The website is advertising, exempt only from filing
Rule 4-7.11 applies the rules to every form of communication, websites included, and its comment says websites are treated the same as other advertising media. The Florida attorney advertising rules reach any lawyer who advertises legal services in Florida or targets Florida residents, wherever the lawyer is admitted; on a multistate firm's site they reach the parts about its Florida lawyers and its services in Florida.
Rule 4-7.20(g) exempts the information on a lawyer's website from filing. The Bar's handbook on advertising adds that a firm's own social media pages and video channels are not filed either unless a post is sponsored, boosted or promoted, and that all of them still have to comply with rules 4-7.12 through 4-7.17 and 4-7.21. A firm can ask the Bar for an opinion on one page, statement or photograph under rule 4-7.19(d), never on the whole site.
Paid search is different. An internet advertisement is filed with the Bar at least 20 days before it first runs, unless it carries only the basic information rule 4-7.16 presumes valid. For a firm's SEO this is the useful difference: its pages can change as often as the rankings need, without waiting on the Bar, as long as each change meets the rules below.
Every page names the firm and a real office
Under rule 4-7.12, every advertisement names at least one lawyer or the law firm responsible for it, and the city, town or county of one or more bona fide offices of the lawyer who will do the work. The comment defines a bona fide office as a physical place where the lawyer reasonably expects to provide legal services in a substantial way on a regular and continuing basis, and says an advertisement cannot state or imply an office where the lawyer has none. It can say the lawyer is available for consultation or by appointment there, or has a satellite office there, when that is true.
That rule decides what a city page can be. On a Florida firm's site, a page written to rank in a town without an office says the firm is available by appointment there, when it is. It never reads as if the firm had an office there: no local address in its text or its schema, and no Business Profile at a mailbox or a virtual office, which Google's rules for Business Profiles exclude anyway. The words the rules require appear in every language a page uses, so a Spanish page carries them in Spanish, and a page says so when the firm refers some cases to other lawyers.
No predictions, only verifiable results, and no “best”
Rule 4-7.13 lists what makes an advertisement deceptive or inherently misleading. Among them:
- a statement a prospective client can reasonably read as a prediction or guaranty of success or specific results;
- a past result that cannot be objectively verified;
- a comparison or characterization of a lawyer's skills, experience, reputation or record that cannot be objectively verified;
- a practice area the firm does not practice or intend to.
The comment gives the lines. “I will get you money for your injuries” predicts success; statements about the legal process and words of aim, such as goal, strive and dedicated, generally do not. “The best” and “one of the best” generally run afoul of the rule, while “the largest firm in this city that practices exclusively personal injury law” is permitted if true. A past result also needs the client's informed consent under rule 4-1.6, even when it is on the public record.
These are the words written last and in a hurry: title tags, headings and meta descriptions. On a Florida firm's site “Best Car Accident Lawyer in Miami” becomes “Miami Car Accident Lawyer”, a results page lists verdicts and settlements that can be checked and that the clients agreed to publish, and a page for a practice the firm does not take comes down, whatever it ranks for.
Reviews and testimonials
Under rule 4-7.13(b)(9), a testimonial:
- speaks only to what its author is qualified to judge;
- is the person's own experience, and representative of what the firm's clients generally experience;
- is never written or drafted by the lawyer, or given in exchange for anything of value;
- carries the disclaimer that a prospective client may not obtain the same or similar results.
The comment adds that clients are well qualified to speak of courtesy, promptness, efficiency and professional demeanor.
Reviews brought onto a Florida firm's site, as quotes on a practice page or as a feed of its Google reviews, carry that disclaimer beside them. The review request goes to every client the same way and offers nothing in return, which Google's policy asks too; Google reviews for lawyers covers the request and the replies.
Expert, specialist, board certified, awards and fees
Rule 4-7.14 lets a lawyer be called a specialist or an expert only when certified under the Florida Certification Plan or a plan the ABA or the Bar accredits, or when the lawyer can objectively verify the claim by education, training, experience or substantial involvement in the area. A firm can claim a specialty or expertise when it can verify the claim for at least one of its lawyers, and when it cannot for every lawyer, it adds a clear and conspicuous disclaimer that not all of its lawyers specialize or have expertise in that area. “Board certified” names the area and the certifying organization, an award or rating is given by its actual name, with the date it was given unless it is from the year of the advertisement or still current, and any information about fees, “no fee if no recovery” included, discloses the fees and costs the client may owe.
