THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL 74 | APRIL 2024 Bar News Proposed Changes to the Oklahoma Rules of Professional Conduct Member Comment Requested THE FOLLOWING IS A MODIFICATION to the Oklahoma Rules of Professional Conduct as proposed by the OBA Rules of Professional Conduct Committee. These proposed changes will be considered by the OBA Board of Governors. The proposed rule changes update and clarify the advertising rules. Members of the OBA are encouraged to review the proposed changes and submit any comments by May 1 (via email) to proposedrulechanges@okbar.org or (via hardcopy) to ORPC Comments, OBA, P.O. Box 53036, Oklahoma City, OK 73152. Oklahoma Rules of Professional Conduct Okla. Stat. tit. 5 ch. 1, app. 3-A Article Information About Legal Services Rule 7.1. Communications Concerning a Lawyer’s Services RULE 7.1 COMMUNICATIONS CONCERNING A LAWYER’S SERVICES A lawyer shall not make a false or misleading communication about the lawyer or the lawyer’s services. A communication is false or misleading if it contains a material misrepresentation of fact or law, or omits a fact necessary to make the communication considered as a whole not materially misleading. COMMENT [1] This Rule governs all communications about a lawyer’s services, including advertising. permitted by Rule 7.2. Whatever means are used to make known a lawyer’s services, statements about them must be truthful. [2] Truthful statements that are Mmisleading truthful statements are also prohibited by this Rule. A truthful statement is misleading if it omits a fact necessary to make the lawyer’s communication considered as a whole not materially misleading. A truthful statement is also misleading if there is a substantial likelihood exists that it will lead a reasonable person to formulate a specific conclusion about the lawyer or the lawyer’s services for which there is no reasonable factual foundation. A truthful statement is also misleading if presented in a way that creates a substantial likelihood that a reasonable person would believe the lawyer’s communication requires that person to take further action when, in fact, no action is required. [3] It is misleading for a communication to provide information about a lawyer’s fee without indicating the client’s responsibilities for costs, if any. If the client may be responsible for costs in the absence of a recovery, a communication may not indicate that the lawyer’s fee is contingent on obtaining a recovery unless the communication also discloses that the client may be responsible for court costs and expenses of litigation. See Rule 1.5(c).
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