Filing Law Firm Ads With the Bar: Which States, When

Three different answers to one question

“Do I have to file my website with the bar” has three answers depending on where you are admitted, and they are not variations on a theme.

In most states the answer is no, because there is no filing system for ads at all, though the rules still govern what you may say. The difference is that nobody reads your page until somebody complains about it, and by then the page has been live for a year.

In the states that do run a filing system, the website is almost always carved out by name. Florida, Texas and Louisiana each exempt it, in Florida’s words at Rule 4-7.20(g) and in Louisiana’s at Rule 7.6(b). The reason for the carve-out is the one you would guess, and The Florida Bar states it plainly: “You cannot file your entire website for review.”

And then there is the third answer, which is where firms get caught. The exemption attaches to the medium, not to the words. Move the same sentence into a medium that is not exempt and it becomes a filing.

That last point is the one worth carrying into the rest of this piece. A filing rule is not a rule about writing. It is a rule about where the writing goes, and the same claim can be free one week and filable the next without a word of it changing.

What four jurisdictions require

New York belongs in this discussion for the opposite reason. It had a filing requirement for certain solicitations, and the amendments that took effect on 1 June 2026 removed it: those “filing and recordkeeping requirements have been eliminated.”

Texas files the homepage, and only the homepage

Texas is the one jurisdiction here that treats a website as partly filable, and the line it draws is unusual enough to be worth reading twice. Rule 7.05(b) exempts “information and links posted on a law firm website, except the contents of the website homepage”.

So your practice area pages, your attorney bio page, your blog and your results pages all sit outside the filing rule. Your homepage sits inside it, unless what is on the homepage is exempt on some other ground. In practice that other ground is Rule 7.05(i), the list of facts a message may contain and still escape filing.

Two things follow from that line, and both of them are useful: a homepage redesign is a new filing, because the contents changed. And the cheapest way to stay out of the system is to move the claims off the homepage and onto the pages that are exempt. That is a layout decision rather than a legal one, and your web designer can make it in an afternoon.

What a filing actually involves

Firms imagine something heavier than it is. The Texas submission is a printout of the “initial access page (homepage) or banner advertisement” and the site it links to, plus an application form and the fee. If the material is not in English, a translation goes with it, and a site that was already approved can be named by its file number rather than printed again.

Florida and Louisiana work the same way: a form, a copy of what you plan to run, and a check. None of the three asks you for a legal argument, and nobody is grading your marketing.

What you get back matters more than what you send. A filing produces a file number and a record of what the bar saw, which is the thing you want on hand if a complaint arrives three years later. The review is also narrower than firms fear, and it is looking at the claims rather than the design.

The trap is the boosted post

This is the part that almost nothing written on the subject covers, and it is the part most likely to cost a firm money.

Florida exempts your website and your own social media page. The Bar’s guidance is explicit that “a lawyer does not have to file the lawyer or law firm’s own page on a social media site.” Then it draws the line: “Paid spot advertising on social media, including ‘boosted’ or ‘sponsored’ posts must be filed for review” unless the content is limited to Rule 4-7.16 material. Banners and ads placed on somebody else’s page are subject to filing too.

Think about how a firm actually markets. Somebody writes a line for the homepage, it does well as an ordinary post, and the firm puts money behind it. Not one word changed, and the duty to file arrived anyway, because the duty follows the medium.

Florida’s guidance on reusing approved material points the same way. You “must resubmit the advertisement if the change in medium requires analysis under different rules”. Its own example is a newspaper ad later used as direct mail.

There is a quieter version of the same trap. Firms often hand their best homepage line to a third-party directory, a sponsored listing or a legal marketplace. That line is now running on somebody else’s page, which Florida treats as subject to filing. The firm never thought of it as an ad, because it read like the website.

The useful habit is to keep two versions of your strongest lines: the one on the site, and a stripped-back one you can promote without a filing. That costs a few minutes once and saves the question every time.

The safe lists, and what is never on them

Both Florida and Texas publish a list of information a communication can contain and stay exempt. They overlap heavily.

Read the right-hand column against your own homepage and you have your answer. Of 29 firm homepages measured for this piece, one carries nothing from it. The median homepage carries five of those things.

One note on the lists, because it matters and is genuinely unsettled. Texas includes “consultation fees”, and saying a consultation is free states that fee. On the reading that favors the firm, “free consultation” is inside the list. A bar could read a promotional banner shouting “FREE CASE REVIEW” as more than a fee statement, so do not build a plan around that one word.

