# GEO Playbook · Law Firms > Canlah AI · CC BY 4.0 · https://canlah.ai/playbook/law/ # Chapter 0 · Start here: how far lawyers' publicity is regulated, and which pages you can build ## 0.1 How to use this book: it only covers where law firms differ from the General Edition **What you'll do in this section**: confirm your law firm is within this book's scope and how thick the evidence is; know which General Edition sections to read first for each chapter, and what the Law Firms Edition adds; lay out the calendar in the 90-day order; remember the values already decided for law firms' ten axes; know what each of the two AI-retrieval legs cites for law firms and what to feed each one. This book is written for Singapore local law firms (law firms, limited liability law partnerships (LLPs) and law corporations (LLCs)), for the part of their business that serves individual and SME clients; the evidence measured 9 practice areas within it (figure below). Large firms' institutional work — mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, banking and finance, international arbitration, shipping, construction, intellectual property, tax, and insolvency and restructuring — is not covered in this book, and immigration, medical negligence and defamation were not measured either. Foreign law practices, Qualifying Foreign Law Practices (QFLPs) and Joint Law Ventures (JLVs) are not covered: family, criminal, conveyancing and inheritance work in Singapore already fall outside what they are permitted to do [Statute text, LPE Rules r 50(1); see Appendix A.2]. Muslim marriages go through the Syariah Court and need their own separate set of pages; see 5.17. ```bars Figure: How thick the evidence is: 22 questions for family, 2–5 for each of the other practice areas unit: questions family (including 1 wills question, 1 LPA (Lasting Power of Attorney) question) | 22 | public dataset R1 12 questions + R2 10 questions choosing a lawyer and legal fees (all practice areas) | 5 | L3 wills, probate and LPAs | 4 | L3 criminal and traffic | 4 | L3 corporate and commercial (SMEs) | 4 | L3 conveyancing and property | 3 | L3 employment disputes | 3 | L3 personal injury and accident claims | 3 | L3 debt recovery and small claims | 2 | L3 legal aid | 2 | L3 ``` The rules treat every practice area the same way; the evidence does not. Family law has 22 questions, and each of the other 8 practice areas has 2–5, so the proportions by practice area are directional only. The 5 questions under "choosing a lawyer and legal fees" ask about things that come up across every practice area (how much legal fees are, how to choose, which firm is nearby, whether no win no fee is available), so it does not count as a practice area. Both batches of data use the same ruler: - **Family R1, R2**: the public dataset, collected 2026-09-23. R1's 12 questions were put to both ChatGPT and Google AI Mode; R2's 10 questions were put to ChatGPT only; each question was asked once, with no reruns; the 18 pages cited in R1 were taken apart page by page (10 law firms, 6 government, 2 third party). - **L3**: collected 2026-09-29, 30 questions (26 English, 4 Chinese). ChatGPT was asked each question twice, independently; AI Mode and Google's top-10 organic results were each sampled once. The page type of each citation was labelled heuristically by URL and title only, not taken apart page by page. L3 reran the same script to recalculate several key published numbers from the public dataset (source mix, overlap with Google's top 10, the intersection across the two engines and the two runs) — all of them matched. In this book, the "ChatGPT leg" means the OpenAI API plus web search, and the "AI Mode leg" means Google AI Mode. L3's ChatGPT figures use run 1, with run 2 given in parentheses. The two legs have different denominators — read only "who cites what", not which number is bigger. The Law Firms Edition does not rewrite the mechanisms, methods or general writing rules; it only gives law firms' values, bans, replacement wording and local lists. At the start of each chapter, first read the General Edition sections it links to: | Law Firms chapter | Read in the General Edition first | Law firms add | |---|---|---| | Chapter 1: read before you write | 0.4, 5.2–5.3 | How the labels are applied and who signs off; the law-firm wording for fees, success rates, case studies, reviews and titles; the three family-law rules | | Chapter 2: week one | 2.1–2.9, 4.1–4.4 | Check the main site and each keyword microsite, domain by domain; the question pool: 24 English · 6 Chinese (30 English if there