Power of the Dual Attorney-CPA Career

Path to Becoming an Attorney-CPA

Are you a college student considering a career that combines law and accounting? Imagine leveraging both legal expertise and financial insight to solve complex problems in today's business world. As an Attorney-CPA, you would have the unique ability to navigate the intersection of law and accounting, offering strategic advice, mitigating risks, and ensuring compliance for individuals and businesses alike. This web page is intended as a guide to understanding the dual career path of an Attorney-CPA. We hope that it will serve to help you see the benefits of becoming both a licensed attorney and a certified public accountant (CPA), while also providing you with the resources and steps needed to achieve this prestigious dual licensure.

Why Become an Attorney-CPA?

A career as a dual-licensed Attorney-CPA offers numerous advantages that set you apart in today’s competitive job market. Here’s why you should consider this career path:

1. In-Demand Skill Set

In today’s fast-evolving business world, the ability to combine legal and accounting knowledge is more valuable than ever. Attorney-CPAs are in high demand, as they are uniquely qualified to handle complex issues in many areas including:

  • Taxation and Tax Law
  • Corporate Law and Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Estate and Trust Planning
  • Business Law and Compliance
  • Family Law
  • Litigation

2. Diverse Career Opportunities

With dual licensure, you can pursue a variety of highly rewarding career paths, such as:

  • Corporate Counselor General Counsel
  • Tax Advisor or Tax Attorney
  • Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
  • M&A Consultant and more!

3. Job Security and Competitive Salary

As an Attorney-CPA, you will be equipped to handle both legal and accounting challenges, making you an indispensable asset to companies. Dual licensure also comes with higher earning potential, job security, and opportunities.

Becoming a Dual Licensed Attorney-CPA Offers Opportunities for Both Worlds

Becoming a Dual licensed Attorney-CPA offers a far more advanced and superior option than an expert in just a single field. The skillsets required for both of these specialists are unique; the attorney must be able to devise creative and persuasive solutions within the constraints of the law, whereas the CPA must be painstakingly organized with a meticulous attention to detail to avoid costly financial errors. Although both professions require a different sort of mindset to achieve success in their respective fields, the qualities that make up a good attorney and a good CPA are remarkably complementary. For this reason, becoming a dual licensed Attorney-CPA can be an exceptionally powerful career. As a Dual licensed Attorney-CPA you can advise on both legal, tax and financial aspects of key operating decisions which encompass both legal and monetary ramifications. Aa a qualified attorney-accountant you will also recognize potential future risks and help guard against them.

Only a small number of professionals achieve dual licensing, setting them apart from their peers in both professions.

Practical Applications of Being a Dual Attorney-CPA

Professionals with qualifications in two professions will typically find a niche in one of their disciplines, meaning they will primarily practice in various areas of law or somewhere in the accounting field. Nevertheless, the additional training will likely impact their work in remarkably beneficial ways.

Consider a career as an Attorney-CPA who primarily practices law. One of the most common witnesses used in trials are economists, financial advisors and accountants. When you are an attorney with dual training in accountancy, you will be much more qualified to cross-examine and refute testimony. This could potentially be the difference between winning and losing a case, since an attorney who is not trained in finance may have trouble understanding and countering claims. Dual licensed Attorney-CPAs possess unique multi-disciplinary skill sets providing a tool set to practice areas of law more effectively than attorneys without the business/accounting training often required. Examples of practice areas where Dual licensed Attorney-CPA’s have become leaders in their profession include, but not limited to:

  • Practicing before the internal revenue service tax and securities law;
  • Family law involving separation of assets, tax issues, and support;
  • Understanding financial records and damages in connection with a wide area of litigation; and
  • Advising and preparing advanced estate plans for clients.

Now consider a career as an Attorney-CPA who primarily practices accounting. There is a good chance that as a CPA you will someday wind up being a witness in court because the job often entails auditing and preparing financial documents for businesses. However, many CPAs in this situation are unprepared for the litigation process and will be ill-equipped to present their facts and figures in a suitably persuasive manner that a judge or jury can understand. Being a trained lawyer with trial skills, legal research and writing skills and advanced knowledge of multiple areas of law will enhance and build on your training as a CPA. This will ensure that as an Attorney-CPA practicing accounting will be able to provide the highest and best level of service to advance your client’s interests. There are multiple situations where an Attorney-CPA education and career is a superior option, including:

  • Preparing complex tax documents;
  • Defending clients before the IRS, SEC or other governmental agencies;
  • Drafting contracts and estate planning documents;
  • Serving as an expert witness for valuation, damages or financial litigation;
  • Representing you in divorce or drafting prenuptial agreements;
  • Overseeing due diligence for merger and acquisition transactions; and
  • Consulting or advising business development and operations.

In essence, whether you pursue either the law or accounting profession, you will benefit and advance your career with the power of being a dual licensed Attorney-CPA.

An Enhanced Perspective

While your typical attorney or CPA is trained to think a certain way through their focused education, a dual-licensed professional offers the advantage of a more comprehensive objectivity; they are able to view and solve problems with the ingenuity of an attorney combined with the resourcefulness of a CPA. The integration of these skillsets can be incredibly valuable, as an Attorney-CPA you can draw from experience in both industries and assist clients with their legal and financial requirements. Your clients will be confident in your motivation and diligence when it comes to meeting their needs due to the staggering amount of work and effort that goes into attaining accreditation in both of these technical fields — it requires a special person with significant drive to go through essentially double the education and certification testing necessary to achieve dual-accreditation. This is something that a client clearly wants to see in the personality of a professional who will be trusted to handle serious and complex responsibilities that can have a substantial impact on their future. When clients select a professional to protect their legal or financial issues it is important to choose the most qualified individual. For this reason, dual licensed Attorney-CPAs offer a far more advanced and superior option than an expert in just a single field

Best of Both Worlds

Two professions in one professional who bridges the gap between your client’s legal and financial needs.

A Practical Solution

Clients save time and money by hiring a single dual-licensed Attorney-CPA who is qualified to handle diverse personal and business responsibilities.

Don’t get stuck with professional tunnel vision; consider the enhanced perspective of becoming a dual licensed Attorney-CPA.

How to Become a Dual Licensed Attorney-CPA

Becoming a CPA:
The pathway of becoming a CPA generally requires: 

  • A 4-year Baccalaureate degree with an accounting concentration + 30 credits of post-baccalaureate graduate level coursework + 1 year of experience + passage of the CPA Exam; or
  • Post-baccalaureate degree with an accounting concentration + 1 year of experience + passage of the CPA Exam.
  • On May 14th, 2025, the boards of directors of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) approved expansion of accountancy’s model legislation to include an additional path to CPA licensure. The optional pathway to CPA licensure requires a baccalaureate degree with an accounting concentration + 2 years of experience + passage of the CPA Exam; This pathway will significantly simplify the educational requirements and will be in addition to the existing pathways above and will need to be adopted by each state board of accountancy. In essence, this new pathway is what was required to become a CPA up and until the mid-1980’s when the 30 credits of post-baccalaureate graduate level coursework (the “5th year”) went into effect.

Becoming an Attorney:
The pathway of becoming a licensed attorney generally requires:

  • Having a 4-year Baccalaureate degree + taking the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT); and
  • A 3-year Juris Doctor degree + passage of a state bar exam + bar fitness background check + admission to a state bar.

Resource Links

Don’t get stuck with professional tunnel vision; consider the enhanced perspective of a dually-licensed Attorney-CPA.