Definition
To disbar an attorney is to permanently revoke their license to practice law, effectively ending their membership in the bar and their legal authority to represent clients, appear in court, or otherwise act as a lawyer. Disbarment is the most severe form of attorney discipline available, distinguished from lesser sanctions such as suspension, reprimand, or censure.
Disbarment is imposed by the court or state bar authority with jurisdiction over the attorney and typically results from serious professional misconduct — fraud, criminal conviction, misappropriation of client funds, or a pattern of egregious ethical violations. The disbarred attorney's name is removed from the rolls of licensed practitioners in the relevant jurisdiction.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "To expel from the bar, or the legal profession; to deprive an attorney, barrister, or counselor of his or her status and privileges as such." Also broadly: "To exclude a person from something."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "To expel from the bar, or the legal profession; to deprive an attorney, barrister, or counselor of his status and privileges as such."
Here, common and legal usage align closely. The one meaningful gap: ordinary usage sometimes treats disbarment loosely as any serious professional consequence for a lawyer (including suspension or criminal conviction), while the legal term is precise — it refers only to permanent license revocation, not temporary suspension or informal sanction.
Common Confusion
DISBAR vs. SUSPEND: Suspension removes an attorney's right to practice for a defined period; disbarment removes it permanently (or until reinstatement is formally granted, which is rare and requires a separate proceeding). Historical sources blur this distinction less than modern laypeople do — Bouvier's explicitly flags that suspension is the more frequent sanction precisely because disbarment is considered extreme.
DISBAR vs. STRUCK FROM THE ROLLS: In English practice, "struck from the rolls" describes the equivalent action against solicitors; disbarred (or "called from the bar") describes the action against barristers. American usage collapsed this distinction: "disbar" covers the single unified American attorney class regardless of the English barister/solicitor divide.
Why It Matters in Research
The English/American structural split is the first trap for corpus researchers. Historical sources — Burrill especially, and both Black's editions — describe disbarment as a power vested in the Inns of Court benchers (England) versus a power exercised by courts (America). When researching pre-20th century American cases, bear in mind that disbarment proceedings were court-driven, not administered by independent state bar authorities; organized state bar disciplinary systems did not emerge until the mid-20th century. An 1880s case discussing "the court's power to strike an attorney from its rolls" is addressing the same phenomenon as a modern disbarment proceeding, but the institutional machinery looks entirely different.
Second, reinstatement doctrine is largely invisible in the historical dictionaries. Bouvier notes disbarment as "a very extreme penalty" but does not address the possibility of reinstatement. Modern research must account for the reinstatement track — disbarment in most U.S. jurisdictions is not always truly permanent, and reinstatement proceedings generate their own body of case law and procedural rules.
Third, the grounds for disbarment evolved significantly. Bouvier's partial entry notes that disbarment applies only to "misconduct in his professional capacity or respecting his professional" duties — a narrower formulation than modern rules, which can reach serious criminal conduct entirely unrelated to law practice if it reflects on fitness to practice. Researchers reading 19th-century materials should not assume modern fitness-based grounds would have supported disbarment then.
Fourth, researchers working across jurisdictions should note that bar admission and discipline remain state-specific. Disbarment in one state does not automatically operate as disbarment in another, though most jurisdictions now have reciprocal discipline rules that treat another state's disbarment as presumptively grounds for equivalent local action.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries converge on the core definition but split along the English/American axis in revealing ways. Black's (both editions) and Black's 2nd offer nearly identical language, emphasizing the court's role in withdrawing practice rights — which accurately reflects the American procedural posture of the era. Burrill focuses exclusively on English practice, correctly noting the benchers' power and the right of appeal to the fifteen judges, a procedural detail absent from the American-oriented entries.
Bouvier's is the most substantively useful of the historical sources. Its observation that disbarment is "a very extreme penalty" and that "suspension is more frequent" reflects actual 19th-century practice and signals to researchers that disbarment was then, as now, reserved for serious cases. Bouvier's truncated entry on grounds — "only for misconduct in his professional capacity or respecting his professional" duties — hints at a narrower doctrinal perimeter than currently exists, though the entry ends abruptly before the full rule is stated.
Anderson's cross-reference to BAR offers no independent definition, typical of that dictionary's approach to terms it treats as derivative of foundational entries.
None of the historical dictionaries address reinstatement, reciprocal discipline between jurisdictions, or the shift from court-based to bar association-administered discipline systems. These are gaps the researcher must fill from other sources.
Jurisdictional Note
Disbarment in the United States is state-specific: each jurisdiction maintains its own bar rolls and disciplinary authority, typically through a state supreme court acting on recommendations from a bar disciplinary board. Federal court admission is separate; disbarment from a state bar may or may not automatically trigger disbarment from federal practice in that state's district courts, depending on local rules. Most jurisdictions now follow reciprocal discipline frameworks under which disbarment in one state triggers expedited proceedings in others.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Attorney Discipline; Bar Admission and Licensure; Professional Responsibility.