is no Chinese-speaking clientele); which of the nine pre-start questions law firms answer differently | | Chapter 3: identity | 3.2–3.4 | The approved name and the LLC/LLP suffix; lawyer pages follow the practising certificate and the approved list of titles; for rankings and specialist accreditation, write only your own entry; keyword microsites | | Chapter 4: picking targets | 4.5–4.7 | Group by case type; fees, near-me and "is this firm good" questions come first | | Chapter 5: writing pages | 5.4–5.10 and each page-type card | Which page types you can build (see 0.3); how to write the fees table; case summaries; Muslim marriages get their own separate set | | Chapter 6: off-site | 6.2–6.7 | We charge only a fixed service fee; the directory of the Law Society of Singapore (the Law Society); we do not pay referral platforms; the four conditions for asking for reviews | | Chapter 7: retest | 7.1–7.4 | Read the two legs separately; reviews are counted only by requests sent; if a month cannot fill three tasks, thicken the explainer pages first | Family law firms add one more step: before writing any case study or review reply, first read 1.7 and the family self-check sheet in Appendix B.4. When you can only do three things, follow this order: 0.2 → chapter 1 → 2.1 → the 48-hour baseline in [[通用版 4.8 两条捷径与本章 checklist]] → 2.4 → first thing, 3.1–3.2 (facts page + one page per lawyer) → second thing, 5.1, 5.2, 5.4–5.5 (fee guide page + single-matter fee page) → third thing, 3.4, 6.1, 6.3 (alignment with the Legal Services Regulatory Authority (LSRA), the sign-off gate before sending, the Law Society directory listing and ranking-guide submission) → 7.1–7.2. ```steps Figure: Law firms' 90 days: measure first, then change; the first page is the fees page Week one | Measure first, then change | Read-only audit → freeze questions and baseline → fix the door, record the split day W1–W2 | Identity | /facts, one page per lawyer, LSRA alignment, directory listing W2 | Picking targets | Group by case type, the four states, this quarter's slots W2–W6 | Writing pages | The fee guide page goes up first, then write the explainer pages that feed AI Mode W3–W8 | Off-site | Once the sign-off sheet is on file: directory listings, ranking-guide submissions, bylined contributions Monthly · W13 | Retest and settlement | Read the two legs separately; deliver an honest before-and-after ``` Why the order cannot be swapped: freezing the baseline after the door is already fixed freezes a shelf you have already changed yourself, so before and after cannot be compared; for the mechanism, see [[通用版 0.1 全书一句话与 90 天翻书顺序]]. For the day-by-day plan for week one, see 2.1. The day you fix the door is recorded as the split day: W1 counts from that day, and the before-and-after comparison at the week 13 settlement also uses it as the dividing line. Law firms often have a main site plus one or two keyword microsites, and you fix the door domain by domain (2.4). ```split Figure: The ten axes the General Edition has you judge yourself, already decided for law firms General Edition axis || Law firms' value Shelf page-type mix || ChatGPT cites government and court pages; AI Mode cites law firms' own explainer articles Control of citation containers || Government pages are not reachable; directories and rankings are third-party slots Entity anchor || The lawyer as the primary anchor, the firm's approved name second Side and switches || Lightly regulated: peer comparison, success-rate claims and paying for referrals are all banned outright Question shape || Not yet calculated against the frozen question pool; filled in after you start Decision-makers || Varies by practice line, not measured Capacity and work unit || Lawyer hours · one type of matter Attribution channels || Form + phone + WhatsApp, not measured Content half-life || Long; the effective date of new rules and the court's fee table are short-lived fields Language fork || Chinese pages are cited only by AI Mode; we do not build Indonesian pages ``` For how to judge the ten axes and why each one moves rankings, see [[通用版 8.3 十个轴（一）：页型、容器、锚点、监管、问法]] and [[通用版 8.4 十个轴（二）：决策人数、产能、归因、半衰期、语言]]. Of the ten cells, only "shelf page-type mix" and "language fork" are backed by measurement; the rest are judgement calls: - **Shelf page-type mix** (L3, heuristic): of ChatGPT's 146 citations on run 1, 96 were government and public-body guide pages; of AI Mode's 122, 45 were explainer articles; "best X" list-type pages accounted for only 3/146 and 5/122 on the two legs respectively. - **Language fork**: for L3's 4 Chinese