Claude Code for law firm websites: what it can do and where the ethics rules apply

Claude Code can do much of the engineering work on a law firm website: building and editing pages, fixing structured data, writing redirect maps, cleaning up accessibility and speed problems, and wiring up contact forms. What it can't do is take responsibility for what those pages say. On a law firm site, almost every sentence about the firm is a communication about a lawyer's services, and the lawyers stay responsible for it.

This guide sorts the work into what Claude Code can do on its own and where a lawyer must approve the result, using the American Bar Association's Model Rules as the reference. Your state's version of those rules is what applies to you. It describes rules and product terms as of October 2026 and is not legal advice; check with your ethics counsel.

What Claude Code does well on a law firm site

Claude Code suits rule-based, checkable jobs: the same change across many pages, with a test that proves it worked.

The last two rows are where the professional rules apply. Our guides to structured data with Claude Code and the general question of whether Claude Code is safe on a live website cover the technical side in more depth.

Attorney advertising rules apply to every page it touches

The ABA's comment on Model Rule 7.1 says the rule "governs all communications about a lawyer's services, including advertising." The rule itself says a communication is false or misleading if it "contains a material misrepresentation of fact or law, or omits a fact necessary to make the statement considered as a whole not materially misleading."

Two points in the comment matter for AI-drafted copy:

• Results. A truthful report of past results "may be misleading if presented so as to lead a reasonable person to form an unjustified expectation that the same results could be obtained for other clients."
• Comparisons. An "unsubstantiated comparison of the lawyer's or law firm's services or fees with those of other lawyers or law firms, may be misleading." Phrases such as "the best" or "top-rated" deserve a hard look.

Model Rule 7.2 adds two concrete checks. A lawyer may not "state or imply that a lawyer is certified as a specialist in a particular field of law" unless an approved or ABA-accredited organization certified them and "the name of the certifying organization is clearly identified in the communication." And any communication under the rule "must include the name and contact information of at least one lawyer or law firm responsible for its content."

None of this stops you from drafting with Claude Code. Give it the rules as instructions, ask it to flag risky phrases, and have a lawyer make the final call. The ABA rules are a model; each state adopts its own version and can add requirements, so check yours before you build a review checklist.

Testimonials have a second rule set. The FTC's fake reviews rule, announced August 14, 2024, covers testimonials by "someone who does not exist, such as AI-generated fake reviews." Publish only real ones you can document.

Keep client information out of the session

Model Rule 1.6(c) says: "A lawyer shall make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client." The simplest way to meet it on a website project is to keep client information out entirely. A site rebuild needs page content, templates and settings, not matter files, intake submissions or case notes.

• Don't paste client facts into prompts. Use the firm's published content or fictional placeholders.
• Don't keep form exports, CRM exports or database dumps in the website repository. Strip personal data from any database copy.
• Never put passwords or keys in prompts or CLAUDE.md, and add deny rules for files Claude should never read, such as .env files. Anthropic's permission docs show rules like Read(./.env) and Read(./secrets/**). A read deny rule doesn't catch every shell command that could read a file, so turn on the sandbox where you need operating-system enforcement.

The plan matters too. According to Anthropic's data usage page, Anthropic trains new models on Free, Pro and Max data "when this setting is on (including when you use Claude Code from these accounts)." Under commercial terms (Team, Enterprise and the API), "Anthropic does not train generative models using code or prompts sent to Claude Code under commercial terms, unless the customer has chosen to provide their data to us for model improvement." Our article on what happens to your code and data covers the plan differences in detail.

Practice-area content: draft fast, review like a lawyer

Claude Code can draft a practice-area page, an FAQ or a blog post from your notes, or check a page against rules you give it. Its output needs the same review as anything else the firm publishes, for two reasons.

First, accuracy. Google's guidance on generative AI content says "It is critical to manually factcheck and review all AI-generated content for accuracy and trustworthiness before publishing," and that this review also covers titles, meta descriptions, structured data and image alt text. A statute citation or fee statement written by a model is still a claim the firm makes.

