Your Case Was Removed to SDNY and You Are Not Admitted There.

Removal Does Not Carry Your Admission.

A defendant filed a notice of removal and your case left New York Supreme Court for the Southern District. Nothing about your right to appear moved with it. Admission to the New York State courts is not admission to the Southern District, and admission to your home state is not either. The two federal districts in New York City admit attorneys on their own terms.

The result catches experienced litigators. A lawyer who has been appearing in the case for months is suddenly not counsel of record in the court where the case now sits, and the federal calendar starts running immediately.

The Rule That Governs.

The Southern and Eastern Districts have operated under joint local rules since January 2, 2026. Attorney admission sits at Local Civil Rule 1.3, and the pro hac vice provisions are subsections (i) through (k). Subsection (j) addresses PACER privileges. Subsection (k) sets out what the applicant has to show.

Two categories of attorney get different treatment. Department of Justice attorneys need not move for admission at all. Attorneys for other federal agencies are fee-waived and can proceed on a one-year certificate. If you are neither, you are on the ordinary path.

Step One Is PACER, Not the Motion.

The Southern District requires that you submit a pro hac vice access request through PACER before the motion is filed. If the case has not been opened in the district yet, the request uses a placeholder case number, and the district publishes 70cv1234 for that purpose.

Reversing the order is the most common self-inflicted delay in the whole sequence. The motion goes in, the order is signed, and then the attorney discovers that filing rights in CM/ECF are a separate request with its own processing time. Submit the access request the day you learn of the removal.

The Certificate Step That Bites.

The Southern District wants a certificate of good standing signed by the clerk of the court, issued within 30 days of the filing date, from the highest court of the state where you are admitted. A certificate issued by a state bar association is accepted from nine states only: Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky, Nevada, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Vermont. From anywhere else, a bar certificate is the wrong document.

Michigan shows how much lead time this actually takes. The certificate comes from the Clerk's Office of the Michigan Supreme Court, at P.O. Box 30052, Lansing, Michigan 48909 by mail or 925 West Ottawa Street, Lansing, Michigan 48915 by courier. The fee is $10.00, payable by check or money order to the State of Michigan rather than to the court, and the office will not return the certificate without a self-addressed stamped envelope. A walk-in request on the fourth floor of the Hall of Justice is prepared while you wait if the attorney has no prior disciplinary orders.

Every state has its own version of that errand. The 30-day currency requirement means you order the certificate close to the filing date rather than at the start of the engagement, so check the issuer on the certificate before it goes into the exhibit.

Filing Mechanics That Bounce Motions.

The Southern District has filed pro hac vice motions through CM/ECF since September 1, 2012, and the specifications are enforced.

After the Order Is Signed.

Admission is not the last step. Once the order is entered, your CM/ECF filing access has to be activated in the case, and a notice of appearance goes on the docket. Until both are done you are admitted but you cannot file, which is a confusing place to be on the day a response is due.

What Runs While You Do This.

Removal starts a federal schedule immediately. A responsive pleading may already be due. An initial pretrial conference under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16 gets scheduled early in this district, and the Rule 26(f) conference has to happen before it. If a motion to remand is coming, it has its own deadline measured from the notice of removal, and that deadline does not wait for your admission.

This office is admitted in both the Southern and Eastern Districts under bar number FA3918 and can appear immediately while your admission is processed. We prepare and file the motion, sponsor the application, cover the conferences, and hand the case back to you the moment the order is entered.

Email the notice of removal, the state court caption and index number, your bar admissions, and the status of your certificate of good standing. You will get an assessment the same day of what is due, in what order, and how long the certificate will take from your state.

Frequently Asked Questions.

Does my New York state admission cover me in SDNY?

No, and neither does your home state admission. The Southern and Eastern Districts admit attorneys separately from the New York State courts. If you are not a member of the bar of the district, you need admission or a pro hac vice order in that district, and removal does not create either one.

What is the first step after removal?

Request pro hac vice access in PACER before you file anything. The Southern District requires the PACER access request to be submitted first, and if the case has not yet been opened you use a placeholder case number in the request. Attorneys routinely reverse these two steps, file the motion, and then wait on access they could have requested days earlier.

Which certificate of good standing does SDNY accept?

One issued by the clerk of the highest court of the state where you are admitted, dated within 30 days of filing. A certificate from your state bar association is accepted only if you are admitted in Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky, Nevada, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, or Vermont. For every other state the bar certificate is the wrong document and the motion gets bounced back.

Can two attorneys from my firm be admitted on one motion?

No. The Southern District requires a separate motion for each applicant. The motion is filed as a single PDF no larger than 10.0 MB in PDF-A format, without a return date, and it must include a proposed order for the judge to sign.