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Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct

In Pennsylvania, it’s very important not to give false or misleading information on your law firm website or advertisement. This could include misrepresenting a state or federal law, comparing your services to another attorney (without objective evidence), or making a promise that you will help your potential customer win their case.

These rules and other rules can be found in the Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct, and if you break any of these rules, you may be subject to some sort of disciplinary action.

Luckily, an experienced marketing firm can help you create a law firm website that follows all the rules while still being effective.

For more information on the Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct, see the resources below.

Resources

Pennsylvania State Rules of Professional Conduct – This is the complete list of rules for the state

Pennsylvania Bar Ethics Opinions – Have more questions after reading through the rules? This is a helpful resource

Key Rules to be Aware of

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7.1 Communications Concerning a Lawyer’s Services

1. A lawyer shall not make a false or misleading communication about the lawyer or the lawyer’s services. A communication is false or misleading if it contains a material misrepresentation of fact or law, or omits a fact necessary to make the statement considered as a whole not materially misleading.

7.2 Advertising

(a) Subject to the requirements of Rule 7.1, a lawyer may advertise services through written, recorded or electronic communications, including public media, not within the purview of Rule 7.3.

(b) A copy or recording of an advertisement or written communication shall be kept for two years after its last dissemination along with a record of when and where it was used. This record shall include the name of at least one lawyer responsible for its content.

(c) A lawyer shall not give anything of value to a person for recommending the lawyer’s services, except that a lawyer may pay:

(1) the reasonable cost of advertisements or written communications permitted by this Rule;

(2) the usual charges of a lawyer referral service or other legal service organization; and,

(3) for a law practice in accordance with Rule 1.17.

(d) No advertisement or public communication shall contain an endorsement by a celebrity or public figure.

(e) An advertisement or public communication that contains a paid endorsement shall disclose that the endorser is being paid or otherwise compensated for his or her appearance or endorsement.

(f) A non-lawyer shall not portray a lawyer or imply that he or she is a lawyer in any advertisement or public communication; nor shall an advertisement or public communication portray a fictitious entity as a law firm, use a fictitious name to refer to lawyers not associated together in a law firm, or otherwise imply that lawyers are associated together in a law firm if that is not the case.

(g) An advertisement or public communication shall not contain a portrayal of a client by a non-client; the re-enactment of any events or scenes; or, pictures or persons, which are not actual or authentic, without a disclosure that such depiction is a dramatization.

(h) Every advertisement that contains information about the lawyer’s fee shall be subject to the following requirements:

(1) Advertisements that state or indicate that no fee shall be charged in the absence of recovery shall disclose that the client will be liable for certain expenses in addition to the fee, if such is the case; and,

(2) A lawyer who advertises a specific fee or hourly rate or range of fees for a particular service shall honor the advertised fee for at least ninety (90) days; provided that for advertisements in media published annually, the advertised fee shall be honored for no less than one (1) year following initial publication unless otherwise stated as part of the advertisement.

(i) All advertisements and written communications shall disclose the geographic location, by city or town, of the office in which the lawyer or lawyers who will actually perform the services advertised principally practice law. If the office location is outside the city or town, the county in which the office is located must be disclosed.

(j) A lawyer shall not, directly or indirectly (whether through an advertising cooperative or otherwise), pay all or any part of the costs of an advertisement by a lawyer not in the same firm or by any for-profit entity other than the lawyer’s firm, unless the advertisement discloses the name and principal office address of each lawyer or law firm involved in paying for the advertisement and, if any lawyer or law firm will receive referrals from the advertisement, the circumstances under which referrals will be made and the basis and criteria on which the referral system operates.

(k) A lawyer shall not, directly or indirectly, advertise that the lawyer or his or her law firm will only accept, or has a practice limited to, particular types of cases unless the lawyer or his or her law firm handles, as a principal part of his, her or its practice, all aspects of the cases so advertised from intake through trial. If a lawyer or law firm advertises for a particular type of case that the lawyer or law firm ordinarily does not handle from intake through trial, that fact must be disclosed. A lawyer or law firm shall not advertise as a pretext to refer cases obtained from advertising to other lawyers.

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