How to market a law firm

Before 2003 it was simple: nothing

Before the rules, it's worth knowing their age. Until 2003, Czech lawyers faced a complete advertising ban. Only that year's amendment to the ethical code opened the door and let lawyers inform the public about their services under clearly defined conditions. That's one generation of experience, not centuries of precedent like in the US. It explains why today's rules stay fairly short and principle-based, rather than spelled out into dozens of specific prohibitions like the American ABA code.

The ethical code (Resolution of the Bar's Board No. 1/1997, as amended) today rests on four articles anyone doing marketing for a law firm should know.

What Articles 25 and 26 allow

A lawyer has the right to inform the public about the services they provide, provided the information is accurate, not misleading, and respects confidentiality and the other core values of the profession (Art. 25). Personal publicity in press, radio, TV or on social media is allowed under the same conditions (Art. 26). Three simple tests, no long list of exceptions: accuracy, not-misleading, dignity.

From a European vantage point, this is actually standard. The CCBE's framework code for European lawyers (in force since 1988, updated 2021) says the same thing in different words: a lawyer may inform the public if the information is accurate and not misleading, though states may adjust the form and content for reasons of independence, dignity and confidentiality. The Czech rule is nearly a direct transcription of the European principle, not a national quirk.

Comparing it to other jurisdictions is useful because it shows how loose the Czech framework actually is. The American ABA Model Rules 7.1 to 7.3 spell out prohibitions in detail (bans on untrue comparisons, precise solicitation rules); the British SRA Code of Conduct (points 7.1(c), 8.8, 8.9) allows almost any advertising including Google Ads, and only bans targeting a specific unapproached person. Czechia sits closer to the British principle-based model than the American enumerated one, which is good news for creative work.

Two sentences that can close your firm

Article 31 bans offering legal services to a specific, unapproached person. You can't find a company you know is dealing with a dispute and send them a pitch. Article 32 is just as important and less known: a lawyer may not delegate advertising to a third party in a way they could not do themselves. In other words, whatever agency you hire has to follow exactly the same rules you do. Cold outreach, address-level lead-gen, or paid brokering of specific inquiries are practically off the table for a lawyer, whether they do it themselves or someone else does it for them.

The Bar's disciplinary commission actually enforces this. As recently as August 2025, a disciplinary panel heard a case against a lawyer accused of soliciting clients (though it did not find them guilty in that specific case). The fact that this is being litigated in 2026, not as a historical curiosity, is a good reason to take Article 31 seriously.

And one thing you won't find a clear answer to anywhere: a named lawyer's personal content on social media. Article 26 ties personal publicity to the same conditions as firm publicity, so a partner's LinkedIn post falls under the same rules as the firm's billboard. According to publicly available commentary, the Bar hasn't yet issued an explicit position on this, so it's a genuine, actively debated grey area, not a settled question.

Referrals still open the door, but reviews now decide

Here's something a lot of firms underrate. Per a US survey by Scorpion (2025), 74% of clients research a firm online even after a referral, and 60% say reviews now carry more weight than word of mouth. BrightLocal 2026 adds that 97% of people read reviews before deciding, and 68% require at least four stars, up from 55% a year earlier. The bar rises every year.

A referral just gets you onto the shortlist. What decides is what the client finds when they look you up themselves.

And how fast you respond is a marketing lever, not an operational detail. Hennessey Digital's analysis (150,000 data points across 1,300+ law firm websites) found a median response time to a web form of 13 minutes, with a quarter of firms never responding at all. From the same family of data: over 70% of people say they'll walk away if nobody responds within 24 hours. Whoever answers first, and sensibly, often wins regardless of whose website looked nicer.

Rankings aren't bought, they're earned over a year

Chambers and Partners runs over 366,000 research interviews and data collections a year and receives more than 66,000 submissions from over ten thousand firms. The Legal 500 states directly on its site that a listing cannot be bought. Both institutions want dozens of client references and a year-long track record, not a PR package. Právnická firma roku does the same in Czechia, under the patronage of the Ministry of Justice and with Bar support, and every November its gala generates its own news cycle across the media.

The practical takeaway: a ranking isn't a plaque on the wall, it's infrastructure you invest in continuously, through references and client care today, not a campaign before the submission deadline.