questions, ChatGPT cited Chinese pages 0/47 across both runs, AI Mode 5/22 (Chinese pages labelled heuristically by title and URL); of the 28 citations for family law's 3 Chinese questions, only 1 was a Chinese page, cited by AI Mode (single case). So a Chinese page is optional: build it only if the firm has Chinese-speaking clients, and accept it against the AI Mode leg only (5.3). - **Question shape** is the mix we used when writing the questions, not buyers' real distribution; recalculate it against the frozen question pool once you start. - **Decision-makers and attribution** are not measured, only experience-based judgement: divorce is decided by one person alone (the other party is the opposing party), wills and LPAs are often decided by a couple together, corporate matters go through the board, and criminal matters involve the individual plus family. So that cell reads "varies by practice line". Three sentences the figure cannot show. The main front splits by leg: the ChatGPT leg rests on the fees page, the office page and the Law Society directory listing; the AI Mode leg rests on explainer articles with a question-title heading and a conclusion block; the first page to build is the fee guide page. Law firms' official anchor is the LSRA's "Search for a Lawyer or Law Practice" page, but whether it has a publicly citable number field is still to be verified — until it is verified, write only "LSRA register lookup link + check date", not a number (3.2); you cannot reuse the General Edition's line that the official registration number gives you the strongest anchor for free. From early 2027 there is one more anchor: the Singapore Academy of Law (SAL) Directory of Specialists for family law (1.6). The cell that gets stuck most often: for process, definition, rule and calculation questions, ChatGPT never once cited a law firm's own website across these two batches of data (L3's 15 questions in these four types: 0 citations across both runs; family law's 13 questions on process, requirements, definitions, rules, calculations and checklists: 0 of them cited a law firm). Write these pages anyway, but do not promise the client that ChatGPT will cite them. ```split Figure: What each leg cites for law-firm questions, and what to feed each ChatGPT leg || AI Mode leg Cites government, courts and legislation, with legislation anchored to the specific provision || Cites law firms' own explainer articles and fees pages Law-firm pages show up almost only for price, near-me and "is this firm good" questions || 24 of the 30 questions cited at least one law firm Feed it: the firm's own fee sentence, the office page, the directory listing || Feed it: explainer articles with a question-title heading and a conclusion block Asked "who's best": mostly cites MinLaw and the Law Society, with ranking guides appearing in only a few questions || Asked "who's best": law-firm homepages, directory pages, map cards ``` The numbers behind the figure (L3, 2026-09-29; family, 2026-09-23): the ChatGPT leg citing government and public-body pages — L3 115/146 (run 2: 125/161), family R1 48/60, R2 50/59; family's ChatGPT citations of legislation numbered 12, all 12 anchored to a specific provision. The ChatGPT leg citing law firms' own websites — L3 12/146 (run 2: 11/161), family R1 4/60, R2 4/59. The AI Mode leg citing law firms' own websites — L3 47/122, family R1 29/52. URLs shared by both engines for the same question — L3 17/251, family R1 6/106 — so feed each leg its own material; do not expect one page to serve both. The "who's best" row rests on a thin sample, so treat it as directional only: L3 has 3 questions; of ChatGPT's 12 citations on run 1, 9 were government and public-body pages and 1 was a ranking guide (run 2: 8 and 3 of 14); every ranking-guide citation fell on the one question asking about criminal lawyers (single case); family has 1 question (single case), and of ChatGPT's 6 citations, 4 were Doyle's Guide (×2), Legal 500 and Chambers. For the mechanism behind the two legs, see [[通用版 1.2 两条腿：ChatGPT 找源头，AI Mode 找二手]]. "Professional" in this book refers only to content form: cross-industry research finds that professional services win in AI Mode through educational content (the research did not include Singapore; 75% confidence; evidence in [[通用版 A.2 选点、写页、站外与复测的证据]]); law firms fall under this form, so in chapter 7, when a month cannot fill three tasks, go to fallback A first and thicken the explainer pages. But keep the figure above in mind at the same time: in law firms, explainer pages feed the AI Mode leg only — the ChatGPT