Law firms are allowed to advertise. That has been settled in German professional law for a long time, yet in practice it is handled so cautiously that many websites of lawyers, tax advisers and civil-law notaries stay well below their potential: a homepage with a column motif, three practice areas as a bullet list, a phone number. The reason is rarely indifference; it is uncertainty about where the line runs. This guide sorts out the rules that actually apply to a law firm website: which designations may be used and which have to be substantiated, how to handle success claims and client testimonials, which mandatory details go beyond the usual imprint, how to design first contact without prematurely creating an engagement, how sensitive documents arrive confidentially, and how fees can be presented transparently without promising something professional law forbids. It does not replace legal advice in an individual case.
Advertising is allowed, staying factual is mandatory
The starting point for German lawyers is a single, short provision. Section 43b of the Federal Lawyers' Act permits advertising insofar as it informs about professional activity in a factual manner in form and content and is not aimed at obtaining an engagement in an individual case (Federal Lawyers' Act, Section 43b). That yields three tests which can be applied to every page of a law firm website: is the statement about professional activity? Is it factual in form and content? Does it target a specific, already known individual matter? The professional code makes this concrete and is in fact less strict than the wording of the statute suggests: under Section 6 (1) of the professional code, advertising must not be unobjective, unfair or misleading, and within those limits advertising for an individual engagement is permissible as well (Professional Code for Lawyers, version of 1 December 2025). In daily practice this means: a page on unfair dismissal that explains what matters about a deadline is unproblematic. An approach addressing a named individual after a specific event and asking for an engagement is not.
Advertising is permitted to a lawyer only insofar as it informs about professional activity in form and content in a factual manner and is not aimed at obtaining an engagement in an individual case.
How strongly this provision actually steers behaviour has been studied by the Soldan Institute. In its 2021 professional law barometer, 1,285 (Soldan Institute, professional law barometer 2021) lawyers with entrepreneurial responsibility were asked whether professional law had ever concretely stopped them from planned marketing activities. 17 percent (Soldan Institute, professional law barometer 2021) said yes, 68 percent said no, the rest gave no answer. The distribution by age is revealing: among those up to 50 years of age, 23 percent (Soldan Institute, professional law barometer 2021) reported such a brake, among those over 70 only 5 percent (Soldan Institute, professional law barometer 2021). And specialisation raises the number of open questions: generalists named advertising law as an obstacle in 15 percent (Soldan Institute, professional law barometer 2021) of cases, firms focused on both practice areas and target groups in 21 percent. The study also notes that many of the examples given would probably have been permissible and were dropped anyway. Precisely this precautionary restraint costs visibility without being required by professional law.
For tax advisers, the basic rule is worded identically: advertising is permitted insofar as it informs about professional activity in form and content in a factual manner and is not aimed at obtaining an engagement in an individual case (Tax Advisory Act, Section 57a). The professional code of the Federal Chamber of Tax Advisers adds in Section 9 that advertising contrary to professional duties exists in particular where advertising breaches competition law, and that it is impermissible to have third parties carry out such advertising or to tolerate it (Professional Code of the Federal Chamber of Tax Advisers, Section 9). The frame is considerably tighter for notaries: under Section 29 of the Federal Notarial Code, a notary must refrain from any commercial conduct and in particular from advertising that contradicts the public office (Federal Notarial Code, Section 29). Anyone acting as a lawyer and notary must separate the two presentations and state the official seat alongside the title. For the website this means notarial services are described rather than promoted, and the official seat is visible. How promotional statements can be phrased in line with fair trading law in general is covered in the article on pricing and advertising claims on your website; the professional rules come on top of that.