HAVEL & PARTNERS, the largest Czech-Slovak firm, runs this in-house at full scale: it has its own communications leadership, collects awards (the Lemur PR award, the Fénix content competition) and consistently wins the domestic-firm category at Právnická firma roku. A smaller firm doesn't need to compete in the same league, but the principle holds: PR and rankings compound over time, not in campaigns.

Educational content as the safest path

If you're asking what you can publish that's fully compliant with Article 25, the answer is simple: content that explains, not persuades. An educational article on how a divorce works or how inheritance is settled clears the accuracy and not-misleading tests almost automatically, because it promises and compares nothing.

Dostupný advokát, founded by Ondřej Preuss, is the textbook Czech example. A firm aimed at small businesses and freelancers built its position on dozens of educational articles a month, a newsletter and regular media presence, becoming, per available rankings, one of the most-visited legal websites in the country. Nobody promises a courtroom win, every article just explains how something works.

Another sign this pays off: a Passle survey of general counsel found 48% wouldn't work with a firm that can't demonstrate relevant expertise, but only 18% of partners think their own marketing shows that expertise well. The gap between what clients want to see and what firms actually publish is exactly where content marketing has the biggest effect.

The new front: what ChatGPT says about you

The share of people who'd use ChatGPT to help choose a lawyer rose, per a US survey, from 9% in 2023 to 28% in 2025. That's new behaviour, and it's not solved the way classic SEO is. Breakdowns of what AI models cite when answering questions about choosing a lawyer show they cite legal directories (Chambers, Legal 500 and similar) far more often than individual firm websites.

In practice: if you want to show up in an AI answer to "I need a lawyer for a merger" or "divorce lawyer Prague", don't rely on your own website alone. An actively maintained, well-filled-out directory profile is now partly a matter of AI-search visibility, not just prestige. And Czech-speaking lawyers have a head start they don't know about: 62.2% of Czech advocates already use general AI tools daily, per a March 2026 survey by the Czech Technical University, but only 18% use specialised legal-AI tools. Client-side AI adoption is moving faster than the profession has noticed.

Honest billing as a marketing message

A BigHand survey of over 800 legal-finance professionals found an interesting gap: 47% of firms say clients want more alternative fee arrangements (fixed fee, cap, success fee), yet most firms apply this to fewer than 40% of their matters. Whoever closes that gap and can credibly prove it, not just mention it in a rate card, gets differentiation exactly where competitors only promise it.

Where law firm marketing most often trips up

• Superlatives and comparisons. "Best firm in Prague" or a direct comparison with a competitor runs into both the not-misleading test and general unfair-competition rules.
• Paid, address-level lead-gen. Buying specific inquiries through a broker can fall under the Article 32 ban, even if the lawyer hires an agency to do it.
• Cold outreach, even B2B. Personally approaching a specific company is Article 31, however elegantly it's written.
• AI content of unclear origin. Machine-generated reviews or legal commentary published without review risk both accuracy and the dignity of the profession, and the Bar has no clear position on this yet.
• Silence after an inquiry. Not a Bar rule, but lost clients all the same. Median response time 13 minutes, a quarter of firms never respond.

My take: the playbook differs by clientele

Family and criminal law, a business built on individuals, lives and dies on Google reviews, response speed and local SEO. Corporate and M&A practice, where a company picks the client, lives on rankings, referrals between lawyers and partners' personal brand on LinkedIn. Most "universal" legal-marketing advice ignores this split and serves one answer to both. Decide which game you're playing first, then pick your channels.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: Czech Bar Association, Ethical Code (Resolution No. 1/1997) · Advokátní deník · CCBE, Charter of Core Principles and Code of Conduct for European Lawyers · ABA, Model Rules of Professional Conduct 7.1-7.3 · SRA, Code of Conduct for Solicitors · Scorpion, Legal Consumer Trends Report 2025 · BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 · iLawyerMarketing (2025) · Hennessey Digital, Lead Form Response Time Study 2025 · Passle, Legal Marketing Leadership Survey 2024 and GC Survey 2023 · BigHand, Legal Pricing and Budgeting Trends 2025 · Chambers and Partners, The Legal 500, Právnická firma roku (EPRAVO.CZ) · Czech Technical University, AI-among-lawyers survey (2026).

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