Every state bar writes its own advertising rules, and most of them start from the American Bar Association’s Model Rules 7.1 to 7.3, which the ABA rewrote in August 2018. What follows summarizes the model rules and the four states we read most often, as we understood them in October 2026. It is not legal advice: your state’s current rules and your ethics counsel decide any question about a specific ad, and we prepare copy for the responsible lawyer to approve and, where required, file.
The three model rules most states copy
- Rule 7.1: nothing false or misleading. It covers a firm’s website, emails and social posts as well as paid ads, and a true statement still fails if it leaves out a fact the reader needs. Its comments warn that a bare list of past wins can lead a reader to expect the same result in a case that is nothing like them.
- Rule 7.2: what an ad must carry and what a lawyer may pay for. Each communication names at least one lawyer or firm responsible for it, with contact information. Paying anyone to recommend the firm is barred, apart from listed exceptions such as the reasonable cost of the advertising itself and the usual charges of a qualified lawyer referral service.
- Rule 7.3: no live pitch to a stranger for a fee. In-person visits, live phone calls and real-time video count as live contact. The exceptions cover other lawyers, family, close friends, past clients and people who routinely buy that kind of legal service for their business, and nobody may be contacted after saying they do not want to be.
The ABA’s own summary of the 2018 changes explains the merge: the old specialization and firm-name rules were folded into these three.
Where the states we check most part from the model
Texas files after the fact. Rule 7.04 requires a lawyer to file each advertisement with the State Bar’s Advertising Review Committee no later than 10 days after it is first disseminated, with a copy, an application and a fee. A firm that wants certainty can submit at least 30 days ahead, and a finding of compliance is then binding in its favor. Rule 7.05 exempts most of a firm website from filing, except the homepage. Every ad must name a lawyer responsible for its content and the lawyer’s primary practice location (Rule 7.02), and a written solicitation sent by text or social message must open with the word “ADVERTISEMENT.”
Florida files before. Television, radio, print and internet ads go to the Bar at least 20 days before first use, unless they carry only presumptively valid content. Lawyer websites and a firm’s own social pages are exempt, until a post is boosted or sponsored. From July 1, 2026 the fee is $250 for a timely filing and $750 for a late one, and any change to wording, images, layout or color counts as a new ad. Every ad names at least one lawyer or firm and the city, town or county of a real office.
New York retired its label in 2026. For years most New York lawyer ads had to carry the words “Attorney Advertising,” along with record-keeping duties that went further than the ABA model. Rules effective June 1, 2026 brought the state much closer to the model: the New York State Bar Association’s summary reports that the label is no longer required on everything, while each communication still names a responsible lawyer or firm and a way to reach them. A firm that leaves the label on its older ads breaks nothing by keeping it.
California does not pre-screen, but it defines what misleads. Its Rule 7.1 comments call an express guarantee of a result misleading, and say a “no fee without recovery” message is misleading unless it discloses whether the client pays costs. Rule 7.2 requires the name and address of at least one responsible lawyer or firm in every ad, and Rule 7.3 bars in-person, live telephone and real-time electronic solicitation for pecuniary gain, with narrow exceptions. Since June 1, 2026 it has also barred soliciting the person a domestic violence restraining order petition is filed against before that person has been served, according to the California courts’ announcement, which matters to any family law firm that buys court-filing data.
One neighbor shows how far a single comment can move the line. The ABA model treats a text message as written contact a person can ignore, but Pennsylvania’s version counts texting as live person-to-person contact, as an ABA Law Practice Today article describes. A text campaign that is ordinary in one state is barred solicitation in the next, so we check the rule in each state a firm’s ads reach.
“Specialist,” “expert” and “board certified”
No words cause more trouble in lawyer ads. Under Model Rule 7.2 a lawyer may state or imply certification as a specialist only when an organization approved by a state authority or accredited by the ABA did the certifying, and the communication names that organization. Texas reserves “Board Certified” for its own board’s certification or a body it accredits, Florida lets a firm claim expertise only when the claim can be checked for at least one of its lawyers, and speakers in the New York bar association’s summary steer firms toward “practice limited to” or “focuses on” instead.
Our default in every state: say which matters the firm handles and how many years each lawyer has handled them, name any certification together with the body that granted it, and leave “expert” and “specialist” out unless your ethics counsel approves the exact line.
All of these rules treat a response to someone’s own search differently from reaching out to a stranger, which is why search, maps and Local Services Ads are where we put a firm’s budget. One Google rule applies everywhere: ads offering to act as surety for bail are not allowed, so criminal defense ads have to stay on the defense side of that line.
