Pro Hac Vice Sponsorships (Limited to Attorneys & Appellate Court Cases only)

Any attorney, barrister, or advocate who is qualified to practice in the courts of another state, or of a foreign jurisdiction, may be specially admitted to the Pennsylvania bar for purposes limited to a particular case. These individuals are assigned the title pro hac vice, which means “for this occasion only”.

Pro Hac Vice attorneys must be sponsored by a member of the Pennsylvania bar that is participating on the appellate court case in question. As a result, a unique set of steps are required in order to grant a pro hac vice attorney access to a case through PACFile:

 

Grant Case Access to a Pro Hac Vice Attorney

1. 

The pro hac vice attorney must create a UJS Web Portal account and their application to be admitted to the case must have been granted by the corresponding appellate court.

2. 

The sponsoring attorney must provide authorization for the pro hac vice attorney to access a case through the 'My Profile' option under the PACFile menu:

a. 

Click on the Add New Record icon Add New Record appearing above the Pro Hac Vice Sponsorships grid.

b. 

In the Pro Hac Vice - Add Sponsorship popup screen, click in the Docket Number field and enter the number for the appellate court case on which the pro hac vice attorney will be participating.

c. 

Click the SEARCH button.

d. 

In the Pro Hac Vice Attorney field, click on the dropdown and select the name of the out-of-state attorney.

e. 

Click the Search button.

f. 

Click the checkbox to the left of the pro hac vice attorney’s name.

g. 

Click the SUBMIT button. If a popup appears indicating that your changes have been saved, click the OK button.

Once PACFile access is granted, pro hac vice attorneys have the same rights and privileges as a proxy for the sponsoring attorney. The difference is that the access granted to the pro hac vice attorney is limited to the case in question and not to any of the other cases in which the sponsoring attorney may be participating.

When filing on the case to which they have been admitted, the pro hac vice attorney must select the name of the sponsoring attorney in the Proxy Selection screen at the start of the filing wizard.