Attorney advertising rules for your website, ads and reviews

At 11 p.m. someone posts a one-star review on your Google profile. It says your firm “only does Y” and the receptionist was rude, and the call recording says otherwise. The partner who reads it starts typing a reply, and that reply is where the risk sits. In 2021 an Oregon lawyer got a public reprimand for answering a negative review with the client's name and criminal record.

This guide covers the attorney advertising rules that touch a small firm's own marketing: the firm's site, its Google search ads, its Facebook ads, Local Services Ads and the replies you post to reviews. It follows the ABA Model Rules, which most states use as the pattern for their own rules of professional conduct. States differ, sometimes a lot, so read your own state bar's rules and its ethics opinions before you change a page or an ad. Where a state is named below, its rule is linked on that bar's own page; Florida is the example, because its rules spell out more than most. Every rule linked here was read at its source in the fall of 2026. Read it as practical information for your firm, not as legal advice.

Rule 7.1: nothing false, nothing misleading

Model Rule 7.1 is two sentences, and it sits under everything else in this guide. Your firm can't say anything false or misleading about itself or its services, and a true statement still misleads if it leaves out a fact the reader needs to judge it fairly.

The comment to the rule names the usual trouble: a result reported without its context. “Recovered $1.2 million after a trucking crash” can be true and still make a reader expect that money for a different crash. The second trouble is the comparison nobody can check, such as “the best divorce lawyer in Sacramento.” The comment adds that a disclaimer or qualifying words may keep a true result from misleading.

Florida's Rule 4-7.13 is stricter. It treats a past result as misleading unless it can be objectively verified, and it says the same of any phrase describing a lawyer's skill, experience, reputation or record.

Rule 7.2: pay for the ad, never for the recommendation

Model Rule 7.2 lets a lawyer advertise in any medium and pay the reasonable cost of doing it. That covers the website, Google Ads and other pay-per-click, Facebook and Instagram ads, Local Services Ads and the monthly bill from whoever builds and runs them.

What the rule bars is giving anything of value to someone for recommending your firm. A gift card in return for five stars, cash for the tow-truck driver who hands out your card, or a vendor that keeps a cut of each fee it brings in are all on the wrong side. The exceptions are narrow: a qualified lawyer referral service, a referral agreement with another lawyer or professional that isn't exclusive and that clients are told about, and a nominal thank-you gift nobody would read as payment.

“Focuses on” instead of “specializes in”

Rule 7.2(c) is about the word specialist. A lawyer may say they are certified as a specialist only when an organization approved by the state, or accredited by the ABA, did the certifying, and the ad names that organization. Florida's Rule 4-7.14 adds that “board certified” must come with the area of certification and the certifying body's name.

Many states read “specializes in” and “expert” the same way, and Florida's rule on descriptions of skill that can't be verified is worth reading with those words in mind. The plain fix is a verb: your firm focuses on family law, or the attorney's work is limited to bankruptcy. It tells a reader the same thing and needs no certificate. Check the attorney bios, practice-area page titles, ad headlines and the Google Business Profile description, since “specialist” tends to creep in there.

The responsible lawyer and the “Attorney Advertising” label

Rule 7.2(d) asks every ad to carry the name and contact details of at least one lawyer or firm responsible for its content. On a website that is usually the footer. A 30-character ad headline has no room for it, so firms rely on the landing page; check whether your state accepts that.

Florida's Rule 4-7.12 asks for more: the name of a responsible lawyer or the firm, plus the city, town or county of an office where the advertised work is done. Any words its rules require must also appear in each language the ad uses, so a Spanish ad carries its required lines in Spanish.

Some states also want the words “Attorney Advertising” on a home page, an email or a mailer. The Model Rules don't ask for it. If your state does, its rule says where the label goes, and it goes there on every page or message the rule names.

Testimonials, past results and the disclaimer

Reviews you copy onto your own website stop being Google's and become testimonials in your advertising. So do quotes in a video and star ratings on the page an ad sends people to.

