Rule 7.2 Communications Concerning a Lawyer’s Services: Specific Rules

(1) This Rule permits public dissemination of information concerning a lawyer’s or law firm’s name, address, email address, website, and telephone number; the kinds of services the lawyer will undertake; the basis on which the lawyer’s fees are determined, including prices for specific services and payment and credit arrangements; a lawyer’s foreign language ability; names of references and, with their consent, names of clients regularly represented; and other information that might invite the attention of those seeking legal assistance.

Paying Others to Recommend a Lawyer

(2) Except as permitted under paragraphs (b)(1)—(b)(3), a lawyer is not permitted to pay others for recommending the lawyer’s services. A communication contains a recommendation if it endorses or vouches for a lawyer’s credentials, abilities, competence, character, or other professional qualities. Directory listings and group advertisements that list lawyers by practice area, without more, do not constitute impermissible ‘‘recommendations.’’

(3) Paragraph (b)(1) allows a lawyer to pay for advertising and communications permitted by this Rule, including the cost of print directory listings, on-line directory listings, newspaper ads, television and radio air-time, domain-name registrations, sponsorship fees, Internet-based advertisements, and group advertising. A lawyer may compensate employees, agents and vendors who are engaged to provide marketing or client-development services, such as publicists, public-relations personnel, business-development staff, television and radio station employees or spokespersons and website designers.

(4) A lawyer may pay others for generating client leads, such as Internet-based client leads, as long as the lead generator does not recommend the lawyer, any payment to the lead generator is consistent with Rules 1.5(e) (division of fees) and 5.4 (professional independence of the lawyer), and the lead generator’s communications are consistent with Rule 7.1 (communications concerning a lawyer’s services). To comply with Rule 7.1, a lawyer must not pay a lead generator that states, implies, or creates a reasonable impression that it is recommending the lawyer, is making the referral without payment from the lawyer, or has analyzed a person’s legal problems when determining which lawyer should receive the referral. See Comment (2) (definition of ‘‘recommendation’’). See also Rule 5.3 (duties of lawyers and law firms with respect to the conduct of nonlawyers) for the duties of lawyers and law firms with respect to the conduct of non-lawyers and Rule 8.4(a) (duty to avoid violating the Rules through the acts of another).

(5) A legal aid agency or prepaid legal services plan may pay to advertise legal services provided under its auspices. Likewise, a lawyer may participate in lawyer referral programs and pay the usual fees charged by such programs. A ‘‘legal service plan’’ is a prepaid or group legal service plan or a similar delivery system that assists people who seek to secure legal representation.

(6) A lawyer who accepts assignments or referrals from a legal service plan or referrals from a lawyer referral service must act reasonably to assure that the activities of the plan or service are compatible with the lawyer’s professional obligations. Legal service plans and lawyer referral services may communicate with the public, but such communication must be in conformity with these Rules. A ‘‘lawyer referral service’’ is any person, group of persons, association, organization or entity that receives a fee or charge for referring or causing the direct or indirect referral of a potential client to a lawyer drawn from a specific group or panel of lawyers.

Communications About Fields of Practice

(7) Paragraph (c)(1) permits a lawyer to state that the lawyer is certified as a specialist in a field of law if such certification is granted by an organization approved by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Paragraph (c)(2) permits a lawyer to state the lawyer is certified as a specialist under the regulations of the highest court of another state where the lawyer is licensed to practice, so long as the lawyer clearly states if the lawyer is not also certified in Pennsylvania. Certification signifies that an objective entity has recognized an advanced degree of knowledge and experience in the specialty area greater than is suggested by general licensure to practice law. Court approved certifying organizations may be expected to apply standards of experience, knowledge and proficiency to ensure that a lawyer’s recognition as a specialist is meaningful and reliable. To ensure that consumers can obtain access to useful information about an organization granting certification, the name of the certifying organization must be included in any communication regarding the certification.

(8) Paragraph (c) of this Rule generally permits a lawyer to communicate that the lawyer does or does not practice in a particular area of law. Under paragraph (c)(3), a lawyer is permitted to state that the lawyer ‘‘concentrates in’’ or is a ‘‘specialist,’’ practices a ‘‘specialty,’’ or ‘‘specializes in’’ particular fields based on the lawyer’s objectively verifiable experience, specialized training or education. Such communications are subject to the ‘‘false and misleading’’ standard applied in Rule 7.1 to communications concerning a lawyer’s services. Authorizing such objectively verifiable statements comports with constitutional limitations on the regulation of commercial speech. Appropriate bases for a lawyer’s claim of specialization under paragraph (c)(3) may include the proportion of the lawyer’s practice devoted to the specialty, the years of experience practicing the specialty, the continued education acquired pertaining to the specialty, and the recency of the experience or education in the field of specialization.