Second, the line between information and advice. Anthropic's Usage Policy treats legal advice to an individual as high-risk in both its current and its updated text. The version effective September 15, 2025, in force until November 12, 2026, lists "legal interpretation, legal guidance, or decisions with legal implications" and requires a qualified professional to review advice "directly affecting individuals or consumers" before it goes out, with disclosure that AI was used. The update that takes effect November 12, 2026 rewords the area as "advising an individual on their legal rights, obligations, or liability, or on what to do in a specific legal matter" and excludes "General information or educational content, including explaining what a law says ... without applying it to the individual's circumstances." Anthropic says the requirements haven't changed. A general explainer page sits on the information side; a chatbot that tells a visitor what to do about their case does not.

Supervision and competence: what the model rules say about tools

Two more model rules shape the project. The comment to Rule 1.1 says a lawyer should keep abreast of "the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology." Rule 5.3(b) says a lawyer with direct supervisory authority over a nonlawyer "shall make reasonable efforts to ensure that the person's conduct is compatible with the professional obligations of the lawyer." An outside web developer is a nonlawyer; ask your ethics counsel how your state applies the rule to vendors.

The ABA has also addressed generative AI directly. Its July 29, 2024 announcement of Formal Opinion 512 describes it as the ethics committee's "first formal opinion covering the growing use of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) in the practice of law," and says model rules on "competency, informed consent, confidentiality and fees principally apply." The opinion is about legal practice, but the instincts carry over: know what the tool does, keep confidential information out of it, and have a named lawyer own the review.

A CLAUDE.md for a law firm site

CLAUDE.md is a file of standing instructions that Claude Code loads at the start of every session. Anthropic's docs say Claude treats it "as context, not enforced configuration," so pair it with permission rules and human review. A short excerpt:

## Content rules (law firm site)
- Never write "specialist", "expert", "best" or "guaranteed" about the firm or its lawyers. Flag any you find.
- Never add or invent case results, testimonials, reviews or client names.
- Every new page keeps the footer block with the responsible lawyer's name and contact details.
- Mark every edited page "NEEDS ATTORNEY REVIEW" in the pull request description.
- Facts (offices, phone numbers, bar admissions) come only from facts.md.

Our guide to writing a CLAUDE.md for a website covers structure, imports and testing, and our copy-ready Claude Code templates include starting files you can adapt. The words "specialist" and "expert" are examples; your state's rules decide which terms are restricted.

Contact forms and intake

A contact form is often the one place a law firm site collects information about a person's legal problem. Claude Code can build or fix the form, its spam filtering and its notifications; the decisions belong to the firm:

• What the form asks. Fewer free-text fields mean less sensitive detail arrives by email. The lawyers decide this.
• Where submissions go. Know which inbox, CRM or service receives them and who can read them.
• What tracking sees. Analytics should record that a form was submitted, not what it said, and no tag should send field contents to an ad platform.
• Testing. Test on staging with fictional data, never a real matter.

Our walkthrough on building and fixing contact forms with Claude Code covers the technical steps.

A safe workflow, step by step

1. Use a business plan and give the developer the repository and a staging copy, not production credentials.
2. Put the site in git and work on a branch.
3. Write the CLAUDE.md content rules and deny rules for secrets and export folders.
4. Start each task in plan mode, where Claude researches and proposes changes without editing files, and approve the plan.
5. Run the checks: build, link check, structured data validation and a look at the pages in a browser.
6. Route content changes to a lawyer with the diff or a staging link. Technical-only changes go to the developer.
7. A person deploys after approval and records who approved what.

When not to use Claude Code on a firm site

Don't use it on client matters, intake records or privileged material, to generate reviews or results, or to publish directly to a live site. If no lawyer has time to review content changes, slow down: faster drafting only moves the bottleneck to review.

Conclusion

Claude Code can take on the repetitive engineering of a law firm website, in git, with checks. The professional rules don't change because a tool wrote the first draft: client information stays out of the project, and a lawyer approves every change to how the firm describes itself. If you want help setting that up, our Claude Code development team works in git, on staging, with a person approving every deploy. More guides are in our Claude Code Guide.

Frequently asked questions