Rule Library · Ohio
Attorney advertising rules in Ohio
What follows is what Ohio’s published rules require of a law firm’s own advertising, in the order it usually matters: the label, past results, what you may claim about specialization, testimonials, fee statements, and filing.
This is a reading of published rules, not legal advice. Your bar, and you, decide what may be published.
The rule areas
- Advertising labelnot yet verified
- We have not read Ohio’s text on this rule area yet, so we will not cite a rule number for it. The bar’s own URL is in the margin.
- Prior resultsnot yet verified
- We have not read Ohio’s text on this rule area yet, so we will not cite a rule number for it. The bar’s own URL is in the margin.
- Specialization claimsCleared
- Ohio Rule of Professional Conduct 7.4 prohibits a lawyer from stating or implying they are a specialist in a particular field of law unless certain conditions are met (certification by an organization recognized/approved for that purpose). Ohio doesn't appear to run the certification program itself under Rule 7.4, but the Ohio State Bar Association separately offers a legal-certification program (11 specialty areas) as an accrediting/certifying body.
- Bar filingnot yet verified
- We have not read Ohio’s text on this rule area yet, so we will not cite a rule number for it. The bar’s own URL is in the margin.
- Testimonialsnot yet verified
- We have not read Ohio’s text on this rule area yet, so we will not cite a rule number for it. The bar’s own URL is in the margin.
- Fee statementsnot yet verified
- We have not read Ohio’s text on this rule area yet, so we will not cite a rule number for it. The bar’s own URL is in the margin.
What changed recently
I was unable to load Ohio's official Rules of Professional Conduct PDF (supremecourt.ohio.gov's PDF viewer link required a valid parameter I could not resolve within budget); the specialization citation is based on secondary-source snippets referencing 'Rule 7.4' rather than a directly fetched official rule text, so ad_label, prior_results, filing, testimonials, and contingency_fee are left null and the specialization text should be re-verified against the official rule before use.
Check your firm’s site against Ohio’s rules.
We read your home page and up to 4 more, then name each place your copy is missing something these rules require.