Florida's Rule 4-7.13 lists when a testimonial misleads: the person can't judge what they're praising, it isn't their own experience, it isn't what the firm's clients generally experience, the lawyer wrote it, the person got something of value for it, or it lacks the disclaimer that the reader may not get the same or similar results. Most firms meet that last point with one line beside each testimonial and each result, such as “Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.” Use the wording your state names, if it names one.

A story about a client's matter on the blog or in a post needs the client's informed consent under Rule 1.6, and getting it in writing means you can show it later.

Google and Facebook ads

Ad copy is advertising, so every rule above applies to a headline of 30 characters. Read each ad for “best,” “top” or “number one,” for “specialist” or “expert,” and for a dollar figure with no context. In Florida, an actor in a suit whom readers would take for your lawyer needs a disclaimer, and so does a dramatized crash scene.

Retargeting needs care too. Uploading a list of people who called your firm tells Google or Meta who contacted a lawyer, and that may be confidential information under Rules 1.6 and 1.18. Upload a list only when an attorney at the firm has okayed it, and prefer audiences built from visits to your site.

Google Local Services Ads

A Local Services Ads profile is an ad too, and it's easy to forget because Google sets the layout. The case types you tick are claims: list only the case types you actually accept, since an ad for work you don't do misleads, and Florida's Rule 4-7.13 names it outright. The bio, the hours and the reviews pulled from your Google profile all sit under the same rules as your website.

Google Verified means Google ran its own background and license checks on the firm and its lawyers. It isn't a certification in the Rule 7.2(c) sense, so don't call your lawyers “Google certified.” Google bills for each qualifying call or message; most firms treat that as the cost of the ad under Rule 7.2, and if your state bar has an opinion on ads billed per inquiry, read it.

Rule 7.3: no live calls to people who never reached out

Model Rule 7.3 bars asking for work through live person-to-person contact, meaning in person, by live phone call or by real-time video, when fees are a significant motive. The exceptions are other lawyers, people with a family, close personal or prior professional tie to the firm, and people who routinely use that kind of legal service for business.

The comment to Rule 7.3 says texts and other written messages aren't “live” under the Model Rule, because the reader can ignore them. That isn't a green light. Florida's Rule 4-7.18 bars a written message about a personal injury or an accident sent within 30 days of it, and a marketing text needs the person's consent under the federal TCPA.

The safe line is simple: call and text the people who reached you first, as fast as you can, and nobody else. Never work from accident reports, police lists or bought names.

Review replies under Rules 1.6 and 1.18

Rule 1.6 keeps information about a representation confidential unless the client gives informed consent, and Rule 1.18 extends that to what someone told you in a consultation, even when your firm never took the case. So the caller you declined who posts “they wouldn't even take my case” is owed the same silence as a past client.

The ABA's ethics committee took this up in Formal Opinion 496 in 2021. It names confidentiality as the main concern with any reply, and it says that saying nothing is often the wiser course.

If you do reply, confirm nothing, not even that the reviewer was a client, and mention no matter. Two sentences are enough: “Our duty of confidentiality keeps us from saying whether we have ever worked with anyone. Please call our office if you want to talk.” Don't argue the facts, don't post your side of the call, and never ask a friend for a counter-review.

Asking for reviews is fine when every client gets the same request as the matter closes, no one gets anything for posting, and nobody is left out for seeming unhappy.

A quarterly check, and who does the work

Run the checklist below every quarter, and again before any new ad, page or offer goes live. Keep a dated copy of each ad as it ran, so the firm can show what a reader saw.

RetainerBooked does the building and running for US firms with 1 to 10 lawyers. We design and host the firm's site, manage its Google and Facebook advertising and Local Services Ads inside accounts the firm holds, put each label and disclaimer where you say your state wants it, and draft review replies that stay silent on whether anyone was ever your client. A lawyer at your firm still signs off on every page and ad, because the rules bind the firm.