Is Your Legal Marketing Agency Compliant? A Guide to California SB37 for Joint Advertisers

California's SB37 reshaped how personal injury attorneys can structure joint advertising arrangements with outside marketing companies, and its requirements are now embedded in the state's Business and Professions Code. For firms that rely on shared advertising, campaigns run by a marketing company on behalf of multiple attorneys simultaneously, often the fastest and most cost-efficient way to achieve meaningful television, radio, or large-scale digital reach, understanding SB37 legal advertising compliance for marketing agencies isn't optional. Firms that partner with a marketing agency running joint campaigns without confirming the agency has actually structured its agreements to meet current requirements can find themselves sharing in liability for problems they didn't create and may not have even known existed. This guide walks through what SB37 requires, how joint advertising agreements need to be structured, and the questions firms should ask before signing with any marketing partner running shared campaigns on their behalf.

What SB37 Actually Changed

Before SB37, joint advertising arrangements, where a marketing company ran a single campaign featuring or referring cases to multiple participating attorneys, operated with comparatively little specific statutory structure governing how responsibility was allocated if something went wrong with the advertising itself. SB37 introduced clearer requirements under Business & Professions Code section 6156.5, formalizing what needs to be documented in writing between participating attorneys and the marketing entity running a joint campaign, and clarifying how quickly non-compliant advertising must be withdrawn once a problem is identified. The legislative goal was straightforward: joint advertising arrangements had grown common enough, and consequential enough for consumers navigating them, that the informal handshake agreements some firms and marketing companies had relied on previously were no longer considered adequate protection for either attorneys or the public.

Written Agreement Requirements

Joint advertising agreements for law firms operating under SB37 now generally need to be documented in a written agreement between each participating attorney and the marketing entity, rather than relying on informal understanding. That written agreement should clearly identify who is responsible for reviewing advertising content before it runs, how case referrals or inquiries generated by the joint campaign get distributed among participating attorneys, and what financial arrangement governs the relationship, since payment structures tied too closely to case referrals can raise separate fee-sharing concerns under California's broader ethics rules beyond SB37 itself.

Firms should treat the written agreement requirement as a floor, not a ceiling. A bare-minimum agreement that technically satisfies the written documentation requirement but leaves ambiguity around content approval authority or referral distribution mechanics still exposes participating attorneys to disputes and compliance risk down the line, even if it doesn't violate SB37's letter on its face.

Ad Withdrawal Timelines

One of SB37's more consequential practical requirements involves how quickly problematic advertising must come down once identified as non-compliant, whether due to a misleading claim, an attorney's departure from the joint campaign, or a change in the underlying facts an ad relies on. Firms partnering with a marketing agency should confirm the agency has documented, tested procedures for pulling content quickly across every channel it appears on, television, digital, social, print, since a delay in withdrawal after a known problem is identified compounds both the compliance exposure and the reputational risk for every attorney whose name is attached to that joint campaign.

Liability Allocation Among Participants

A central purpose behind SB37's structure is clarifying how liability gets allocated when a joint advertisement runs into a compliance problem, rather than leaving every participating attorney exposed collectively regardless of their individual role in creating or approving the problematic content. A properly structured agreement should specify what happens if one participating attorney's conduct, or the marketing entity's own decisions, creates a compliance issue, ideally limiting exposure for attorneys who had no role in and no reasonable ability to catch the specific problem. Firms should have their own counsel review this allocation language carefully rather than assuming a marketing company's standard agreement template adequately protects the firm's specific interests, since these templates are sometimes drafted primarily to protect the marketing entity itself.

• Confirm the joint advertising agreement is documented in writing and covers every participating attorney.
• Verify the agreement clearly defines content approval authority before ads run.
• Check that ad withdrawal procedures are documented and have been tested, not just described.
• Review how liability is allocated if a compliance issue traces back to one participant.
• Confirm the payment structure doesn't create fee-sharing concerns beyond SB37 itself.

PI Lawyer Lead Generation Compliance Beyond SB37

SB37 compliance is necessary but not sufficient on its own; joint advertising arrangements still need to satisfy California's broader attorney advertising rules covering truthful communication, testimonial standards, and specialization claims covered under the California Rules of Professional Conduct. PI lawyer lead generation compliance in a joint advertising context means the marketing entity's content needs review against both frameworks simultaneously, since content that satisfies SB37's documentation requirements can still violate the underlying substantive advertising rules if it contains a misleading claim or an improper testimonial, regardless of how well the joint agreement itself is structured.

Balancing Compliance With the Real Benefits of Joint Advertising

None of this is meant to suggest firms should avoid joint advertising altogether out of caution. Done properly, joint advertising remains one of the most cost-efficient ways for a mid-sized or smaller personal injury firm to access advertising reach, television spots, large-scale digital campaigns, brand recognition, that would otherwise require a marketing budget well beyond what most individual firms could justify on their own. The point of understanding SB37 thoroughly isn't to discourage participation, it's to ensure a firm enters these arrangements with clear eyes about what proper documentation looks like, so it can capture the genuine strategic benefit of shared advertising without absorbing liability for problems a poorly structured agreement failed to address in advance.

