Florida and Arizona Attorney Advertising Rules for Automated Text Intake

Last reviewed 31 July 2026  ·  Written for personal injury firms running one intake system across Florida and Arizona.

Does Arizona treat a text message as solicitation?

Arizona ER 7.3⁴⁵ restricts live person-to-person contact. Comment [2] to the rule states directly that person-to-person contact "does not include chat rooms, text messages, or other written communications that recipients may easily disregard." A text is not the contact the rule targets, and an inbound reply is not a solicitation in the first place.

The comment is unusually clear for an ethics rule, so it is worth reading in full:

ER 7.3(a) defines solicitation the same way California and Texas do — a communication initiated by or on behalf of the lawyer, directed to a specific person the lawyer knows needs legal services in a particular matter. An automated reply to someone who filled in your form is not initiated by you.

Arizona also has no advertising filing requirement. Nothing goes to the State Bar for review, nothing has to be pre-cleared, and there is no waiting period. The advertising rules were restructured by Supreme Court order R-20-0030⁴ in 2020, and ER 7.3 is the operative solicitation rule after that restructuring. Read the current rule text rather than any pre-2021 summary.

What is Florida's 30-day rule and does it apply to intake?

Florida Rule 4-7.18(b)(1)(A)¹ bars written communication to a prospective client in a personal injury or wrongful death matter within 30 days of the incident. The Florida Bar's own handbook describes that bar as applying to unsolicited communications¹. Whether a reply requested by the recipient falls outside it is genuinely unsettled on the face of the rule text, so confirm it before you rely on it.

Here is why we will not give you a confident answer. Rule 4-7.18(b)(1) opens: "A lawyer may not send, or knowingly permit to be sent, on the lawyer's behalf ... a written communication directly or indirectly to a prospective client for the purpose of obtaining professional employment if:" — and then lists prohibitions (A) through (G), of which (A) is the 30-day bar.

The exemption that firms usually point to is (b)(3):

Read literally, (b)(3) exempts requested communications from (b)(2), which is the format and content subdivision. It does not by its own terms exempt them from (b)(1)(A), where the 30-day bar lives. But the Bar's 2025 Handbook¹ describes the 30-day wait as attaching to unsolicited communications, and a communication made at the prospective client's request is not unsolicited. Secondary commentary splits both ways.

We think the Handbook framing is the better reading and matches the rule's purpose. We are not the ones whose licence is at stake. If you practise PI in Florida and you are switching on automated intake, spend twenty minutes with The Florida Bar's Ethics Hotline² and get the answer in writing. That call is free and the alternative is not.

Does Florida require filing?

Yes for most advertisements, with exemptions. Rule 4-7.20 exempts communications sent at a prospective client's request from the filing requirement. Filing fees are $250 for a timely filing and $750 for one filed late, effective 1 July 2026¹².

The request exemption in 4-7.20 is the cleanest structural signal that Florida distinguishes requested communications from outbound advertising throughout its advertising rules. It is also, on its own, only about filing. It does not resolve the (b)(1)(A) question above.

Florida runs a genuine review programme, and firms can submit an advertisement for an advisory opinion before use. If your intake sequence contains anything beyond neutral fact-gathering, that is the safe route.

What is the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act and why does it matter more than the TCPA here?

The FTSA is Florida’s state telemarketing law. Florida Statute § 501.059³ treats a text message as a "telephonic sales call," requires prior express written consent, and creates a private right of action with actual damages or $500 per violation, trebled up to three times for a willful or knowing violation. It also gives a 15-day cure period after a recipient replies STOP.

The FTSA is why Florida deserves its own paragraph in any intake build. It has been the engine behind a large volume of consumer class actions since 2021, and the damages structure means volume matters more than intent.

Two operational consequences. First, your consent language on the web form has to be real prior express written consent — a clear, conspicuous disclosure next to the submit button, tied to the phone number the person typed in, and logged. Second, the 15-day cure clock after a STOP reply is a hard deadline, and the statute permits exactly one confirmation message after opt-out. Anything else inside that window is exposure.

