ABA Rule 7.3: Lawyer Solicitation Rules, State by State

ABA Rule 7.3 is the solicitation rule in the ABA's Model Rules: it defines which outbound contacts count as solicitation, and bars the live, person-to-person kind when a significant motive is pecuniary gain.

The parent guide to attorney advertising rules covers Rules 7.1 and 7.2 and the state filing picture; Model Rules bind no one until a state adopts them, and your state's adopted version controls.

What ABA Model Rule 7.3 says: solicitation of clients defined

ABA Model Rule 7.3(a), as adopted in August 2018, defines solicitation as a communication initiated by or for a lawyer, directed to a specific person the lawyer knows or should know needs legal services in a particular matter, and offering to provide those services.

The live person-to-person ban and its exceptions

Rule 7.3(b) bars soliciting by live person-to-person contact when a significant motive is pecuniary gain, unless the person is a lawyer, has a family, close personal or prior business or professional relationship with the lawyer, or routinely uses that type of legal service for business.

The comments define live person-to-person contact as in-person contact, live telephone and other real-time visual or audio contact.

Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Ass'n, 436 U.S. 447 (1978), upheld discipline of a lawyer who solicited accident victims in person for pecuniary gain.

Rule 7.3(c) applies to every channel, written and electronic included: it bars solicitation of a person who has said they do not want to be solicited, and solicitation involving coercion, duress or harassment.

The slang and the penalty stack for this conduct are in ambulance chasing.

What the comments put outside solicitation

The comments settle the easy cases: not solicitation when directed to the general public, in response to a request for information, or automatically generated in response to electronic searches.

That second category is the Model Rule basis for treating a call to a person who just submitted your firm's consultation form as a response, not a solicitation; a form submitted to a third-party lead generator is not settled in the Model Rule.

Texts are not live contact under those comments, but outside the ban is not the same as unregulated: a text can still meet the Rule 7.3(a) definition, Rule 7.3(c) still applies, and the TCPA and your state's rule apply on top.

How state lawyer solicitation rules differ

Formal Opinion 501 noted in 2022 that some states have not adopted the narrowed definition, naming Florida as its example.

The same outreach can sit outside the Model Rule and inside your state's attorney solicitation rules.

Florida (rules version October 1, 2026)

Florida bars in-person, telephone and real-time video solicitation for pecuniary gain of anyone without a prior family or professional relationship, whether or not the lawyer knows the person needs legal services, and bars a written solicitation about personal injury, wrongful death or an accident or disaster unless the event happened more than 30 days before the mailing (Rules 4-7.18(a) and (b)(1)(A)).

Targeted solicitations must be marked "advertisement", an email subject line must begin with "Advertisement", and the Bar's handbook applies a first-word marking to targeted texts (Rule 4-7.18(b)(2)).

Texas (advertising rules effective July 1, 2021)

Texas separates an "advertisement" aimed at the public from a "solicitation communication" aimed at a specific person the lawyer knows or should know needs legal services, both substantially motivated by pecuniary gain (Rule 7.01(b)).

Rule 7.03 bars soliciting a non-client in person or through regulated telephone, social media or other electronic contact, and requires targeted written solicitations to be marked "ADVERTISEMENT" (Comment 10 presumes a text properly marked when its first word is "ADVERTISEMENT").

Texas Penal Code §38.12(d), October 2026 text, makes it an offense for a licensed attorney to send an unsolicited communication about personal injury, wrongful death or an accident or disaster "before the 31st day" after the event, including by social media direct message; a first offense is a Class A misdemeanor, a repeat offense a third-degree felony.

Rule 7.06 bars keeping a matter obtained through conduct the advertising rules prohibit.

New York (amendments effective June 1, 2026)

Amended Rule 7.3(b) bars live person-to-person solicitation when pecuniary gain is a significant motive, and the amended comments say text messages are not live contact.

Per NYSBA's summary (bar guidance, August 2026), the rewrite eliminated the former 30-day blackout on mass tort and personal injury or wrongful death solicitation, plus solicitation filing and 3-year recipient-list retention.

New Jersey (RPC as of amendments through September 1, 2018)

New Jersey's 30-day bar is a mass-disaster rule only: RPC 7.3(b)(4) bars unsolicited direct contact within 30 days after a specific mass-disaster event, when the contact concerns compensation from it.

For other specific events, the rule confines targeted solicitation to a regular-mail letter marked "ADVERTISEMENT" and carrying two required notices (RPC 7.3(b)(5)).

California (rules effective November 1, 2018)

California Rule 7.3(a) bars soliciting by in-person, live telephone or real-time electronic contact when pecuniary gain is a significant motive, and Rule 7.3(b) bars any solicitation of a person who has said stop or that involves intrusion, coercion, duress or harassment.

Targeted written, recorded or electronic solicitations must say "Advertisement" or similar words on the envelope and at the beginning and end of recorded or electronic messages (Rule 7.3(c)).

Formal Opinion 501: the vendor's conduct becomes the firm's

The ABA's Formal Opinion 501 (April 13, 2022), advisory and binding in no state, describes a lawyer paying a lead generator for mass-tort leads, the generator phoning people found in online accident-survivor chat rooms, and the lawyer's answer: "I don't know what you are doing, and I don't care! Keep 'em coming!"

The opinion treats the lawyer as responsible for prohibited solicitation and in violation of Rules 5.3(b) and 5.3(c) for failing to train the vendor and ratifying its conduct; it reads Rule 8.4(a) to bar doing through another person what the lawyer cannot do directly.

The conditions for paying a lead generator are the subject of lead generation ethics for lawyers.

The layers that stack on Rule 7.3

47 CFR 64.1200(c) (eCFR, October 2026) bars telephone solicitations to residential subscribers before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. local time and to numbers on the national Do-Not-Call registry, subject to listed safe harbors.

The consent rules behind those calls and texts are in TCPA rules for law firms.

The channel decisions for mail campaigns sit in law firm direct mail.

Checks before any outbound outreach

More Booked Cases runs controlled conversion tests on law firm websites and landing pages and measures consultation and signed-case rates with read access to intake or CRM numbers; it does not review outreach against bar rules or manage Google Ads.

Before your firm relies on any of this, confirm how your state's rule treats the contact you have in mind with your state bar's ethics counsel or an ethics lawyer.

Frequently asked questions