Can a law firm use AI-generated people in its ads?

Carefully, and often with disclosure. Several US state rules, New York's among them, require ads to disclose when actors portray lawyers or clients or when scenes are dramatised, and a generated person is best treated as an actor. Never generate images of the firm's own lawyers or real clients, and check your own jurisdiction's rules.

Is it safe to use AI with client material for case studies?

Only in tools your firm has approved for confidential data, and only with the client's permission to publish. Consumer tools may retain or learn from what is pasted into them, which can breach confidentiality and, for lawyers, privilege. ABA Formal Opinion 512 makes the same point for US lawyers.

Can AI write our thought leadership?

It can draft, restructure, version and summarise, but the ideas have to come from the named author. Readers judge a firm by whether its thinking is specific and experienced, and generic prose signals the opposite. A good workflow starts from a partner interview, checks every fact, and ends with the author's approval.

AI Content for Professional Services Firms

AI content creation for professional services firms.

Law, consulting and accounting firms can use AI to produce thought leadership, proposals and campaign content faster, but they sell credibility and operate under professional rules. Lawyers' advertising is regulated by bar and regulator rules on claims, testimonials and dramatisations, client material is confidential and often privileged, and every published view must be one a named expert actually holds and can defend.

Advertising rules for lawyers

Lawyers advertise under their own rules. In the US, each state adopts a version of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, whose Rules 7.1 to 7.3 prohibit false or misleading communications, restrict solicitation and limit claims to be a certified specialist. Some states go further. New York, for example, requires disclosure when actors portray lawyers or clients or when an ad dramatises events, and a past-results disclaimer alongside statements about results. A generated person in a law firm ad is best treated as an actor, and a generated courtroom scene as a dramatisation. In England and Wales, the SRA's Transparency Rules require price and service information for listed services, and firms must display the SRA's digital badge on their websites.

Client confidentiality and privilege

Professional firms hold other people's secrets, and marketing is one place they leak. A case study drafted by pasting a matter file into a consumer tool, a pitch deck built from a client's financials, or a thought-leadership piece seasoned with details from live work can breach confidentiality and, for lawyers, risk privilege. The ABA's Formal Opinion 512 (July 2024) confirms that lawyers' duties of competence and confidentiality apply to generative AI, including understanding how a tool uses the information put into it. Name clients only with written permission, anonymise properly rather than cosmetically, and keep matter material in systems approved by the firm's risk and IT teams.

Thought leadership that a partner can defend

Thought leadership is the main marketing asset of most professional firms, and generic AI prose is its opposite. Buyers read it to judge whether the firm understands their problem better than competitors do, and a fluent article with no point of view, no specific experience and no risk tells them it does not. Use generation for the scaffolding: turning a partner's interview into a draft, versioning an article by sector and market, producing summaries, social posts and slides. The argument, the examples and the conclusions must be the named author's own, and every citation and statistic must be checked against its source. If the partner could not defend a sentence in a client meeting, cut it.

Credibility: real people, real offices, real claims

Clients buy people, so the people must be real. Never use generated headshots for staff, never show an office the firm does not have, and never imply a specialism, accreditation or ranking the firm cannot evidence. Accounting bodies' ethics codes likewise bar exaggerated claims and disparaging comparisons with other firms. The studio keeps approved credentials and banned claims in the brand hub, runs every asset through approvals with an audit trail, and can run confidential work on private models so proposal and pitch material stays inside the firm. Generation then does the volume: versions of a proposal for each office and sector, and graphics for reports in the firm's own style.

Updated 25 September 2026 · General information, not legal advice. Rules change, so check the current text with your legal team before relying on it.