This article does not replace legal advice
Focus area or specialist title
The most common professional law mistake on law firm websites concerns not advertising in the narrow sense but designations. There are two clearly separated categories. The first are the specialist titles awarded by the bar. The specialist regulations currently permit 24 (Specialist Lawyers' Regulations, Section 1) fields, from administrative, tax, employment and social law through family, criminal and medical law to public procurement, migration and sports law. Anyone holding such a title has evidenced three years of admission and practice within the last six years, completed a course of at least 120 hours (Specialist Lawyers' Regulations, Section 4), documented case numbers, and must maintain the title through at least 15 hours (Specialist Lawyers' Regulations, Section 15) of continuing education per field and calendar year. Nobody may hold more than three specialist titles. As of 1 January 2026 Germany counted 47,436 (German Federal Bar, specialist statistics) specialist lawyers holding a combined 58,177 (German Federal Bar, specialist statistics) titles; 1,555 (German Federal Bar, specialist statistics) people held the maximum of three. The strongest fields are employment law with 11,253 (German Federal Bar, specialist statistics), family law with 8,314 (German Federal Bar, specialist statistics) and tax law with 4,584 (German Federal Bar, specialist statistics) titles.
The second category consists of self-chosen statements about parts of one's professional activity. Section 7 of the professional code permits them independently of specialist titles but ties them to evidence: only someone who can demonstrate knowledge matching their own statements, acquired through training, professional practice, publications or otherwise, may name such areas. Anyone using qualifying additions such as focus or specialisation must additionally hold corresponding theoretical knowledge and have been active in the named field to a considerable extent. The decisive limit sits in subsection 2: such designations are impermissible insofar as they create a risk of confusion with specialist titles or are otherwise misleading (Professional Code for Lawyers, Section 7). On the website this means: a focus area of tenancy law is permissible if it matches reality. A wording that looks typographically and linguistically like an awarded title is not.
| Statement on the page | What it requires | Where it fails |
|---|---|---|
| Specialist lawyer for employment law | title awarded by the bar under the specialist regulations | title kept after the continuing education records lapse |
| Focus area: tenancy law | demonstrable knowledge and considerable actual practice | the focus is on the page but barely appears in the caseload |
| Area of interest: inheritance law | corresponding knowledge, a lower bar than a focus area | presented like a specialist title, for example as a seal |
| Specialist in traffic law | theoretical knowledge, considerable practice, no risk of confusion | the term sits visually where a specialist title would sit |
| Certified adviser for a field | completed course, provider of the certificate identifiable | the certificate is used as if it were an official designation |
| Specialist adviser for international tax law | designation awarded by the tax adviser chamber | the designation is attributed to the firm rather than a person |
| Team with a focus on corporate law | knowledge of the named individuals, attributed per person | the firm as a whole carries a person-bound designation |
Attach designations to people, not to the firm
In the tax advisory profession the range of official additional designations is much smaller. The specialist adviser regulations of the Federal Chamber of Tax Advisers recognise two designations, namely specialist adviser for international tax law and for customs and excise duties. As of the reference date there were 1,823 (Federal Chamber of Tax Advisers, professional statistics 2025) holders of the first and 63 (Federal Chamber of Tax Advisers, professional statistics 2025) of the second. For comparison: on 1 January 2026 the tax adviser chambers counted 105,953 (Federal Chamber of Tax Advisers, professional statistics 2025) members, among them 89,549 (Federal Chamber of Tax Advisers, professional statistics 2025) tax advisers. Around 18.2 percent (Federal Chamber of Tax Advisers, professional statistics 2025) of members hold an additional professional qualification, the largest group being the 8,554 (Federal Chamber of Tax Advisers, professional statistics 2025) who are also appointed auditors. Anyone showing such double qualifications on a website should separate them cleanly: the professional code requires designations other than the officially awarded ones to be spatially separated from the name and the professional title.
- Every specialist title sits with the person holding it and is stored in that person's profile.
- Self-chosen focus areas are documented internally: case numbers, courses, publications or talks, each with a date.
- No focus area is typeset so that it looks like an awarded title, for example as a seal, badge or suffix right after the name.
- The firm as a whole carries no person-bound designation, not even in page titles or search result descriptions.
- Departed professionals are removed entirely or marked as departed, including author profiles and image captions.
- A fixed routine checks at least once a year whether designations, education records and actual practice still match.
