People looking for a lawyer now ask AI as well: “Is there a firm in Kadıköy that works on employment law?”, “What is the address of such-and-such law office?”, “Which bar is this lawyer registered with?” The answers sometimes include firm names, addresses and phone numbers. If the information is old or scattered, the AI describes the firm incompletely or wrongly.
In other industries, the answer to this is content, promotion and visibility work. For lawyers in Turkey, things are different. The advertising ban strictly limits what a law firm can do online. In this article we set out those limits and what can be done within them.
A note: this article is not legal advice. We summarise the rules as we read them for the firms we work with. For your own situation, follow your bar association’s current announcements.
The framework: the advertising ban
The core rule is in Article 55 of the Attorneys’ Act No. 1136. Lawyers may not engage in any attempt that could be considered advertising in order to obtain work. The Act leaves the details to a regulation issued by the Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB). Under Article 135 of the Act, breaching the advertising ban is subject to a reprimand. The TBB Professional Rules follow the same line: a lawyer avoids unnecessary conduct aimed solely at gaining fame (Rule 7) and any conduct aimed at obtaining work (Rule 8).
The details are in the TBB Advertising Ban Regulation. It changed significantly in 2024, and the rules on the internet were gathered in a new Article 7. A 2026 amendment set up an Advertising Ban Violations Monitoring Centre within the TBB. The centre identifies possible breaches across all media, including online, and refers them to the relevant bar association.
A practical warning: the old article numbers and keyword lists still widely quoted online belong to the text before the 2024 amendment. Don’t rely on an old PDF or an old blog post. Check the current text in the Official Gazette.
What a website may contain
Article 7 of the Regulation lists the information a lawyer’s or firm’s website may include. In short:
- Lawyers’ names, photographs and academic titles in law
- The firm name or partnership title
- Bar and TBB registration numbers, date of admission, university, languages spoken
- Address, phone, fax and email
- The areas the firm works in, worded so as not to imply specialisation
At first glance the list looks narrow. But from an AI point of view, almost everything needed to describe a firm correctly is on it. For an AI to answer “who is this firm, where is it, what areas does it work in, how do I reach it” correctly, this is enough.
What AI visibility means for lawyers
In other industries, AI visibility includes the goal of “being mentioned more often in answers”. For lawyers we do not set that goal. Producing content to stand out in AI answers could be read as an attempt to obtain work.
Our goal for lawyers is this: when someone asks an AI about your firm, they see the correct address, phone number, bar association and practice areas. It is not promotion. It is accuracy.
1. Consistent firm information
AI does not get to know a firm from a single source. It combines many: the firm’s website, its Google Business Profile, the bar’s register, an old directory listing, a news site. If the address, phone or firm name differs across these, the AI gets confused or uses the old information.
The work is simple but needs care:
- Write the firm name the same way everywhere. “Yılmaz Law Office”, “Att. Ayşe Yılmaz” and “Yılmaz & Partners” can look like three different entities.
- Check that the address and phone match across the website, the Business Profile and the bar’s records.
- If you have moved, find the places where the old address still appears and update them.
2. Practice area pages
The Regulation allows practice areas to be listed, without claiming specialisation. A short, neutral description for each area tells both readers and AI what the firm does.
The line matters here. Under an “Employment law” heading, a plain text explaining what employment law covers is fine. “Our expert team wins your employment case” is not. Separate landing pages combining a city and a practice area (such as “kadikoy-employment-lawyer”) can also be seen as a ranking-driven attempt. Stay away from them.
3. Informative content and FAQs
Articles and FAQs are a grey area. Our position is cautious: we do not recommend them by default. If the firm wants them, there can be a small number of articles, signed by the lawyer, dated, citing sources, academic in tone and with no call to action. Each one is published only with the lawyer’s written approval.
FAQs can follow the same logic: practical questions about reaching the office, appointments, opening hours, which documents to bring. These help readers and help AI answer questions about the firm correctly. Questions that hint at case outcomes, fees or success do not belong in an FAQ.
4. Google Business Profile
AI tools often use map and business listing data for local questions, so the Google Business Profile matters. Our approach for lawyers: keep only factual information on the profile. The correct name, address, phone, opening hours and website link. No asking for reviews, no promotional posts.
The TBB has not yet issued a clear opinion on Google Business Profile, WhatsApp or AI visibility. Our position here is an interpretation based on the Regulation’s general principles. When in doubt, we leave it out.
5. Structured data
You can describe the firm’s identity in a machine-readable way with schema.org markup on the website. The LegalService type can be used for the firm and Person for the lawyers. Put only the information the Regulation allows into this markup: name, address, phone, practice areas, bar details. Do not use rating (aggregateRating), review (review) or award (award) properties. We explain the general logic of structured data in structured data for AI.
What not to do
Some methods sold under the “AI visibility” banner carry clear risks for lawyers:
- Promises. Phrases promising an outcome, such as “we’ll win your case” or “we’ll get you what you’re owed”.
- Comparisons. Comparing yourself with other firms or lawyers, “what sets us apart” copy.
- Claims of superiority. “Best”, “leading”, “expert”, “pioneer in the field”, “experienced team”. These should not appear on the site, in meta tags or in structured data either.
- References and results. Client names, client reviews, cases won, success rates.
- Fees and offers. Fees, package prices, “free initial consultation”.
- Paid promotion. Ads, sponsored content, paid directory listings, bought links.
- Mass content production. Series of guides produced to appear in AI answers, targeting a particular group.
With the Monitoring Centre in place, these issues are no longer examined only when someone complains, they can be picked up on the TBB’s own initiative. Whatever an agency does ends up as the lawyer’s responsibility.
Where to start
- Ask three different AI tools about your firm and note the address, phone and practice areas they give.
- Find the wrong or outdated information and look for its source.
- Make the information on your website, Google Business Profile and bar register identical.
- Review the text on your website against Article 7 of the Regulation. Remove “expert”, “best” and similar words.
- Follow your bar association’s and the TBB’s announcements regularly.
You can run these checks yourself. If you would like to look together at how your firm’s information appears in AI and on Google, reach us through the free analysis form. When we work with lawyers, we work on accuracy and compliance, not promotion.