Definition
Latin: "for this turn" or "for this occasion." In modern legal practice, pro hac vice refers to the permission granted by a court allowing an attorney who is not licensed in that jurisdiction to appear and participate in a specific case. The attorney is admitted for that one matter only — not as a general member of the local bar.
The procedure typically requires a formal motion, sponsorship by locally licensed counsel (often called "local counsel"), payment of a fee, and sometimes a showing of good standing in the attorney's home jurisdiction. The court retains discretion to grant or deny the application, and admission can be revoked.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Permitted for a specific case or action.
Historical common usage: The phrase has no common English usage independent of its Latin origin; it appears in legal contexts only.
Editorial note: The Wiktionary definition is accurate but strips out the procedural reality. In practice, pro hac vice is not simply a status — it is the product of a court's discretionary grant following a formal application process. Researchers should not treat the phrase as a generic descriptor of any temporary permission; it has a specific procedural meaning tied to attorney admission.
Common Confusion
Pro hac vice is sometimes confused with general bar admission or reciprocal admission. The distinction matters: reciprocal admission (where one state automatically extends admission to attorneys from another state based on a bilateral agreement) is permanent. Pro hac vice admission is case-specific and expires when the matter concludes. Some jurisdictions also distinguish between pro hac vice and pro bono appearances, though the concepts are unrelated — pro hac vice governs who may appear; pro bono governs the fee arrangement.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encounter pro hac vice in several distinct contexts across the Law Mind corpus:
Procedural rules. Modern federal and state court rules govern pro hac vice admission explicitly — typically in local rules rather than the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure themselves. Historical sources predate the formalization of these rules and treat the phrase more loosely as a general Latin description of temporary or occasional authority.
Scope creep in historical sources. In older legal writing, pro hac vice was used broadly to describe any act done "for this occasion" — not exclusively attorney admission. Burrill's reference to Blackstone (3 Bl. Com. 243) situates the phrase in a property or procedural context unrelated to bar admission. Researchers mining historical dictionaries for the attorney-admission meaning will find it underrepresented; they should look instead to procedural treatises and bar association records from the late nineteenth century onward.
The Bouvier's entry in the source material for this term is a misattribution — the text clearly concerns prize-fighting and expert testimony, bearing no relationship to pro hac vice. This is a corpus error researchers should flag.
Jurisdictional sensitivity. Requirements for pro hac vice admission vary substantially across federal districts and state courts. The number of times an attorney may appear pro hac vice before being required to seek full admission is a live issue in some jurisdictions, affecting research into frequency of out-of-state counsel in particular courts.
Ethics overlay. Disciplinary authority over pro hac vice counsel is an active area. Attorneys admitted pro hac vice are generally subject to the disciplinary rules of the admitting jurisdiction, not merely their home state — a point not addressed in any of the historical dictionary sources.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are in agreement on the core translation: "for this turn" or "for this one particular occasion." Black's (both editions), Rapalje & Lawrence, and Burrill all offer this minimal definition without elaboration. None of the historical sources develops the attorney-admission meaning that dominates modern usage.
Burrill's citation to Blackstone's Commentaries (3 Bl. Com. 243) is the most substantively anchored historical reference, but the Blackstone context concerns procedural or property matters, not attorney licensure. This confirms that the attorney-admission application of the phrase is a later development, solidifying in American practice through the twentieth century as bar admission requirements became more formally regulated.
Researchers should treat the historical dictionary entries as linguistic glosses only. They establish Latin meaning but provide no guidance on modern procedural requirements, motion practice, or the ethics rules that now attach to pro hac vice status.
Jurisdictional Note
Federal district courts each maintain their own local rules governing pro hac vice applications, and requirements differ on sponsorship, fee, and frequency of appearance. State court requirements vary even more widely — some states cap the number of pro hac vice appearances an out-of-state attorney may make annually; others impose no such limit. Researchers comparing historical and modern practice should not assume consistency across jurisdictions or time periods.