Success claims and client testimonials
Hardly any topic leads astray faster than the wish to prove competence with numbers. Success rates, cases won or amounts recovered look convincing but are doubly delicate. First, a rate without a reference base and a stated method is hardly factual within the meaning of Section 43b of the Federal Lawyers' Act and quickly becomes misleading within the meaning of Section 6 (1) of the professional code. Second, it regularly conceals selection: a firm that only takes promising matters naturally reports different rates than one with broader access. More useful than a rate is a comprehensible description of the work: which constellations are typical, which steps a proceeding takes, which deadlines run, what clients should expect. That is unproblematic under professional law and answers the questions people actually have before making contact.
For client testimonials the legal position is particularly clear. Under Section 6 (2) of the professional code, advertising with engagements or with clients is permissible only with express consent, and that applies expressly even where the relationship is no longer covered by the duty of confidentiality (Professional Code for Lawyers, Section 6). Implied agreement is not enough, and an oral assurance is hard to evidence. On top of that, even naming someone as a client can itself be a protected secret. Anyone wishing to show references therefore works with written consent, a clear statement of purpose and a way to withdraw. How reviews and references can be presented safely in general is covered in the articles on customer reviews on your website and on client references, logos and project photos; in a law firm context the professional consent requirement is an additional hurdle.
Consent in writing
Anyone quoted agrees in text form, with the quote itself, the purpose of use and a route for withdrawing the agreement.
Matter instead of person
Anonymised descriptions of proceedings without names, locations, sectors or amounts describe the work without making an engagement identifiable.
Phrased to be provable
Instead of rates and superlatives the page names the approach, the deadlines and typical courses of events, all statements that can be substantiated.
Mandatory details beyond the ordinary imprint
Regulated professions face an extended catalogue of duties. Section 5 (1) no. 5 of the German Digital Services Act requires three additional items alongside the general provider identification: the chamber the provider belongs to, the statutory professional title together with the state in which it was awarded, and the designation of the professional rules plus information on how those rules can be accessed (German Digital Services Act, Section 5). The last point is missed most often: listing the statutes is not enough, it must also be clear where the texts can be found, usually via a reference to the publication of the competent chamber. In parallel, the ordinance on information duties for service providers applies. Its Section 2 (1) no. 11 requires details of professional indemnity insurance, in particular the name and address of the insurer and the geographic scope of cover (Ordinance on Information Duties for Service Providers, Section 2). That detail is missing from a great many law firm sites even though it costs nothing to add.
The background is a compulsory insurance. German lawyers must maintain professional indemnity insurance; the minimum sum insured is 250,000 euros (Federal Lawyers' Act, Section 51) per insured event. For tax advisers the implementing ordinance provides the same minimum sum per event, supplemented by an annual aggregate of at least one million euros (Ordinance Implementing the Provisions on Tax Advisers, Section 52). Many firms insure well above that, which is a factual and permissible argument in matters with a high value in dispute. Anyone stating the actual cover should keep it current. The general mandatory details and the structure of legal pages are described in the article on imprint and privacy policy; the table below only adds what chamber professions need on top.
| Additional detail | Legal basis | Typical gap |
|---|---|---|
| Competent chamber with address | Section 5 (1) no. 5 (a) DDG | only the chamber name, no address or web address |
| Statutory professional title and awarding state | Section 5 (1) no. 5 (b) DDG | title stated, awarding state missing |
| Professional rules and where to find them | Section 5 (1) no. 5 (c) DDG | the statutes are listed without a route to the texts |
| Indemnity insurer and geographic scope | Section 2 (1) no. 11 of the information duties ordinance | insurer named, geographic scope of cover missing |
| VAT identification number | Section 5 (1) no. 6 DDG | the tax office number is given instead of the VAT ID |
| Professional practice company with register | Section 5 (1) nos. 1 and 4 DDG | partnership register or registration number not stated |
| Official seat for notarial activity | Section 29 (3) of the Federal Notarial Code | title of notary without the official seat directly following |
Mandatory details per language version and per location
First contact without premature engagement
A contact form on a law firm website is a different thing from one on a tradesperson's site. As soon as someone describes their matter, two risks arise at once. The first is the conflict of interest: lawyers may not act where they have already advised or represented the opposing side in the same matter. Every enquiry should therefore capture which matter and which opposing party are involved so that the conflict check can happen before the first substantive reply. The second risk is expectation: someone who submits a description of their situation often assumes it is being handled. If a deadline is running, that can become a liability issue even though no engagement exists yet. A clear, visible statement of expectations next to the form is therefore not a formality but part of protecting both sides.
