What Is Allowed and What Is Ethical in Law Firm Marketing?

It used to hurt when you would tell people that you are a lawyer, and they would respond by making jokes about lawyers being greedy, sleazy, and dishonest, but now you consider the source.  Being a lawyer is one of the least morally corrupt professions out there.  You don’t make money by buying debts that the borrowers were unable to pay to the original creditors, and then continuing to hound the borrowers for repayment, even though they never borrowed money from you.  You are not an affiliate marketer or social media influencer, promoting whichever products the companies that make these products pay you to promote.  You are not selling people unrealistic expectations about physical appearance, wealth, or interpersonal relationships.  In fact, the laws are stricter regarding what lawyers can

say in promotional content than they are for most other industries, and you can thank lawyers for creating and enforcing those regulations.  This means that, by its very compliance with the law, your legal marketing content is more trustworthy than most of the advertisements you see online and in the analog world.

Be Honest, Be Careful, and Follow Your State’s Laws

It was against the law for lawyers to advertise their services at all until a Supreme Court decision in the 1970s declared that, like other businesses, law firms may solicit clients through advertising.  Today, most states follow a version of Rule 7.2, the American Bar Association’s model standards of professional conduct for law firm advertising, although some states have passed laws that are not based on Rule 7.2.

If you have recently founded your own law firm or been tasked with developing a marketing strategy for a law firm where you currently work, you should read your state’s laws regarding advertising before you embark on any marketing campaigns.  Besides that, you should always read what you write before you publish it, or, even better, have someone else read it, and see whether it would meet the required standard of honesty and truthfulness if you were presenting it as evidence or testimony in a court of law.

What You Say Matters More Than Where You Say It

Most states do not allow lawyers to say that they are “experts” or “specialists” in a practice area of law; you must be truthful and objective in saying that you are certified to provide legal representation.  The rules are generally about avoiding fraud and false promises, not about where you communicate your messages.  No medium of communication is, by nature, too sleazy for law firm marketing content.  You can post videos about your law firm on TikTok or invest in pay-per-click advertising if you think that these channels of communication will get the attention of your target audience.

Hiring Someone to Write Your Marketing Content Is Perfectly Legal

The professional law firm content marketers at Law Blog Writers, LLC, provide blog posts and other marketing content that complies with your state’s laws about law firm advertising.