The deadline runs in both directions

Here is a difference that catches firms who assume one state’s habits travel. Florida wants the filing at least 20 days before you use the advertisement. Texas wants it no later than 10 days after dissemination. Louisiana wants it prior to or concurrently with first use.

So a Florida filing is a gate you pass through before publishing, and a Texas filing is a record you lodge after. A campaign planned on the Texas calendar and run in Florida is three weeks late before anybody writes a word.

The effect on a launch is bigger than the rule sounds. Florida’s 20 days covers a 15-day review and 5 days of mailing, so a Florida campaign carries a three-week lead time whether you planned for one or not. Build it into the schedule rather than finding it on the week you meant to go live.

Firms with offices in more than one state feel this hardest. One set of creative, two deadlines running in opposite directions, and the earliest of them governs the whole project. The sensible habit is to plan every multi-state campaign on the strictest calendar you are subject to.

What it costs, and what late costs

The fees themselves are small, and the penalty for lateness is not.

Florida charges $250 for an advertisement filed at least 20 days before first use, and $750 for one filed later, which is a threefold increase for missing a date. Louisiana charges $175 before or with first use and $275 after. Texas charges $100 per advertisement, with no late tier published alongside it.

Two things follow for anybody running paid campaigns at any volume. Each advertisement needs its own filing, so a set of ten creative variants is ten filings and ten fees rather than one. And a firm that habitually files late in Florida is paying $500 extra on every one of them for what is only a calendar problem.

Run that arithmetic on a real campaign and it stops being trivial. Ten variants filed on time in Florida cost $2,500, and the same ten filed late cost $7,500. The $5,000 difference buys nothing: the ads are identical, the review is the same review, and the only thing that changed is the date on the envelope. This is the rare compliance cost you can cut to zero by putting a date in a calendar.

The advance route, and an asymmetry worth using

Texas and Louisiana both let you ask first, and the terms are better than most firms realize.

In Texas you may submit material for pre-approval not fewer than 30 days before first use. If the Committee finds that it complies, that finding binds the Committee in your favor. The one condition is that you “fairly and accurately described” what you sent. A finding the other way does not bind against you if a complaint is later brought.

Read that imbalance again, because it is unusual: a favorable answer protects you, and an unfavorable one does not condemn you. For a campaign you mean to run hard, or a claim you are unsure about, asking first costs a month and very little else.

Louisiana’s version folds the two steps into one. An advisory opinion requested at least 30 days before first use, if it finds the material compliant, also satisfies the ordinary filing requirement. That is one submission doing both jobs, and it is the cheaper route if you were going to file anyway.

Exempt does not mean unregulated

This is the misreading that does the most damage, and it is easy to fall into after reading that your website is exempt.

Florida’s own FAQ puts it plainly: websites are not required to be filed, and “Generally, Rules 4-7.11 through 4-7.17 govern the content of your website.” Louisiana says the same, exempting websites from filing while keeping them subject to Rule 7.9 on false, misleading or deceptive information. Texas requires website content to comply with Rules 7.01 and 7.02 whether or not it is filed.

So the exemption saves you a form and a fee. It does not change a single word of what you may say. Everything that governs a results figure, a client testimonial, or a specialist claim applies to an unfiled page exactly as it would to a filed one. The difference is only whether somebody reads it before a complaint or after.

There is a further point worth sitting with. Because nobody reviews your site in advance, nothing tells you it is wrong until a complaint arrives. A filing system gives a firm feedback, and an exemption takes the feedback away while keeping every bit of the duty.

What you still have to keep

Record retention is a separate duty from filing, and it survives in places where filing does not.

Florida keeps a record-retention rule at 4-7.19(j), and a filed advertisement comes with a file number you can reference later. Texas lets you cite a previously approved site by its file number, which only works if you kept it.

New York is the honest gap in this picture. Its old rule asked for copies of ads kept three years, and one year for computer-accessed messages. A copy of the website was to be kept on publication, after a major redesign, and every 90 days in any event. The amendments effective 1 June 2026 struck out the Rule 7.3 filing and recordkeeping duties. What the published text does not say is what became of the separate retention rule for ads.

Guides written since then still describe that rule as current. The same guides are wrong about two other New York requirements in the same breath, so they are not evidence for the third. If you practice in New York, this one is a question for your own Department rather than for a marketing article.

Whatever your state requires, keeping a dated copy of your homepage is cheap. A screenshot and a date on every meaningful redesign gives you the record if anybody asks what the page said in a given month. It also settles the more common version of that question, which comes from a client rather than a bar, about what you promised them before they signed.

What to do with your own site