Questions to Ask Before Signing With a Marketing Agency

Firms evaluating a joint advertising partnership should ask directly whether the agency's standard agreement has been reviewed against current SB37 requirements, who specifically reviews advertising content before it runs and what their qualifications are, how quickly the agency can withdraw content across every channel if a problem is identified, and how referral and payment structures are documented. An agency that can't answer these questions clearly and specifically, or that seems unfamiliar with SB37's actual requirements when asked directly, is a meaningful warning sign regardless of how strong its marketing results or sales pitch otherwise sound.

Why SB37 Emerged in the First Place

Joint advertising arrangements grew substantially in California's personal injury market over recent years, driven partly by the sheer cost efficiency of pooling advertising spend across multiple firms to afford television and large-scale digital reach that few individual firms could justify alone. As these arrangements grew more common, so did scrutiny of how they were structured, particularly around whether consumers understood they might be calling a marketing intermediary rather than a specific attorney, and whether individual attorneys participating in a shared campaign had meaningful oversight over content published under their names. Legislators and bar regulators grew concerned that some joint advertising relationships had effectively become fee-splitting arrangements dressed up as marketing partnerships, with payment structures that functioned more like referral fees than legitimate advertising costs. SB37 responded to these concerns directly, aiming to preserve the legitimate cost and reach benefits of joint advertising while closing the specific structural gaps that had drawn regulatory attention.

How Referral Distribution Should Work Under a Compliant Agreement

One of the more practically important, and sometimes overlooked, elements of a compliant joint advertising agreement is how it documents the process for distributing inquiries or referrals generated by the shared campaign among participating attorneys. A vague or informal distribution process, whoever happens to answer the phone that day gets the case, for instance, creates both fairness concerns among participants and a lack of clear documentation if a question later arises about how a particular referral was handled or which attorney was actually responsible for a given inquiry at the time it came in. Firms should confirm the agreement specifies a clear, documented method, whether rotation, geographic assignment, practice area specialization, or another defined system, and that records of each distribution decision are retained in case they're ever needed to demonstrate the process functioned as agreed.

Vetting a Marketing Agency's Track Record

Beyond reviewing the written agreement itself, firms evaluating a joint advertising partner should look at the agency's actual track record: how long it has operated joint campaigns in California specifically, whether it has faced any bar complaints or regulatory scrutiny tied to its advertising practices, and whether current or former participating attorneys can speak to how the agency has handled compliance issues in practice, not just on paper. An agency with a strong sales pitch but a thin or opaque history operating under California's specific requirements represents meaningfully more risk than one that can point to a demonstrated, multi-year record of compliant joint campaigns and responsive handling of any issues that did arise along the way.

What Happens During a Bar Inquiry Into Joint Advertising

If a joint advertising campaign becomes the subject of a bar inquiry or complaint, having clean, well-documented agreements and records becomes immediately valuable rather than a theoretical compliance exercise. Investigators typically want to understand who approved the specific content in question, how quickly it was withdrawn once concerns were raised, and how the participating attorney's individual role and oversight compare to the marketing entity's role in creating the problem. Firms with vague or undocumented arrangements find themselves in a considerably weaker position to demonstrate their own good-faith compliance efforts during this kind of inquiry than firms that can produce a clear written agreement, a documented approval process, and records showing responsive action once an issue was identified.

Renewing and Updating Existing Joint Advertising Agreements

Firms already participating in joint advertising arrangements established before SB37's requirements took full shape should not assume older agreements automatically remain compliant simply because they were valid when first signed. A periodic review of existing joint advertising agreements against current requirements, ideally conducted by counsel familiar with recent developments in this area, catches gaps that may have opened as the law and its enforcement priorities evolved since the original agreement was executed. This is particularly important for longer-running joint campaigns where the original agreement may predate SB37 entirely, since firms in this position sometimes discover they've been operating under materially outdated terms without realizing it until a routine compliance review, or worse, an actual complaint, brings the gap to light.

Building an Internal Review Process for Joint Campaigns

Firms participating in joint advertising shouldn't treat SB37 compliance as entirely the marketing agency's responsibility, since ultimate accountability for content run in an attorney's name typically still rests with that attorney regardless of who produced or placed it. Building a brief internal review step, having firm counsel periodically review the joint agreement itself and spot-check active advertising content, gives the firm its own layer of protection rather than relying entirely on a third party's compliance program, however well-intentioned that program may be.

Joint advertising remains a genuinely valuable tool for firms seeking reach and reputation that would be considerably more expensive to build independently, and SB37 doesn't prohibit these arrangements, it simply requires them to be structured with real clarity and documentation. Firms that take the time to verify their marketing partner's agreements and procedures actually satisfy current requirements protect themselves from a category of shared liability that's entirely avoidable with proper diligence upfront, while still capturing the genuine reach and efficiency benefits joint advertising can offer.