Websites for Lawyers: Building Trust Within Turkey's Advertising Ban

The website question for a law firm starts from a different place than in other sectors: not "how do I attract more clients?" but "what am I even allowed to do?"

Turkey's Attorneys' Act and the Union of Turkish Bar Associations' Advertising Ban Regulation prohibit a lawyer from advertising for the purpose of gaining business. At the same time, that same regulation explicitly permits lawyers to run a website. So the question isn't "should I have a site," it's "what can I put on it."

The general framework

The spirit of the regulation comes down to this distinction: informing is allowed, promotion aimed at winning business is not. Your site is expected to tell a visitor who you are, where you are, and which areas you work in. Anything that compares you to competitors, promises success, or is aimed at collecting clients is problematic.

The points that tend to raise questions in practice:

• The word "specialist." The regulation restricts a lawyer from claiming a specialization. "Practice areas" is a safer phrase to use.
• Case outcomes and success rates. The number of cases won, a success percentage — these sit at the core of the ban.
• Client names and testimonials. Risky both for professional confidentiality and the advertising ban.
• Comparison and claims of superiority. Phrases like "the city's best criminal lawyer" fall directly under the ban.
• Fee information. Publishing prices, outside of referencing the minimum fee schedule, can create problems.
• Buying advertising. Search engine ads and sponsored social media posts are a separate matter from the site itself and sit closer to the ban.

This list is a summary of what to pay attention to, not legal advice. The regulation and bar association practice can change over time; the safest approach is to check your bar association's current announcements before publishing your site.

So what's left?

A lot more than you'd think. A site that builds trust without advertising is entirely possible:

Practice areas

Criminal, family, labor, real estate, commercial… listing which areas you handle cases in is informational. Adding a short description under each area explaining how the process generally works helps a visitor understand whether they've come to the right place.

CV / background

Degree, bar registration, graduate studies, publications, memberships, known languages. These are objective facts, and they're exactly what a visitor is most curious about.

Articles and legal commentary

This is the most natural use of a blog section on a law firm site. Articles explaining a newly passed regulation, a common procedural question, or a Court of Cassation decision in plain language get read by both colleagues and the public.

These articles also do well in search engines: people search things like "how is the rent increase rate calculated" or "how long does a reinstatement case take." A well-informed article builds a kind of trust no ad copy ever could. Just be careful not to tack a "hire us" line onto the end.

Contact

Office address, phone, email, and a map. A site the visitor can't reach, however well-written, is useless.

The design language sends a message too

A measured design matters as much as the content on a law firm site. Flashy animations, aggressive colors, and constant pop-ups clash with the seriousness of the profession. A serif headline font, a calm color palette, plenty of white space, and well-aligned text create the right impression.

One frequently overlooked point: mobile. Most people access sites from their phone. Long passages of text need to stay readable on mobile, with the right line length and font size.

In short

A lawyer's website isn't a billboard — it's a business card and a library. It shows who you are, what you do, and how you think, without trying to persuade. The line the ban draws is, in fact, a good line — it pushes you toward doing exactly what the most trustworthy legal sites already do.

IconWebly's law firm template was built around this framework: a practice-areas list, a background section, an article/blog feed, and a contact form come ready-made. You can build a demo under your office's name without signing up and see how it looks.