22 September 2026 · 6 min read · Oscar Markham
What solicitors can and cannot say in their advertising
Most legal marketing advice online is American, and applying it in Ireland will get a firm into difficulty. Solicitors' advertising here operates under professional regulation, with personal injury work restricted specifically and significantly. Plenty of agencies have never read any of it.
Start from the restriction, not the tactic
The rules exist to stop the profession being sold like a commodity, and they bear most heavily on personal injury. Claims about outcomes, anything that reads as soliciting particular business, and comparisons that imply superiority over named firms all need care or are off the table entirely.
An agency that does not know this will propose a campaign that looks perfectly normal in another sector and creates a regulatory problem for you in a fortnight.
What you are free to do
A great deal, and almost none of it is being used. Explaining what areas you practise in, who you typically act for, what a first consultation involves, what a conveyance usually costs and how long it takes — all of that is factual, useful and entirely permissible.
Most firm websites say considerably less than this, which is why the ones that say it plainly stand out immediately.
Conveyancing is the obvious opening
Property transactions generate constant search volume with unambiguous intent. The client chooses locally, decides quickly, and is usually anxious about cost and timelines.
It is also unrestricted, and advertised by almost nobody outside the largest firms. A solicitor visible for conveyancing in their own town picks up work that currently goes to whoever the estate agent happened to mention.
Reviews do the reassuring
People are more anxious choosing a solicitor than almost any other professional, and no amount of copy addresses that as well as other people's experiences.
For a local firm, a well-maintained Google profile with genuine reviews will out-convert a redesigned website, and it costs nothing but asking.
Where the line sits in practice
If you are unsure whether something crosses it, the practical test is whether the claim is verifiable and whether it could be read as a promise about a result. Factual, verifiable and no implied outcome is safe territory.
And the sign-off should always be yours. Any agency that tells you what is compliant, rather than asking you to confirm it, is taking a risk with your practising certificate rather than their own.
Written by Oscar Markham, founder of Dublin Growth Digital. We run lead generation for Irish estate agents and trades, reported every Friday in enquiries and booked work.