Louisiana does not offer a professional LLC

What Louisiana offers instead

Does a licensing board have to approve the filing?

Not a general licensing-board sign-off, but the Secretary of State will not issue the certificate until two named boards have waived certain words in the name. If "engineer", "engineering", "surveyor" or "surveying" will be part of the name, a written waiver must be obtained from the Louisiana Professional Engineering and Land Surveying Board. To include "architect", "architectural" or "architecture", a waiver must be obtained from the Louisiana State Board of Architectural Examiners. A form of "bank" or "trust" requires a waiver from the Office of Financial Institutions. For limited liability companies the engineering requirement is in the statute itself: R.S. 12:1306(E) requires evidence satisfactory to the Secretary of State that written notice was delivered to the Louisiana Professional Engineering and Land Surveying Board not less than ten days before the certificate of organization issues, unless the board's executive secretary or an officer signs a waiver of the waiting period.

Which occupations Louisiana treats as professional

Enumerated, profession by profession, in separate chapters of Title 12. The Secretary of State names thirteen professional corporation types: law, dental, accounting, chiropractic, nursing, optometry, medical, architectural, psychology, veterinary, architectural-engineering, occupational therapy and social work. There is no general "licensed profession" test for the corporate form. For limited liability companies the test is the opposite and is general: R.S. 12:1301(A)(2) defines "business" as "any trade, occupation, profession, or other commercial activity, including but not limited to professions licensed by a state or other governmental agency", and R.S. 12:1302(B) provides that a limited liability company subject to regulation by another provision of state law may be formed under the chapter if not prohibited by that other law and is subject to all limitations of that other law.

Does the agent requirement differ from an ordinary Louisiana LLC’s?

No. Louisiana sets no separate agent requirement for a professional entity — it is the same requirement an ordinary Louisiana LLC files under.

Neither the professional corporation chapters nor the limited liability company chapter varies the agent requirement for a licensed practice. A Louisiana limited liability company appoints a registered agent under R.S. 12:1308 whether or not its members are licensed. One Louisiana quirk that belongs to the agent rules rather than to professional entities: R.S. 12:1308 allows a partnership or professional law corporation authorised to practise law in the state to serve as a limited liability company's registered agent.

Why Louisiana answers this way

There is no professional limited liability company in Louisiana law and no PLLC designation in a Louisiana name. A licensed practitioner who wants a limited liability company forms an ordinary one: R.S. 12:1301(A)(2) already counts a licensed profession as a "business", and R.S. 12:1302(B) lets the company be formed so long as the practitioner's own regulatory statute does not prohibit it and subject to that statute's limits. The name follows the ordinary rule in R.S. 12:1306(A): "limited liability company", "L.L.C." or "L.C." (or the low-profit forms "low-profit limited liability company", "L3C" or "l3c"). The professional form in Louisiana is the corporation, and which corporation depends on the profession.