Who do the Regulations apply to?

The Advertising Regulations apply to:

• all legal practitioners (practising solicitors, practising barristers or a person who formerly practised as a solicitor or as a barrister and a reference to a solicitor includes a reference to a firm of solicitors);
• Limited Liability Partnerships (LLP) who advertise their legal services;
• groups of legal practitioners who share a facility, premises or cost of practice, who advertise themselves as such a group; and
• legal partnerships and multi-disciplinary practices (once introduced).

What constitutes advertising?

Advertising, as a form of communication, takes many different forms and includes (but is not limited to):

• brochures, posters, placards;
• websites, social media channels;
• audio or video recording; and
• any presentation, lecture, seminar or interview

Social media and search advertising

Although the definition section of the 2020 Regulations makes no explicit reference to social media and Google, it is inclusive of such online advertising platforms:

“advertisement” means any communication (whether oral or in written or other visual form and whether produced by electronic or other means) which is intended to publicise or otherwise promote a legal practitioner in relation to the provision by him or her of legal services

Such a definition therefore encompasses social media and therefore, the same care needs to be taken to comply with the regulations across all online platforms.

Legal information

Under section 10 of the Regulations, a publication is not considered to be an advertisement but is rather a communication primarily intended to provide information on the law where;

• the publication is a book, article, oral presentation or media interview on a legal topic;
• no part of the space has been paid for, by or on behalf of the legal practitioner; and
• the publication has not been repeated with the same or substantially the same content.

Testimonials

Under Regulation 5, practitioners often include client testimonials on their firm websites. This is permitted, provided the following conditions are satisfied:

• The client consents to the proposed form, content, manner and context of such publication.
• Reference to work is without exaggeration of the nature of the legal practitioner's involvement in the legal services provided.

Limitations in relation to electronically accessible adverts

Section 9 of the Regulations states that, where an advertisement published by or on behalf of a legal practitioner is either accessible electronically or links to other information that is accessible electronically elsewhere, the practitioner is personally responsible for the publication. This is most particularly relevant to Google search and AdWord listings

Websites

Section 11(a) of the Regulations states that an advertisement published or caused to be published by a practitioner must make clear on the face of it who it was published by.

This is relevant to websites for specialised areas of law. If a solicitor has such a website (for example tax law) it must state clearly on the face of the website the name of the firm that is powering the website.