leg depends on the fees page, the office page and the directory listing. For how content form translates onto the page, see [[通用版 5.9 内容形态、FAQ、中文页与外语页]]. ## 0.2 How tightly law-firm publicity is regulated: you can publish fee ranges, but not compare yourself with other firms, cite success rates or pay for referrals **What you'll do in this section**: on the day you start, fill in the three essentials — the regulator, the publicity rules, the official register lookup — in full (law firms add a fourth row, expertise and titles), and go through the six switches one by one; know that law firms fall on the lightly regulated side, on what basis, at what confidence, and what would change that; tell the client this section's six uncertainty sentences word for word; ask the three start-gate questions face to face. ```mermaid id=side-check Figure: four questions decide which side you're on; question 4 alone decides switch E flowchart LR q1{"Need licence or registration to open or practise"} -->|No| free["Provisionally unregulated side"] q1 -->|Yes| q2{"Can price be written as a range"} q2 -->|Cannot| strict["Strictly regulated side"]:::warn q2 -->|Can| q3{"Testimonials or peer comparison banned outright"} q3 -->|Banned outright| strict q3 -->|Limited| mid["Lightly regulated side"]:::hl q3 -->|Neither limited| free free -->|All three sides also ask| q4{"Is peer comparison banned"} strict --> q4 mid --> q4 q4 -->|Yes, incl. anonymous ranges| swE["Switch E on: peer comparison banned"]:::warn q4 -->|No| noE["Switch E off: no peer-comparison ban"] ``` The answers to law firms' four questions: - **Question one, yes**: lawyers must be on the roll of advocates and solicitors and hold a valid practising certificate (*Legal Profession Act 1966* (LPA), s 32(1)); law firms must apply to the Director of Legal Services for a licence and an approved name (s 131(1); ss 138 and 153 for LLPs and LLCs) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2]. - **Question two, yes** [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, all of the Council's Practice Directions and Guidance Notes on publicity, the revoked Publicity Rules; check date: 2026-09-29), 75% confidence. The only place that touches price presentation is PD 6.2.1 D: listing a price list in a TV advertisement is unbefitting the dignity of the legal profession, and the same paragraph advises that fee details be discussed with the client in person rather than featured in the advertisement — the latter is advice, not a prohibition [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]. Applied to a fees page, we do not build a price poster, and we state that the final fee is set out in the letter of engagement [Conservative line (not statute text)], 60% confidence (1.2). - **Question three, limited**: testimonials carry no prohibition provision under either the current *Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules 2015* (PCR) or the revoked old rules (searches for "testimonial" and "endors" both return 0); they are governed by confidentiality (r 6, r 43(1)(b)(i)), the ban on success rates (r 43(1)(b)(ii)), and verifiability and unjustified expectations (r 44(2)(c)(d)). Comparison is banned on only two dimensions: the fees charged and the quality of the services provided (r 43(1)(c)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. Under the General Edition's question three, "banning only part of comparison" counts as limited — that is this book's reading of r 43(1)(c). - **Question four, yes**: you must not make any comparison or criticism of another lawyer's fees or quality of service; switch E (peer comparison banned) is on [Statute text, r 43(1)(c); see Appendix A.1]. Rechecking against the three criteria in [[通用版 8.2 判侧五步与三条判据]]: there is a written publicity rule (PCR Part 5, r 37–49, plus the Council's Practice Directions), so the first is met; the penalties spell out fines and terms, so the second is met: disciplinary action can strike a lawyer off the roll, suspend them from practice for up to 5 years, or impose a penalty of up to S$100,000 (LPA s 83(1)); the Council itself can impose a penalty of up to S$10,000; penalty orders and reprimands are published in the Gazette, warnings are not (s 88) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2]. Whether the party publishing on the firm's behalf is a liable party: not at the PCR layer, but yes under specific statutory provisions — switch A below spells this out. ```split Figure: The three essentials and switches to fill in before you start, law firms' answers What to fill in || What law firms fill in