Users of the Internet are familiar with the domain names ending in .com. This suffix is called a top level domain and is one of over 200 such top level domains available at the end of 2000. Each one is intended to be descriptive of the user: .mil for military sites, .gov for government sites, and .edu for educational sites. Other codes describe the hosting country: .uk for the United Kingdom and .jp for Japan. Most domain names on the Internet end in .com, and registration of those names at one time went solely through Network Solutions, a domain name registrar.

The entire domain name system is overseen by a non-governmental body called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Due to a perceived dearth of useful domain names left in the common commercial top level domains (.com, .net, and .org), ICANN sought applicants to create some new top level domains.

Three applicants, one for .law and two for .pro, were focused on the legal profession, at least in part. The Pro application from RegistryPro was selected by ICANN and they anticipate registering lawyers with domain names ending in .law.pro. The new top level domain will have policies to determine who is qualified to be a part of the domain. Other professional domains will likely include .med.pro for doctors*, and .cpa.pro for accountants.