Law firms use AI to produce marketing material faster — explainers, newsletters, practice-area pages, follow-up sequences — and then review every word before it is published, because the Ontario rule is that marketing must be demonstrably true, accurate and verifiable. The drafting is where the time is saved; the review is where the risk sits.
Key takeaways
The Law Society of Ontario’s rule is short and strict: a lawyer may market legal services only if the marketing is demonstrably true, accurate and verifiable; is neither misleading, confusing or deceptive nor likely to mislead, confuse or deceive; and is in the best interests of the public and consistent with a high standard of professionalism. Marketing is defined broadly enough to catch firm names, letterhead, business cards and logos, not just advertisements.
Read the commentary next to it, because it reads like a list of things a general-purpose model produces on request. Marketing that may contravene the rule includes stating an amount recovered for a client or referring to a degree of success in past cases without the accompanying statement that past results are not necessarily indicative of future results; suggesting qualitative superiority to other lawyers; raising expectations; suggesting the lawyer is aggressive; and testimonials or endorsements containing emotional appeals.
The commentary also lists marketing that does contravene the rule: marketing services the lawyer cannot currently perform to a competent standard, bait-and-switch offers, failing to disclose clearly a practice of referring clients for a fee, failing to state expressly whether the marketed services will be provided by lawyers or paralegals, and referring to awards, rankings or third-party endorsements that are not bona fide. It is explicit that awards and rankings include superlative titles such as “best”, “super” and “#1”.
Two further requirements catch firms out. A lawyer marketing legal services must specifically identify in all marketing materials that they are licensed as a lawyer. And the marketing of second opinion services is prohibited outright, whatever the intent behind it.
On fees, the rule permits advertising them if the advertising is reasonably precise as to the services offered for each fee quoted, states whether other amounts such as disbursements, third-party charges and taxes will be charged in addition, and — the part that matters — the lawyer strictly adheres to the advertised fee in every applicable case. A model asked to write a landing page will happily produce “from $X” with no scope attached. That is the wrong shape.
On specialisation, a lawyer shall not advertise being a specialist in a field unless certified by the Law Society. The commentary permits advertising areas of practice, preferred areas, a restricted practice, and a description of proficiency or experience — provided the representations are accurate and not misleading. “Specialist” and “expert” are not interchangeable synonyms for a copywriter to pick between, and a model does not know that.
Turning a matter type you actually run into a plain-language explainer that answers the question a client asks on the phone. Turning one long article into a newsletter, a set of short posts and an FAQ. Drafting the follow-up sequence for an enquiry that did not convert. Producing French versions for review by someone who can actually read them. Writing meta descriptions and subject lines, which are genuinely tedious and genuinely low-risk.
The rule of thumb: AI is good at producing a lot of the same thing, and marketing review scales badly. So the constraint on your marketing programme becomes review capacity, and the design question is how to make review fast — a house style sheet, a banned-phrase list built from the commentary above, and a single named reviewer.
The most persuasive marketing material a firm owns is its own matters, and it is the material you are least free to use. The obligation is to hold in strict confidence all information concerning the business and affairs of the client acquired in the course of the professional relationship unless authorised by the client or otherwise permitted. Anonymising a matter is not automatically sufficient when the parties would recognise themselves. Get consent, or write generically.
Canada’s anti-spam legislation governs distribution regardless of how the message was written. Under section 6 of the Act, it is prohibited to send a commercial electronic message unless the recipient has consented, expressly or impliedly, and the message identifies the sender, provides contact information valid for at least sixty days, and sets out an unsubscribe mechanism. The CRTC publishes its own guidance on the legislation, and our sister firm covers the practical questions: CASL compliance for email marketing, implied versus express consent and what an unsubscribe mechanism has to do.
The exposure is not theoretical. Section 20 sets the maximum administrative monetary penalty at $1,000,000 for an individual and $10,000,000 for any other person, with a list of factors including the nature and scope of the violation and any financial benefit obtained. The relevant point for an AI-assisted programme is that generating more messages does not generate consent; the list is the constraint, not the copywriting.
A five-lawyer Ontario firm wants twelve practice-area pages it has never had time to write. The associate who runs each area records a fifteen-minute voice note answering the same six questions. A model turns each note into a draft page in the firm’s house structure. One partner reviews all twelve against a one-page checklist built from the rule: no superlatives, no results claims without the required accompanying statement, no fee figure without scope, no “specialist”, an express statement that services are provided by licensed lawyers, and no client matter identifiable.
Twelve pages take a fortnight instead of a year. The checklist, not the model, is the reason they are publishable.
Do we have to say a page was written with AI?
The rule does not turn on the tool; it turns on whether the marketing is true, accurate, verifiable and not misleading. What matters is that a licensee has reviewed and stands behind it. If a page implies a person wrote something a person never read, that is a candour problem regardless of the technology.
Does this apply outside Ontario?
The rules quoted here are Ontario’s. The Law Society of British Columbia, the Barreau du Québec and every other provincial law society set their own marketing rules, and they are not identical. Check yours before reusing copy across provinces.
Can AI write our client testimonials?
No. A testimonial is a statement by a client; if it was not, publishing it is misleading, and the commentary specifically warns about testimonials containing emotional appeals even when genuine.
A 30-minute call is enough to tell you whether AI pays for itself here.
