In Charleston, ChatGPT named 4 injury firms. Is yours one of them?

In South Carolina you do not file ads, but you must review each one, keep a copy for two years, show a responsible lawyer's name and office address and the office city, and wait 30 days before any direct contact with an accident victim.

Who enforces it

South Carolina Supreme Court, enforced by the Commission on Lawyer Conduct and the Office of Disciplinary Counsel

The rules

Rules 7.1 to 7.3 of Rule 407, SCACR (Rule 7.2 advertising, Rule 7.3 solicitation)

Filing or review

No general filing requirement found in the official rules. No filing is required. A 2010 Supreme Court order removed the old duty to file ads, and the current Rule 7.2 text has no filing step. Instead the lawyer must review each ad before it runs and keep a copy or recording for two years after last use, with a record of when and where it ran (Rule 7.2(b)).

Required labels

Every ad must include the name and office address of at least one responsible lawyer (Rule 7.2(d)) and the city or town where the lawyers principally practice (Rule 7.2(h)). Ads must be predominantly informational (Rule 7.2(a)). Required disclosures must be conspicuous, and on a website must appear on the same page as the statement they qualify (Rule 7.2(i)). Written, recorded or electronic solicitations to people who need legal help must carry an 'ADVERTISING MATERIAL' label, including in an email subject line, plus other required statements (Rule 7.3(d)).

Contacting accident victims

30 days. A solicitation about a personal injury, wrongful death, or accident or disaster involving the person or a relative is barred unless the event happened more than 30 days earlier (Rule 7.3(b)(3)).

Testimonials, results, specialist

Rule 7.2 comment 4 says ads should be useful, factual and objective. Ads that mention a fee must say whether the client also owes expenses, and an advertised fee must be honored for at least 90 days (Rule 7.2(f), (g)). No testimonial or specialist rule was found on the Rule 7.2 page, only the general Rule 7.1 truthfulness standard.

Online ads

Rule 7.2 comment 7 lists online ads, domain names and web-design staff as allowed marketing costs. Rule 7.3 comment 1 says website content, internet banner ads and ads generated by internet searches are generally not solicitations. Ethics Advisory Opinion 23-03 (Rule 7.2) concerns a short text-only ad and says the responsible-lawyer name and address rule applies only to ads with substantive advertising content beyond firm name, logo and ordinary contact information.

ChatGPT Ads

OpenAI accepts US law-firm ads from firms licensed where the ad runs, after business verification and ad review. A ChatGPT ad aimed at South Carolina needs your South Carolina license, and it is still lawyer advertising under the rules above.

Sources: sccourts.org, sccourts.org, sccourts.org. Parts of this summary were read from a published copy of the rules because the official site could not be reached; check the official text before relying on it.

More on how the rules work across states: law firm advertising rules and can lawyers advertise on ChatGPT.