. PPC Land compared that sanction with a Florida court's order of community service.

Critics raise three further issues. The first is cost: local counsel requirements add fees, and a sponsoring lawyer who signs every filing carries professional risk for work they may not control. The second is frequency. Most jurisdictions intend the privilege to be occasional, and some cap the number of admissions over a period; Cornell's Legal Information Institute cites estimates that about 15% of United States lawsuits involve a pro hac vice lawyer each year. The third is that rules diverge. A lawyer can be admitted without local counsel in Plano, Texas, but not in Alexandria.

Not the same as

Admission to the bar is general and permanent, covering every case in that court or state. Pro hac vice covers one case and lapses when it ends.

Local counsel is the locally admitted lawyer who sponsors and accompanies the visitor. In Virginia and California, local counsel is a condition of pro hac vice status, not a substitute for it.

Amicus curiae, or "friend of the court", describes a non-party who files a brief with permission. It concerns who may be heard, not which lawyer may sign.

Multijurisdictional practice is the wider policy debate, framed by ABA Model Rule 5.5, about when lawyers may work across state lines. Pro hac vice is one mechanism within it.

Recent developments

Pro hac vice motions keep appearing in the cases PPC Land covers. In a dispute between two search data companies in Austin, Texas, the court granted a pro hac vice application on February 19, 2026, a day after it was filed. The Consumer Federation of America's April 2026 class action against Meta over scam advertising in the District of Columbia Superior Court was filed with pro hac vice status pending for its Tech Justice Law co-counsel. In the Virginia case, a lawyer for Nebraska was moved for admission on June 11, 2026. Yesterday, PPC Land reported a menu pricing suit against McDonald's in Chicago in which a second plaintiffs' lawyer has yet to submit a pro hac vice application.

Timeline

  • 1629 - Practice of admitting lawyers for a single case traced to the English Court of Common Pleas.
  • 1735 - Andrew Hamilton of Philadelphia defends John Peter Zenger in New York.
  • January 15, 1979 - Leis v. Flynt holds there is no constitutional right to pro hac vice admission.
  • August 12, 2002 - ABA adopts the Model Rule on Pro Hac Vice Admission and a revised Model Rule 5.5.
  • February 2013 - ABA amends its model rules to allow limited pro hac vice appearances by foreign lawyers.
  • December 16, 2020 - Texas-led states sue Google over advertising technology.
  • January 24-25, 2023 - United States sues Google in Virginia; state lawyers move for pro hac vice admission the next day.
  • April 17, 2025 - Virginia court finds Google liable on ad tech monopolisation.
  • August 14, 2025 - Arizona federal court revokes a lawyer's pro hac vice status over AI-fabricated citations.
  • September 2025 - Amazon, Index Exchange, OpenX and Equativ counsel admitted in Virginia ahead of the remedies trial.
  • April 27, 2026 - Northern District of California admits two Meta lawyers in a Perplexity privacy case.
  • September 2, 2026 - Virginia remedies decision leaves AdX with Google.

Summary

Who. Lawyers licensed in one state or country who need to appear in a court where they are not admitted, the local counsel who sponsor them, and the judges and clerks who grant, refuse or revoke admission. In advertising cases they include government lawyers, Google's defence teams, rival ad tech companies and class action firms.

What. A case-specific, discretionary admission that lets an outside lawyer appear and sign filings, usually after a motion, a certificate of good standing, a fee and, in many courts, the involvement of local counsel.

When. The practice dates to 1629 in England and 1735 in America. Leis v. Flynt confirmed in 1979 that it is a privilege, the ABA issued a model rule in 2002 and widened it to foreign lawyers in 2013, and pro hac vice motions have run through the Google ad tech dockets from January 2023 to 2026.

Where. Every United States federal and state court, each under its own rules, such as Local Civil Rule 83.1 in the Eastern District of Virginia, Civil Local Rule 11-3 in the Northern District of California and Local Rule AT-1 in the Eastern District of Texas.

Why. It reconciles state-by-state licensing with litigation that crosses borders. For the advertising industry, the motions show which lawyers, states and companies are involved in a case, and revocation shows how courts police those who abuse the privilege.