NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Reversing a long-standing policy, Louisiana’s Supreme Court has decided that lawyers from foreign countries who are on temporary, legal visits to the United States may practice law in Louisiana.

The amended rule, signed Wednesday, takes effect in January. It allows admission to the state bar of ‘‘an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or an alien otherwise authorized to work lawfully in the United States.’’ The rule includes some education requirements, including 14 semester hours of education in an American law school.

Foreign attorneys had fought unsuccessfully for years to practice in Louisiana but the state Supreme Court rebuffed the efforts.

A 2005 federal appeals court decision upheld the state’s right to prohibit practice by foreign citizens.

‘‘This is a thoughtful and sensible change in the admission rules that eliminates past controversies while encouraging sufficient familiarity with Louisiana and American law and American legal institutions so that successful applicants will better integrate into the Louisiana legal community,’’ Louisiana attorney Louis Koerner Jr. said in an e-mailed statement to media on Saturday.

Koerner had represented a Canadian and three French citizens in their efforts to practice law in the state.

In his statement Saturday he said he wrote to retiring Chief Justice Pascal Calogero about the issue last year after receiving advice from Justice John Weimar.

Back in 2005, proponents of allowing foreign attorneys to practice in the state speculated that the state may have begun blocking such practice in 2003 because of the success some had in appealing death row cases. An attorney for the high court denied that.

When the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the case in 2005, it said Louisiana has a legitimate interest in limiting the rights of visiting foreigners who want to practice law, noting that the state was concerned about the difficulty in contacting, regulating or, if necessary, disciplining foreign lawyers who might leave for their home countries.