The .lawyer Domain: A Profession Name Kept Open by Contract
.lawyer entered the root zone on 22 May 2014 under an ICANN registry agreement dated 20 March 2014, and the contracting party today is Dog Beach, LLC. The word names a profession, yet unlike the other ending built on that profession this zone is closed to nobody. The nTLDstats page accessed on 12 August 2026 shows 9,704 registrations, of which 8,198 sit in the zone file.
Law firms, independent advocates, legal technology ventures, publishers and directory sites share the zone. The operator verifies no licence and no bar registration. Try candidates through a .lawyer domain search, and compare the .law page, where registration is confined to licensed practitioners.
Specification 11 §4(a) of the agreement forbids the operator from setting eligibility limits based on identity or reserving names for those whose work matches only the most common usage of the term. The zone being open to everyone is therefore an obligation the operator carries, not a preference it exercises. The same agreement, however, also carries §3(h)-(l): the registrar must obtain the registrant's declaration that it holds the authorisations, charters and licences needed for its sector and must require material changes to be reported, while the registry consults national supervisory authorities where doubt arises. The distinction matters: here a declaration is taken, no document is requested and no licence is verified. The address itself is not proof of competence, and both you and your visitors benefit from knowing that.
.LAWYER Domain at a Glance
- Sponsoring organisation Dog Beach, LLC
- Infrastructure provider Identity Digital Inc.
- ICANN registry agreement 20 March 2014
- Root zone record 22 May 2014
- Registered domains 9,704 (nTLDstats, 12 August 2026)
- Present in the zone file 8,198 names, about 84%
- Document Requirement Documents are required to register a .lawyer domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.lawyer Domain Prices — No Surprise Fees
Registration, transfer and renewal fees are listed separately. The renewal price can differ from the first-year price, so you see both up front.
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New Registration
$53.75 /year -
Transfer
$55.89 /year -
Renewal
$60.19 /year -
Restore
$164.90 -
Late Renewal
$9.08
Included With Every .lawyer Domain
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Free DNS management
Change A, MX, TXT and CNAME records yourself from the panel — no waiting on anyone when you move a site or mailbox.
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Domain lock
While the lock is on, nobody can move your domain to another registrar without your approval.
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Domain forwarding
Point the domain at your existing site, a campaign page or a social profile — at no extra cost.
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Free WHOIS privacy
Your name, address and phone stay out of public WHOIS records, which cuts down spam and scam calls.
.lawyer Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .lawyer domain is put on Client Hold on its expiry date, so the site and e-mail stop that same day. You can still renew during the first 20 days, but from this point a late renewal fee is added on top of the renewal price. On day 20 the registration is deleted and until day 50 only a paid restore brings it back. Nothing at all can be done in the 5 days that follow, and on day 55 the name is open to anyone. There is exactly one way never to enter this chain: keep auto-renewal on.
Domain Is Available (Available)
A .lawyer address at this stage has not been taken yet, and it goes to whoever registers first. Check the name you have in mind — if it is free, it can be yours within minutes.
Domain Is Active (Active Period)
Once registration is complete, the domain is registered to you for the term you selected. You can renew at any point before it expires to keep it active, or switch on auto-renewal so you never have to watch the date.
Renewal Window (Client Hold)
On its expiry date your .lawyer domain is put on Client Hold: the site and e-mail go down that day, but the registration is still yours. A single renewal within these first 20 days brings everything back exactly as it was — nothing is lost. The only difference is that a $9.08 late renewal fee is now added to the renewal price; renewing before the expiry date avoids that fee entirely.
Redemption Period (Redemption / RGP)
On day 20 the registration is deleted and the 30-day redemption period that ICANN requires of every gTLD registry begins. The name is not released to anyone during this time; only you can take it back, by paying the restore fee, until day 50. That fee is far higher than a renewal — renewing on time is always the cheaper route.
Pending Delete (Pending Delete)
Once the redemption window closes too, the domain enters its final 5 days and there is no way back. Neither renewal nor restore works here; nobody — your registrar included — can return the name to you. The registry uses this window as the last hold before the name goes back into the pool.
Open to Anyone Again (Released)
On day 55 the name .lawyer returns to the pool and anyone can register it. Sought-after names are often gone within seconds, and there is no guaranteed way to get one back. Yet staying out of this timeline is entirely in your hands: leave auto-renewal on and the expiry date will never catch you off guard.
The timeline above is the schedule Atak Domain applies and publishes. The ICANN chart you will find elsewhere shows a renewal window of up to 45 days after expiry; ICANN's policy on expired registrations (section 2.2.1) lets registrars delete an expired domain at any time, provided they disclose their policy in advance. We apply that window as 20 days and publish it here in plain sight. Full text of the policy: ICANN Expired Registration Recovery Policy
.lawyer Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.lawyer Domain Registration
- Document Requirement Documents are required to register a .lawyer domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.lawyer Domain Support
- IDN Support Yes
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .lawyer Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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No. The agreement forbids the operator from setting any eligibility limit based on identity.
That does not make the zone loosely run; on the contrary, the openness is an obligation the operator has taken on. It is why legal technology ventures, publishers and directory sites can sit in the same zone. A visitor still expects something to do with law behind the address, so choose a stem that says what you actually do.
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It does not. The operator verifies no licence and no bar registration in this zone.
The agreement asks the registrar only to take a declaration: the registrant states that it holds the authorisations and licences required for its field. A declaration is taken, but no document is requested and no verification follows. So show your professional standing on the page itself with bar details and a registration number; the address alone does not carry that weight.
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The rule turns on whether you hold a practising licence.
If you are a licensed practitioner and want the address to signal it, the zone that confines registration to licence holders gives the stronger signal. If you work in the legal field without being subject to licence verification, a publication or a software project for instance, the open zone is the right address. You can test both together through the bulk domain name search.
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Of 9,704 registrations, 8,198 sit in the zone file according to the nTLDstats page accessed on 12 August 2026, roughly 84 percent.
That high share shows the zone is filled with working sites rather than parked holdings. The rule that follows: if the short name you want is taken, it may well be in real use, so waiting for it to lapse is unproductive. See who holds it through whois search.
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Yes. The zone follows the standard gTLD transfer rules and adds no eligibility step.
Lift the lock, obtain the authorisation code, then open the request at the receiving provider. The problem most common in law firms is that the registration email points at a shared reception account where the approval message goes unnoticed; check that address before you begin. Run the process from the domain transfer page.
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