Communications About Legal Services · 4-10% of the exam

Night-before checklist

Chapter 21 · 9 items

Six points, and the last two both turn on who actually makes the contact:

Every communication about legal services — including firm names, letterheads, and office signage — must satisfy Rule 7.1's non-misleading standard; a technically true statement that omits a critical qualifier still violates.
When a partner takes a substantial public-office appointment and stops practicing, the firm name must change for the duration of the absence; stated intent to return is not the test.
No percentage of fees and no per-referral payment may be paid for a recommendation (a Rule 1.5(e) division with a lawyer who assumes joint responsibility is a fee split, not a referral payment).
Rule 7.2(b): the five narrow exceptions to the anything-of-value bar are advertising costs, legal-service-plan and not-for-profit or qualified referral-service charges, practice-acquisition payments, a nonexclusive reciprocal referral agreement disclosed to the client, and nominal gifts with no prior arrangement, neither intended nor reasonably expected to be compensation.
"Certified specialist" requires actual certification from an approved organization and identification of that organization in the communication; years of exclusive experience do not substitute.
Rule 7.3: live contact (face-to-face, phone, real-time video) with a specific prospect is solicitation, barred when a significant motive is the lawyer's or law firm's pecuniary gain, unless the target is a lawyer, has a family, close personal, or prior business or professional relationship with the lawyer or firm, or is a routine business user (LPR).
LPR is not a complete safe harbor: under Rule 7.3(c) no solicitation is permitted once the target has made known a desire not to be solicited or the solicitation involves coercion, duress, or harassment.
Rule 7.3(d) sits outside that analysis: the Rule does not prohibit communications authorized by law or ordered by a court or other tribunal — court-approved notice to potential class members, for example (cmt [8]).
The agent rule carries no exception for delegation: if the lawyer can't make the contact directly, no proxy can make it either, and discipline runs to the directing lawyer.

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