Legal marketing has at least one major thing in common with being a lawyer: there are a lot of rules. To make it even more difficult, they’re different state by state. While many rules line up to say similar things or the same thing, there isn’t a thorough and detailed federal standard for what law firms can and can’t do across the country. Each state has its legal marketing rules, and Connecticut is no different.
We’ve already gone over ENX2 Marketing’s home state of Pennsylvania, and many of our clients. Now we want to talk about Connecticut, which has rules of its own that make it a bit different than Pennsylvania and other states.
No matter what state you are marketing in, you have to know all the legal marketing rules and regulations of your home state. If you’re a law firm in Connecticut and you’re not sure yourself, let us help.
Who Makes the Legal Marketing Rules in Connecticut?
The Judicial Branch of the State of Connecticut currently upholds the state’s legal marketing rules. They have several resources that attorneys can reference to learn more or familiarize themselves with. While this is incredibly useful, if you’re caught not following one of these rules, it looks even worse on you. This adds more pressure on Connecticut law firms to always be on top of their marketing or have a marketing firm that is.
The Legal Marketing Rules in Connecticut
Connecticut has laws that prohibit the use of terms like “expert” or “specialist,” as many other states do. Make sure you don’t call yourselves this in any of your marketing materials, on landing pages or websites, or at public speaking engagements. These have hefty punishments.
Filing Your Attorney Advertisements
Other than that, Connecticut places a large emphasis on filing your “attorney advertisements.” The state defines attorney advertisements as “any communication made by a lawyer or law firm about the lawyer or law firm or concerning the legal services offered by the lawyer or law firm.” As you can probably tell, many things fall under this definition.
An easy way to remember what you have to file is anything you wouldn’t be allowed to add “expert” or “specialist” to. These include things already said, but also correspondences like:
- Letterheads
- Business cards with attorney information on it (Name, address, phone number, email)
- Telephone directory ads
- Lawyer list entries
- Press releases/professional announcements stating changes to a firm’s business operations
- Communications sent to existing or former clients not pertaining to their case
What Does it Mean to File Your Advertisements?
Where in Pennsylvania you needed to keep a copy of everything, Connecticut wants you to send copies to them of everything. You have to file these documents before they are disseminated to the public. They have a form available online that must be done online–not by mail–and sent to Connecticut’s Judicial Branch E-Services. This form must include:
- The contact information of the attorney at the law firm who takes responsibility for the advertisements.
- A copy of the attorney advertisement with all of the information available on it exactly. This includes the contact information on a business card, for example.
- If there is audio used in the advertisement, a transcript of the audio.
- A sample of the envelope used for the advertisement if it was or is to be mailed.
- A list of all the media where the advertisement content will appear if it is multimedia.
- The frequency with which the advertisement will be used in each medium it is used in.
- The names of all other attorneys involved with the advertisements if there is more than one besides the lead.
- An accurate English translation of the advertisement and/or transcript if the advertisement was not originally in English.
For website domains, all that you own and use have to be “filed quarterly on the first business day of January, April, July, and October.” The content on your website itself does not have to be filed or recorded for the state, a difference from many other states. Domains for the personal websites of each attorney do not have to be filed if they do not advertise for the attorney’s law firm. The law firm’s social media accounts do not have to be filed either.
Who Has to File Attorney Advertisements in Connecticut?
In Connecticut, all legal marketing correspondences have to be filed with the state. If you are a law firm from out-of-state marketing in Connecticut, you have to file with Connecticut like an attorney who operates in Connecticut would. If you live in Connecticut but operate your law firm outside of Connecticut, you would also have to file your attorney advertising with the state.
Contact ENX2 Marketing to Help With Your Legal Marketing in Connecticut
Finding the time to learn how to market your law firm well is hard, and doing it is even harder. Adding all the legal marketing rules in Connecticut on top, and for some law firms, legal marketing can feel impossible. If you feel like this, ENX2 Marketing is the law firm that can help you.
We have a wide array of experience providing law firms with websites, social media posts, press releases, video transcripts, graphics for all marketing materials, and more. We are also familiar with the marketing laws of the states our clients operate in, so you can rest assured that you won’t be fined or cited for your marketing. Contact us today for more information.