The federal TCPA sits on top of all of this: $500 per message, $1,500 for willful violations⁶, plus the FCC revocation rule requiring that any reasonable opt-out wording be honoured within ten business days since 11 April 2025. The broader "revoke all message types" element now takes effect 31 January 2027⁷.

What consent language does a Florida intake form need?

The disclosure should be separate and clear. It should sit next to the submit button, tie consent to the phone number entered, name the firm, say automated messages may be used, and state that agreement is not a condition of anything. Capture it with a timestamp and store the record.

The federal definition is the one to build to, because meeting it also satisfies the FTSA's written-consent requirement. 47 CFR § 64.1200(f)(9)⁸ defines prior express written consent as an agreement in writing, bearing the signature of the person called, that clearly authorises the sender to deliver messages using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice, and that includes the number to which those messages may be sent. The written agreement must clearly disclose two things: that signing authorises those messages, and that signing is not a condition of purchase. An electronic signature counts.

Four things about that paragraph are doing the work. It names the firm rather than a vendor. It says "including messages sent by an automated system," which is the disclosure the regulation asks for in plain words. It says agreeing is not a condition, which is the second required disclosure. And it disclaims the attorney-client relationship, which is a Florida advertising-rule concern rather than a TCPA one but belongs in the same place.

Keep the checkbox unticked by default and separate from any other agreement. A consent bundled into a general terms-of-use tickbox is the version that loses.

What has to happen after someone replies STOP

Florida's cure provision is narrow and the sequence matters. Build it once and test it:

1. The word arrives, in whatever form. STOP, "stop texting me", "remove me", "quit", "no more". Since 11 April 2025 the FCC requires any reasonable wording to be treated as revocation⁷, so keyword-only matching is no longer enough.
2. One confirmation message, and only one. Confirm the opt-out, say nothing else. No offer to help, no callback question, no "are you sure".
3. Silence for that number, immediately. Not within ten business days as a target — immediately, with the ten-day figure as the outer legal limit rather than your operating standard.
4. The suppression has to survive the next form submission. If the same person fills the form again a month later, that is a fresh request and a fresh consent. If it is a different person on the same number, you need to be able to show which is which.
5. Log all of it. Timestamp of the revocation, timestamp of the confirmation, and the fact that nothing followed. A transcript you can export is the only version of this that helps you.

What does a compliant Florida intake script actually look like?

A compliant Florida script is explicit about the firm, purpose, and opt-out. It names the firm, uses a not-an-attorney line, collects facts only, and keeps one fixed deflection. It also avoids a pitch during the 30-day window and promises a callback rather than a case. Here is a full annotated exchange.

Treat it as a draft to mark up with your own ethics counsel. The annotations exist so you can see what breaks if you change a line.

What changes if the firm is in Arizona

Less than you would expect, and that is the point. Arizona has no filing programme, no waiting period, and no state texting statute, so the script above is already more conservative than Arizona requires. Three practical deltas:

1. The 30-day sensitivity disappears. There is no Arizona equivalent of 4-7.18(b)(1)(A), so recency of the accident does not constrain the wording.
2. The consent block is federal-only. No FTSA layer, so the form language is driven by the TCPA and by ER 7.1's general prohibition on false or misleading statements.
3. Everything else stays. The not-an-attorney line, the deflection line, the opt-out and the logging are ER 7.1 and TCPA obligations, not Florida ones. Building to Florida and running the same script in Arizona is the correct order.

How the two states compare

A short checklist before you switch anything on

• Inbound only, enforced in software. The system should be incapable of texting a number that did not come from your own form, missed call, or tracked ad click.
• Florida: call the Ethics Hotline about the 30-day rule. Get the answer in writing before the first message sends.
• Florida: fix the consent language on the form. Clear, conspicuous, adjacent to submit, logged with a timestamp and the number entered.
• Test the 15-day cure path. One confirmation message after STOP, then silence. Verify it, do not assume it.
• Arizona: read the post-R-20-0030 rule text, not a pre-2021 summary. The numbering and structure changed.
• Approve the script in writing and keep every transcript.