How to Market Without Violating the State Bar

In this episode, Marc Cerniglia shares insights from 15 years of law firm marketing experience and breaks down how to promote your firm confidently without crossing ethical lines. From understanding your state bar’s intent to using smart, compliant strategies that still get attention, Marc explains how to balance creativity and caution in your marketing — so you can stand out and stay out of trouble.

📌 Key Takeaways:

• Why understanding your state bar’s intent matters more than the letter of the law.
• How to play in the “gray area” safely without risking violations.
• Practical examples of compliant yet effective marketing strategies.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Bar Rules And Marketing Basics
• 0:56 Intent Behind Advertising Regulations
• 1:37 The Power Of Niching And Certification
• 2:09 Outdated Rules Meet Modern Platforms
• 3:16 Practical Compliance And Common Sense
• 3:46 Sponsor And Resource Link

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Okay, so let's talk about these dreaded bar associations and making sure that you don't violate their marketing rules. Um okay, so you know, we've been doing marketing for law firms for about 15 years now, and so we've and we do it all across the country, so we've had experience, you know, with a variety of different rules and things like that. Um look, here I would say a couple things to this. First of all, uh to be honest with you, the very first thing to understand is that it's your responsibility to know the rules, right, of the state that you're in. And and what whether you hire an agency or you hire your own marketing person inside of the firm, like ultimately, like that's something that you have to know and understand, right? Every state is different, um, you know, and and and obviously it's your firm, so you want to make sure that that you know those rules. However, here's what I'll say, and this is just my experience, right? Um, kind of give my own disclaimer if you're watching here, right? This is not legal advice. Um, but my experience has been that most of these bar associations, they are looking for intent. They are looking um for people, uh they're looking to create rules, I should say, that either A uh restrict lawyers who maybe are trying to be dishonest or um are kind of overly soliciting um or misrepresenting things, and they are also trying to protect the potential client, the consumer, right, from being misled. Um, and so that's why a lot of state bars will have things like, you know, you can't use words like expert unless you're you're board certified in that area. And by the way, that's one of the best things you can do is you is to niche down, and especially if you can niche down in something where you can get board certified, because then you can use some of that language that marketers love to use. Um, however, um where I'm going with that is it's been our experience that some of these rules are a little bit outdated sometimes, and they're written with the intent to avoid some of the things that I just shared. Okay. So it's up to you how much you're willing to play in the gray. But I'll give you a quick example, right? I there was one state, I forget the exact language, but it was something like every single piece of marketing content had to have, I don't know if it was a disclaimer or certain words in it. And it was like, okay, well, wait a second, like, does that mean every social media post has to then be followed up by this language? Because I mean that that would obviously be extremely irrational, right? Especially when social media is limiting characters and things like that. You know, so in that situation, we said, okay, well, we'll just put that in the bio of the social media account, right? And and so, you know, you could reach out to the bar associations to get clarity, but to be honest with you, sometimes um they're not gonna have that clarity because a lot of times their their rules are a little bit outdated, they're not keeping up with marketing. So my like personal advice that isn't legal advice is to use a little bit of common sense um because you're no one's gonna likely come after you, um, even if you maybe violated something to the letter of the law. Um, they're really looking to kind of avoid some of those situations I described earlier. So I know that you're a lawyer, I know that maybe you don't live in the gray, or maybe you do. So if you wanted to be sure, you could always contact your bar association. But I'm just telling you from 15 years' experience, um, sometimes you need to look at the intent behind a rule because a lot of state bar associations are gonna really uh enforce the intent. Not they're not necessarily going around just looking for every single slight violation to the letter of the law. That that's been what we've seen over the years.

SPEAKER_00: 3:46

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