(9) The Patent and Trademark Office has a long-established policy of designating lawyers practicing before the Office. The designation of Admiralty practice also has a long historical tradition associated with maritime commerce and the federal courts. A lawyer’s communications about these practice areas are not prohibited by this Rule.

(10) Paragraph (e) requires truthfulness in any advertising in which an endorsement of a lawyer or law firm is made. The prohibition against endorsement by a celebrity or public figure is consistent with the purpose of Rule 7.1 to avoid the creation of an unjustified expectation of a particular legal result on the part of a prospective client.

Portrayals

(11) Paragraph (f), similarly, requires truth in advertising when portrayals are made part of legal advertising. A portrayal, by its nature, is a depiction of a person, event or scene, not the actual person, event or scene itself. Paragraph (f) ensures that any portrayals used in advertising legal services are not misleading or overreaching. Creating the impression that lawyers are associated in a firm where that is not the case is inherently misleading because it suggests that the various lawyers involved are available to support each other and contribute to the handling of a case. Paragraph (f) accordingly prohibits advertisements that create the impression of a relationship among lawyers where none exists, such as by using a fictitious name to refer to the lawyers involved if they are not associated together in a firm.

Disclosure of Fees and Client Expenses

(12) Consistent with the public’s need to have an accurate dissemination of information about the cost of legal services, paragraph (g) requires disclosure of a client’s responsibility for payment of expenses in contingent fee matters when the client will be required to pay any portion of expenses that will be incurred in the handling of a legal matter.

(13) Under the same rationale, paragraph (g) imposes minimum periods of time during which advertised fees must be honored.

Disclosure of Geographic Location of Practice

(14) Paragraph (h) requires disclosure of the geographic location in which the advertising lawyer’s primary practice is situated. This provision seeks to rectify situations in which a person seeking legal services is misled into concluding that an advertising lawyer has his or her primary practice in the client’s hometown when, in fact, the advertising lawyer’s primary practice is located elsewhere. Paragraph (h) ensures that a client has received a disclosure as to whether the lawyer he or she ultimately chooses maintains a primary practice located outside of the client’s own city, town or county.

Disclosure of Payment of Advertising Costs

(15) Paragraph (i) prohibits lawyers and law firms from paying advertising costs of independent lawyers or other persons unless disclosure is made in the advertising of the name and address of each paying lawyer or law firm, as well as of the business relationship between the paying parties and the advertising parties.

(16) Advertisements sponsored by advertising cooperatives (where lawyers or law firms pool resources to buy advertising space or time) are considered advertisements by each of the lawyers participating in the cooperative and accordingly will be subject generally to all of the provisions of these Rules on advertising. Advertising cooperatives have been referred to expressly in paragraph (i) to make clear that references to ‘‘indirect’’ actions are intended to have a wide scope and include advertising cooperatives and similar arrangements. Thus, advertising cooperatives and similar arrangements are permissible, but only if the required disclosures are made. In the case of cooperative arrangements, the required disclosures must include the basis or criteria on which lawyers or law firms participating in the cooperative will be referred cases, e.g., chronological order of calls, geographic location, etc.

(17) Paragraph (j) prohibits a lawyer from misleading the public by giving the impression in an advertisement that the lawyer or the lawyer’s law firm practices in a particular area of the law unless the lawyer or the law firm handles the type of case advertised as a principal part of the practice. For example, where a lawyer advertises for ‘‘personal injury cases’’ or ‘‘serious personal injury cases’’ or ‘‘death cases only’’ those types of cases must, in fact, constitute a principal part of the practice of the lawyer or firm.

(18) Paragraph (j) also prohibits advertising for the primary purposes of obtaining cases that can be referred or brokered to another lawyer. Obviously, a lawyer is permitted and encouraged to refer cases to other lawyers where that lawyer does not have the skill or expertise to properly represent a client. However, it is misleading to the public for a lawyer or law firm, with knowledge that the lawyer or law firm will not be handling a majority of the cases attracted by advertising, to nonetheless advertise for those cases only to refer the cases to another lawyer whom the client did not initially contact. In addition, a lawyer who advertises for a particular type of case may not mislead the client into believing that the lawyer or law firm will fully represent that client when, in reality, the lawyer or law firm refers all of its non-settling cases to another law firm for trial.

Required Contact Information

(19) This Rule requires that any communication about a lawyer or law firm’s services include the name of, and contact information for, the lawyer or law firm. Contact information includes a website address, a telephone number, an email address or a physical office location.