New York just rewrote the rules for lawyer advertising and solicitation.
On May 27, 2026, New York's Appellate Division adopted a rewrite of the rules governing how lawyers may advertise and solicit clients, replacing a long list of detailed, format-specific requirements with a single standard: is the communication false or misleading. The rewrite, effective June 1, also dropped the 30-day waiting period that had applied to soliciting people about a specific accident.
By Helena Harper, Editorial Director
The change
On May 27, 2026, New York's Appellate Division, acting across its four Judicial Departments, adopted amendments to Rules of Professional Conduct 1.0, 7.1, 7.3, and 7.4, the provisions that govern how lawyers may advertise their services and solicit clients. The amendments took effect June 1, 2026, and apply to every lawyer admitted in New York, regardless of practice area.
The rewrite replaces rules that had grown highly detailed over time, covering matters as specific as website archiving schedules, retention periods for advertising records, and even email subject lines and metadata, according to a New York State Bar Association continuing-education program describing the change. In their place, the new framework applies a single, principles-based standard, one that a practitioner summary of the rewrite describes as resembling the approach the American Bar Association took when it revised its own Model Rules in 2018.
From checklist to standard
A principles-based rule states the underlying standard once and leaves a lawyer to apply it across whatever new format comes next, rather than requiring a fresh rule amendment every time advertising moves to a new platform. Rule 7.1 was retitled "Communications Concerning a Lawyer's Services" to reflect that shift. Its core requirement is simply stated: a lawyer may not make a false or misleading communication about the lawyer or the lawyer's services, and a communication can be misleading by what it leaves out, not only by what it says outright.
Unlike the rule it replaces, the new standard does not list out formats or channels one by one. According to the practitioner summary, it applies uniformly to communications made through any media, a firm's website, an online attorney profile, an email campaign, or a digital ad, rather than regulating each one separately with its own technical requirements. A firm that previously tracked separate compliance checklists for its website, its email newsletter, and its social media accounts now measures all three against the same standard.
The rules keep guardrails on specific language. Words like "specialist," "certified," and "expert" still must reflect a lawyer's actual qualifications. Public communications must also identify the lawyer or law firm responsible for the content. What the rewrite eliminated was Rule 7.4 as a standalone rule, the provision that had separately governed how lawyers identify their practice areas and disclose specialty certifications.
What moved for solicitation
The most closely watched change involves person-to-person solicitation, the direct outreach a lawyer or firm makes to a specific potential client rather than general advertising. Before June 1, Rule 7.3 barred a lawyer from soliciting a specific person about a potential personal-injury or wrongful-death claim before the 30th day after the incident, with a narrower exception that allowed solicitation after 15 days if a legal filing deadline fell within that 30-day window, according to the New York Codes, Rules and Regulations governing solicitation. In practice, the rule applied most directly to personal-injury and plaintiffs' firms, whose outreach to accident victims and their families is the kind of solicitation the rule was written to time.
Law360 reported that the rewrite drops that 30-day pause. A firm that previously had to calendar a fixed waiting period before contacting a specific accident victim no longer has that calendar deadline built into the rule itself. Its removal does not mean solicitation goes unregulated: the same false-or-misleading standard that now anchors Rule 7.1 still applies to solicitation communications, and Rule 7.3's other limits on how a lawyer may approach a specific person remain in place. What changed is the fixed calendar delay that used to apply regardless of the circumstances of a given case.
Three consequences for practicing attorneys
What changes, in practice, for firms that advertise or solicit clients in New York:
No more mandatory pause
Person-to-person solicitation about a specific accident or incident no longer has to wait for the 30-day, or 15-day with a filing deadline, window that Rule 7.3 used to require. The general prohibition on false or misleading communications still governs how that outreach is written.
Checklist becomes standard
Detailed, format-specific requirements gave way to one core test: whether a communication is false or misleading, including by what it omits. Marketing review now turns on judgment about the message, not a list of technical boxes to check for each channel.
Specialization claims still guarded
Rule 7.4's separate disclosure rule is gone as a standalone provision, but claims like "specialist," "certified," or "expert" still have to reflect a lawyer's real qualifications under the broader false-or-misleading standard.
New York's advertising rules had accumulated years of itemized detail, the kind of rule a firm complied with by working through a checklist rather than exercising judgment about the underlying message. The rewrite asks a different question: whether what a lawyer says, in any medium, is honest and complete.
For firms built around itemized compliance, especially those with a dedicated marketing review process, the shift means retraining that review around judgment rather than a checklist. For personal-injury and plaintiffs' firms specifically, it also means revisiting how quickly they can now reach out after an accident, and making sure that faster outreach still meets the general standard the rest of the rule now rests on.
Archivar
The Archivar Editorial Desk
Fact-checked against the authorities listed below. This article is for general informational purposes and is not legal advice.
Sources: N.Y. Comp. Codes R. & Regs. tit. 22, Part 1200 (Rules of Professional Conduct), New York Appellate Division; Law360, "NY Rule Rewrite Drops 30-Day Pause For Atty Soliciting" (Emily Sawicki, June 23, 2026); New York State Bar Association continuing-education program materials; Ronald S. Cook, P.C., "New York Lawyer Advertising Rules 2026."