- The form states in plain language that submitting it does not create an engagement and does not preserve any deadline.
- It asks for the matter, the area of law, the opposing party and the urgency, not for the full file with attachments.
- For urgent matters the page names a telephone route so that nobody entrusts a running deadline to a web form.
- Receipt is confirmed with a realistic statement of when a reply will follow, and without any substantive assessment.
- The conflict check happens before the first substantive reply and is documented in the internal workflow.
- Only after the check does an appointment proposal follow, together with a note on the cost of an initial consultation.
- Enquiries that do not lead to an engagement are deleted after a defined period, including any attached documents.
Booking an appointment itself may well be convenient. A form asking for area of law, urgency and preferred call-back time shortens the route noticeably without becoming problematic under professional law. General requirements for forms, confirmations and response times are described in the article on contact forms and enquiry handling. For law firms one thing is added: the fewer substantive details are transmitted in the first step, the lower the risk that sensitive information reaches a firm that may not take the matter for conflict reasons. A two-stage flow, first contact and subject matter, then documents after the check, is therefore the cleaner route in terms of both professional law and data protection.
Confidential transmission of sensitive documents
The duty of confidentiality is at the core of the profession, and it has a very concrete technical side. Section 2 (2) of the professional code requires organisational and technical measures needed to protect client confidentiality that are risk-appropriate and reasonable for the profession; technical measures suffice insofar as they meet the requirements of data protection law, other measures must correspond to the state of the art (Professional Code for Lawyers, Section 2). The same provision also covers the practically most important case: using a communication channel that carries risks for confidentiality is permitted in any case where the client agrees, and agreement may be assumed where the client proposes or starts that channel and continues to use it after being told about the risks at least in general terms. For a website this yields a simple blueprint: an encrypted transmission route as the default, an understandable note on the risks of unencrypted email, and the option to choose the preferred channel.
- Transport encryption for the entire site and encrypted transmission of form content only, plus a size limit for attachments.
- A separate, access-protected area for extensive documents so that file contents do not travel through third-party systems as email attachments.
- A short, understandable note on the risks of unencrypted messages, documented with a date so that the agreement stays traceable.
- Separate storage: enquiries that do not lead to an engagement do not belong permanently in the same place as active files.
- Access rights by role so that not everyone in the office can read every incoming description of a matter.
- A defined deletion point for form data and attachments that is actually executed technically.
A second point concerns everyone buying technical services, which in practice means every firm with a website. Section 43e of the Federal Lawyers' Act allows service providers to be given access to protected facts insofar as this is necessary for the service, but requires careful selection and a contract in text form in which the provider is bound to confidentiality after being instructed about the criminal consequences of a breach (Federal Lawyers' Act, Section 43e). For services performed abroad a comparable level of protection is additionally required; for services directly serving an individual engagement the client's consent is needed. This complements the data protection layer without replacing it: the requirements for data processing agreements with website vendors apply unchanged alongside, as do the technical and organisational duties under Article 32 of the General Data Protection Regulation.
Embedded third-party content is more delicate here
Fee transparency without impermissible promises
The question of cost is the most common reason someone drops out before making contact. It can be answered without touching professional law. For advice there is a statutory ceiling where no fee agreement has been made and the client is a consumer: the fee is then at most 250 euros (Lawyers' Remuneration Act, Section 34), for a first advisory meeting at most 190 euros (Lawyers' Remuneration Act, Section 34), plus VAT in each case. At the same time the act provides that a fee agreement should be worked towards. A page that names this frame and explains what happens afterwards removes the biggest hurdle to making contact. The second duty matters just as much: where fees are based on the value in dispute, this must be pointed out before the engagement is accepted (Federal Lawyers' Act, Section 49b). That note does not belong in the small print but where the decision about an appointment is made.
