An act to amend Sections 6153, 6155, 6157, 6157.2, 6158.4, 6158.5, and 6158.7 of, and to add Section 6156.5 to, the Business and Professions Code, relating to attorneys.
SB 37 revises California’s laws governing attorney solicitations, legal advertising, and lawyer referral services. The bill broadens the definition of “advertisement” to cover written, recorded, and electronic communications directed to the public or a limited group, and it adds new content rules for lawyer ads, including prohibitions on misleading claims about skills, experience, or record and restrictions on references to awards or recognitions unless certain conditions are met. It also requires more conspicuous disclosures, including the name of a lawyer or firm and the location of a bona fide office or State Bar address of record.
The bill also changes the complaint-and-review process for allegedly unlawful legal advertising. It requires personal service of complaints, adjusts withdrawal timelines depending on the medium used, extends the State Bar review procedure to joint advertising arrangements, and allows consumers misled by a violating ad to sue for statutory damages, fees, injunctive relief, and other remedies after first going through the State Bar process. In addition, SB 37 creates a new private right of action for violations of lawyer referral service rules, with similar statutory damages and fee-shifting provisions, and it makes recoveries payable to the State Bar’s Client Security Fund in certain enforcement actions.
SB 37 amends multiple sections of the Business and Professions Code regulating attorneys, lawyer referral services, and legal advertising. It expands potential civil liability by authorizing private lawsuits for certain runner/capper and referral-service violations, and it creates new statutory-damages remedies for consumers and other persons harmed by unlawful attorney advertising or referral-service conduct. The bill also updates disciplinary provisions so that additional advertising violations can serve as grounds for State Bar discipline, while clarifying that broadcasters and advertising media are generally excluded from direct liability under these provisions.
The bill appears to have been broadly supported throughout the legislative process. The voting history shows unanimous or near-unanimous committee approval and overwhelmingly favorable floor votes, with no recorded opposition in the committee votes and only one no vote on a Senate third-reading vote. That pattern suggests the measure was viewed as a consumer-protection and professional-regulation bill with limited partisan or institutional controversy.
The main points of potential contention are the bill’s expansion of private enforcement and the increased exposure of attorneys, referral services, and joint advertisers to statutory damages and fee awards. Lawyers and referral services may view the new disclosure requirements, broader definition of advertisement, and stricter rules on awards, testimonials, and claims about experience as burdensome or as increasing litigation risk. At the same time, consumer-protection advocates would likely support the bill’s emphasis on clearer disclosures, stronger remedies for misleading ads, and tighter oversight of referral services and joint advertising arrangements.