Legal advertising

Legal advertising is advertising by lawyers (attorneys), solicitors and law firms. Legal marketing is a broader term referring to advertising and other practices, including client relations, social media, and public relations. It's a type of marketing undertaken by law firms, lawyers (attorneys) and solicitors that aims to promote the services of law firms and increase their brand awareness. Digital platforms have increasingly dominated legal marketing plans, often at the expense of traditional print advertising, as the perceived benefits of digital marketing have grown. Practices such as social media marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, and pay-per-click advertising (PPC) now combine with traditional public relations and legal advertising (billboards, TV and radio ads, newspaper ads, etc.) as the main strategies in legal marketing. Many law firms advertised relatively freely in the U.S. in the 19th century. Ads appeared regularly in the classified sections of newspapers. Even Abraham Lincoln advertised his law firm in the 1850s. Since then, the legal profession has had somewhat of an uneasy relationship with advertising. This was largely prompted by the American Bar Association (ABA) condemning lawyer advertising in its 1908 Canons of Professional Ethics, after which many states passed regulations banning or severely limiting attorney advertising. From the early 20th century until the 1970s in the U.S., legal marketing was severely curtailed and where it was allowed, it was highly regulated. When two young attorneys (John R. Bates and Van O’Steen) advertised their legal clinic in a local Arizona newspaper in 1977, perceptions about legal marketing began to shift. The legal clinic's advertisement stated that they were offering “legal services at very reasonable fees” and listed fees for certain services, such as uncontested divorces. It didn't go unnoticed. The lawyers were found to have violated the Arizona rule preventing attorneys from advertising in newspapers and a complaint was filed against them.