Two limits apply. First, statutory fees may generally not be undercut unless the remuneration act provides otherwise, which rules out discount campaigns. Second, contingency fees are permissible only in narrow exceptions: where the engagement concerns a monetary claim of at most 2,000 euros (Lawyers' Remuneration Act, Section 4a), for out-of-court debt collection services, or where the client would otherwise be deterred from pursuing their rights. Anyone advertising outside these limits that no costs arise if the matter is lost is operating beyond the permissible frame. For tax advisory services the profession's own remuneration ordinance sets the frames, and those can be explained on a website just as well. A transparent cost page is therefore not a risk but the professionally clean alternative to vague promises.
| Statement about fees | Assessment | Better wording |
|---|---|---|
| Initial consultation from 190 euros net for consumers | permissible if the statutory frame is reproduced correctly | name the frame and add when a fee agreement is made |
| No win, no fee | impermissible outside the statutory exceptions | describe the conditions for a contingency fee instead of promising it |
| Cheaper than the statutory fees | undercutting is generally impermissible | explain the basis of billing and put the value in dispute in context |
| Fixed price for any contract review | possible depending on scope, but needs justification | describe scope, limits and additional effort concretely |
| Free initial assessment by phone | permissible if the scope is clearly limited | state duration, purpose and the line to paid advice |
| Billing based on the value in dispute | permissible, notice required before accepting the engagement | place the notice on the appointment page, not only in the footer |
A page structure that makes competence provable
The requirements above almost dictate how a law firm website should be built. It needs pages describing the work, pages showing the people with their designations, a page on the process and the costs, and the mandatory pages. Which pages a business website needs in general is described in the article on the pages a business website needs; for law firms the weighting shifts: process and costs move to the front, self-presentation steps back. Language matters just as much. Terms that are indispensable in a pleading miss their target on a website; how to phrase content clearly without losing precision is shown in the article on website copy people actually read. And a page about the firm that shows careers and working methods instead of platitudes works particularly well for chamber professions, as described in the article on the about page.
Practice areas, not keywords
One page per area of law with typical constellations, process and deadlines, phrased factually and without qualifying additions that lack evidence.
People with designations
One profile per professional with admission, specialist title or focus area, education status and responsibility for follow-up questions.
Visible intake path
From first contact through the conflict check to the initial consultation as a traceable sequence, so nobody assumes an engagement that does not exist yet.
Costs explained early
Statutory frame for initial advice, basis of billing and the notice about the value in dispute right where the appointment is arranged.
A confidential channel
A protected transmission route for documents, plus the note on the risks of unencrypted messages and the option to choose the channel.
Complete mandatory pages
Chamber, professional title with awarding state, source of the professional rules, insurer with scope of cover and privacy details per language version.
A law firm template with a factual tone and a clear intake path
This is exactly what the XICflow template for law firms provides. The tone is factual rather than promotional, the page architecture follows the intake path, and the professional mandatory details are set up as dedicated fields rather than free text that gets lost in the next rebuild: chamber, professional title with awarding state, source of the professional rules, insurer and geographic scope of cover. Designations are stored per person and appear where that person appears, not in a header above all practice areas. First contact is designed as a two-stage flow that first records the matter and the opposing party and only requests documents after the conflict check. What the builder covers overall is listed in the feature overview, and how a site is created from briefing to publication is shown on the page how it works.
Mandatory details as fields
Chamber, professional title, awarding state, source and insurance details are output per language version and survive rebuilds.
Designations tied to people
Specialist titles hang on the professional's profile and disappear entirely when that profile is deactivated.
Two-stage first contact
The form sets expectations, records the matter and the opposing party, and hands over documents only after the check via a protected route.
Whether such a template beats building it yourself depends on the starting point. Anyone with a well-maintained site who only has to add the mandatory details does not need a rebuild. Anyone facing the question of how much time ongoing maintenance, accessibility, translation and the permanent reachability of the mandatory pages will cost will find the differences set out on the comparison page. Finished examples can be viewed in the demos, and the scope per plan is listed on the pricing page. Whichever route is chosen, the same sequence works for law firms: settle the professional law questions first, then fix the structure, then design. Anyone with questions about a concrete project will find the routes on the contact page.