Mr Bill Clinton, on whom an honorary law degree was conferred yesterday by Queen's University Belfast, has had an unhappy history with legal matters.
After admitting lying in a deposition, he was fined and forced to give up his licence to practise law in his home state of Arkansas.
As part of a deal to avoid lengthy disbarment proceedings, he reluctantly agreed to a suspension of his licence last January.
In effect, this prevents him from practising law anywhere in the US for five years.
The deal was agreed about this time last year.
Two complaints triggered the Arkansas disbarment proceedings, one filed by a conservative legal group and the other by Susan Webber Wright, the federal judge who presided over Ms Paula Jones's sexual misconduct lawsuit against Mr Clinton.
In a January 1998 deposition in that case, Mr Clinton testified under oath in Judge Wright's presence that he had not engaged in a sexual relationship with a White House intern.
In August 1998 Mr Clinton acknowledged an inappropriate intimate relationship with the intern but maintained that he had told the truth in the deposition.
Judge Wright disagreed, fining him $90,000 for contempt and referring the matter to the Arkansas bar.
Now that Mr Clinton lives in New York, observers have wondered whether he would seek to practise law there.
As part of the deal this year with Arkansas, Mr Clinton admitted he lied in the deposition about his relationship with Ms Monica Lewinsky.
His agreement to surrender his Arkansas law licence presents serious obstacles to the granting of a New York licence, a New York state bar official said.
A lawyer in New York state would almost certainly be suspended for lying in a deposition, "a serious enough matter because it goes to the heart of the judicial process", said Mr Barry Kamins, chairman of the Committee on Professional Discipline at the New York State Bar Association.
Besides surrendering his licence, Mr Clinton also agreed to pay a fine of $25,000 to the Arkansas Bar Association
"I would suspect that the court might not admit him to New York because he is under suspension in another state," Mr Kamins said.
"That would seem to be the likely scenario, unless he could convince the court here that despite the suspension there are reasons to let him in. But I think the court would be hard pressed to admit him."
Mr Clinton's chances of getting a New York licence would improve tremendously if he waited out the five-year suspension before applying, Mr Kamins said.