Immigration lawyers, international firms, property lawyers, family law specialists, and cross-border advisers are found by matter and by place, or they are not found usefully at all. The guidance below is for firms that want expatriates to reach them on work they can take. Expat Marketing does not provide legal advice, does not represent clients, and is not a law firm. We will not draft a claim about the outcome of a case, a visa, or a dispute.
Expats look for a lawyer at a specific moment: a residence application, a purchase, a separation, a cross-border contract. They are not looking for “legal services” as a category. Pages and campaigns that collapse those moments into one offer attract messages the firm has to turn away, and they make it harder to show that the lawyer is qualified for the work.
Four matters, four intents
Immigration and residence
The reader usually has a destination, a deadline, and a worry that the rules they found online do not apply to their nationality. They need the jurisdictions the lawyer handles, the languages the matter can be taken in, and a factual description of the type of application. They do not need a suggestion that an application will succeed. Marketing should ask for the country, the nationality, and the deadline. It should not ask them to paste passport scans into a campaign form.
Property transactions
Buyers and sellers need a lawyer who acts in that country, on that kind of tenure. The marketing overlap with property firms is real, and the professions are not interchangeable. An agent’s listing page should not read as legal advice. A law firm’s page should not read as a promise that a foreign buyer can own. Each firm states only what its own practice covers, and refers the other question on.
Family law
Moves put marriages, children, and finances under more than one legal system. People search quietly, often on a phone, and they abandon a site that looks like a commercial for litigation results. The useful page explains which family matters the firm takes, in which countries, and how a first confidential conversation is arranged. Outcome statistics and “we win” lines are a poor fit even before the advertising rules are applied. They ask the reader to expect a result the next case may not produce.
Cross-border commercial and private matters
Some readers need advice that sits between countries: a contract, a corporate move, an estate with assets in two places. The qualifying facts are the countries involved and whether the firm acts on that combination. Wealth questions about investments or tax advice are adjacent and easy to blur. If the reader needs a financial adviser rather than a lawyer, the finance page describes that separate brief. Do not let one advertisement offer both.
How expats choose, and what credibility requires
Selection is mostly a match on jurisdiction, matter, language, and a clear way to instruct the firm. Professional qualifications should be stated in a form a reader can check: the regulator, the jurisdiction of admission, and the name of the person responsible. A logo, a skyline, and the word “international” do not do that work. Client stories, if the firm uses them, need the client’s permission and must not imply that another reader will get the same result.
Relocation adds time pressure. A family that has already booked flights may need an immigration lawyer before they need a moving company. Link the services when it helps the reader. Do not describe a law firm as a one-stop relocation agency.
Advertising rules differ, and they bind the firm
Publicity rules are local. Two examples show why a single global ad template is a risk. They are not a survey of every bar.
In England and Wales, the Solicitors Regulation Authority requires publicity to be accurate and not misleading, including publicity about charges. Solicitors must not make unsolicited approaches to the public to advertise legal services, other than to current or former clients. The firm must also make clear which services are regulated. The rules are in the SRA Code of Conduct, paragraphs 8.8 to 8.10. The SRA’s warning notice on marketing to the public adds that material used by third parties, including introducers, has to meet the same standard, and that a client referred in must not have been acquired in a way the solicitor could not have used. Fee-sharing and referrals have their own conditions. A lead-seller arrangement is a compliance decision for the firm, not a default media tactic.
In the United States, the American Bar Association’s Model Rule 7.1 prohibits false or misleading communications about a lawyer’s services. A statement can be misleading even when it is literally true, including where it would lead a reasonable person to expect a result the facts do not support. States adopt their own rules. The model rule is not itself the law of any state.
Other countries restrict legal advertising more tightly, or in different ways. The firm’s own counsel approves claims, territories, and whether paid introductions are permitted. We can structure search, explanatory pages, and the site so each matter has its own explanation and its own qualification questions. We do not approve the legal content of an advertisement. Enquiry programmes for law firms should be scoped only after that approval, and they should record matter type and countries before anyone calls them a lead.
What a useful enquiry contains
Measure consultations that match a practice area and a jurisdiction the firm offers, not raw messages. A good enquiry names the matter, the countries, and whether the person already has a lawyer. A weak one says “visa” or “property” with no place attached. Track declines: wrong jurisdiction, matter the firm does not take, or a conflict. Those declines show whether the page is drawing the practice you described.
Our notes on Portugal, Spain, Dubai, and Thailand are useful where residence and property questions are common reasons people seek a lawyer. They do not mean a firm admitted in one of those places can act in the others.
Tell us the matters and the jurisdictions
Send the practice areas and the places the firm can take instructions, plus any advertising limits counsel has already set. Get started with that. Do not send case papers. For the other categories on this site, go back to expat marketing by industry.