The Texas barratry statute

Citation: Tex. Penal Code § 38.12 (Barratry and Solicitation of Professional Employment).

Texas criminalizes the solicitation of legal employment by an attorney, or a person acting on behalf of an attorney, from a person known to need legal services who has not requested the attorney's services. Soliciting clients in-person for an attorney within 30 days of an accident or disaster is specifically prohibited. The statute also reaches operating a "referral service" that solicits clients on behalf of paying attorneys.

How this shapes our platform

Texas Legal Guide is structured as an information-and-discovery platform — not a referral service — to operate well clear of any barratry-adjacent conduct. Specifically:

  • All matching is user-initiated. A user must affirmatively start the matching flow. We never reach out offering specific attorneys.
  • No accident-derived contacts. Our intake form is initiated by the user; we never pre-populate it from accident reports or other third-party sources.
  • No solicitation cadence on profiles. Profile pages do not feature "I just had an accident" or other accident-proximate CTAs.
  • Attorney 'claim' is attorney-initiated. Attorneys claim their own profile; we do not invite or solicit them to do so.
  • No paid placement promoted as referral. Sponsored or premium placement, if added later, would be clearly disclosed and would not present sponsored attorneys as recommendations or referrals.

What "referral service" means in Texas

Under Texas law, a true "lawyer referral service" must meet specific regulatory requirements and is typically operated through a bar association. Several state bar lawyer referral services exist in Texas — e.g., the Houston Bar Association LRS, the Dallas Bar LRS. Texas Legal Guide is NOT one of those services and does not hold itself out as a referral service.

For attorneys: what this means

Attorneys listed on Texas Legal Guide appear because their license information is part of the public State Bar of Texas record. Inclusion in the directory is not promotion or solicitation. Claiming and enriching a profile is initiated by the attorney; the attorney remains responsible for any claimed content under Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct 7.01-7.05.

→ See our complete Legal Disclaimer for the full set of Texas compliance positions.