So “Orlando DUI experts” in a title needs a lawyer the claim can be verified for and the disclaimer on the page beside it, and “no fee unless we win” in a meta description becomes the form the Bar's comment gives, “No Fee if No Recovery, but Client is Responsible for Costs”, when the client pays the costs.
Another firm's name as a search term
Rule 4-7.13(b)(12) bars stating or implying that another lawyer or firm is part of or affiliated with the advertising firm when it is not, including contact information presented so that a person searching for a particular lawyer or firm unknowingly contacts a different one. The comment names the search case: an advertisement triggered by another firm's name as a search term is not misleading when the first text it shows is the advertising firm's name, and, for a trade name that contains no lawyer's name, the responsible lawyer's name too. The Bar's handbook adds that paid, sponsored and promoted search results are subject to the rules.
The firm's name, on the sign and on the map
Under rule 4-7.21, a lawyer may practice under a trade name that is not deceptive, and advertises under it only when it is the name on the firm's letterhead, business cards, office sign and fee contracts and on its pleadings. The comment adds that a sole practitioner's “and Associates”, “group” or “team” implies lawyers the firm does not have.
Google's guidelines ask the same of a Business Profile: the business's real-world name, with no search terms added. In Jacksonville's map for “divorce lawyer near me” on 30 September 2026, one profile's name ran on into “Divorce, Child Custody, Family Law, Free Consultation”. On the profiles we manage, the name is the one on the office sign, and the practice areas go in the categories and services, where Google reads them.
Direct contact and the 30 days after an accident
Rule 4-7.18 bars soliciting, for the lawyer's own gain, a prospective client with whom the lawyer has no family or prior professional relationship, in person, by telephone or by real-time face-to-face electronic contact such as a video call. A written communication seeking a prospective client's case about personal injury, wrongful death or an accident or disaster involving the person or a relative is not sent until 30 days after the accident; the Bar's handbook applies the wait to unsolicited direct mail, email, text messages and targeted social media posts. An unsolicited email seeking a prospective client's case begins its subject line with “Advertisement”, unless it goes to the lawyer's own current or former clients, family or other lawyers.
In those 30 days, the injured person who searches for a lawyer finds whichever firms rank, and whether they find yours depends on pages and profiles built before that day.
Lead sellers and directories
Rule 4-7.17 bars giving anything of value for a recommendation, but a lawyer may pay the reasonable cost of permitted advertising and the usual charges of a lawyer referral service, a directory or a qualifying provider. Under rule 4-7.22, a qualifying provider is anyone who receives any benefit for referring prospective clients to lawyers, which includes matching services, pooled advertising, publishing a list of lawyers together in one place, and providing tips or leads, though not a pro bono referral program or a bar association listing its own members.
An attorney who pays per lead pays a qualifying provider, and may take part only if it meets the rule's conditions. Among them:
- it takes no fee that divides the lawyer's fee, which the comment says a percentage of the fee, or a fee based on the success or perceived value of the case, would be, unless it is The Florida Bar Lawyer Referral Service or a referral service the Bar approves;
- it says nothing to the public, and contacts no prospective client, in a way the rules would bar if the lawyer did it;
- its panel holds lawyers from at least four different firms.
The lawyer, in turn, reports joining it or leaving it to the Bar within 15 days, except for The Florida Bar Lawyer Referral Service and the referral services the Bar approves. A case that comes through the firm's own site and map has no provider between the firm and the client.
What we do on a Florida firm's site
As a lawyer SEO company in Florida, we write titles, descriptions and pages whose claims the firm can support, put each Business Profile at a real office under the firm's own name, and send every claim about results, reviews or expertise to the firm before it goes live. The rest is the work any firm needs: law firm local SEO for the map, a page for each case type the firm wants more of, and reviews asked for the same way from every client.