Regulator || The Council of the Law Society, LSRA, the Supreme Court Publicity rules || PCR Part 5 + the Council's Practice Directions Expertise and titles || SAL Specialist Accreditation, Senior Counsel Official register lookup || The LSRA "Search for a Lawyer or Law Practice", the SAL Directory of Specialists Switch A: agency liability || On: the lawyer alone is responsible; there are also offences that fall on us directly Switch B: legally required fields || Partial: five places, including the LLC suffix and the foreign-lawyer disclosure wording Switch C: regulated products || Off Switch D: spans two sides || On when the same site also promotes divorce consultants or corporate secretarial services Switch E: peer comparison banned || On: fees and quality of service Switch F: referral commissions banned || On: any form of consideration counts ``` What each regulator covers: the Council of the Law Society enforces PCR Part 5, issues Practice Directions and takes complaints (LPA s 85); the Professional Conduct Council makes the PCR under LPA s 71(2); the LSRA (part of the Ministry of Law) issues law firm licences and approves names; the Supreme Court handles practising certificates and has the final say on discipline; family law also has the Family Justice Courts, which hear cases in private and can make orders restricting publication (*Family Justice Act 2014* (FJA) s 10) and publish the list of touts (FJA s 39). Why a Practice Direction counts: a PD stays in force until it is revoked (LPA s 71(7)–(9)), and the Council may determine that a manner of publicity is undesirable (r 44(1)(c)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1, A.2]; where a PD writes "should" or "advisable", quote it as written, but state that it is advice (1.1). The SAL Directory of Specialists had 121 entries as at 2026-09-29, 0 of them family law. ```mermaid id=distrib-4 Figure: Four forms of publishing-on-someone's-behalf liability, each with one hard consequence, deciding whether off-site work can be handed to someone else flowchart LR f1["Licensee-authorised person, joint liability"] -->|publishing party = the authorised person| r1["Cannot publish without a letter of appointment"]:::warn f2["Principal bears it alone"] -->|treated as the principal's own publication| r2["Each outreach letter held to principal's bar"] f3["Platform-terms joint liability"] -->|violation by the agency running it| r3["Store closed, reviews removed, ranking demoted"]:::warn f4["No dedicated rule"] -->|no authorisation document required| r4["Wording-level constraints still apply"] ``` Switch A (agency liability) falls into the "principal bears it alone" cell for law firms: publicity someone else publishes on a lawyer's behalf counts as the lawyer's own, and the lawyer bears full responsibility for it (r 42(1)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; at this layer, the PCR governs only the lawyer and does not shift liability onto us. There is no statutory letter of appointment of the kind dental clinics have. We can publish on a law firm's behalf [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full; check date: 2026-09-29), 85% confidence — r 42(1) itself says "by any other person on the legal practitioner’s behalf", which already anticipates this situation; the basis is not r 41(b) or r 46. Each batch of material is signed off by a partner or director — this is our own control gate, not a legal formality [Conservative line (not statute text)]. What the figure does not show are the criminal provisions that fall on us directly: they do not require the lawyer to have broken a rule first, and a lawyer's signature cannot shield us from them [Statute text; see Appendix A.2, A.4]. - **Placing a lawyer's services at someone's disposal for a fee** (LPA s 33(3)): a company faces a fine of up to S$25,000 for a first offence and up to S$50,000 for a repeat offence (s 33(6)), with the directors and employees involved separately liable (s 33(7)); if we are a partnership or an LLP, the partners are personally liable too (s 33(7A), (8)). - **Implying we are qualified to practise** (s 33(1)(b)): our own sales material, case-study pages and landing pages never say things like "our legal team" or "free legal consultation" [The offence is Statute text; the specific wording is Conservative line (not statute text)]. - **Family-law content**: publishing information that could identify a child or young person involved in the proceedings makes "the person who publishes or distributes it" guilty under *Children and Young Persons Act 1993* (CYPA) s 112(5)(b), with a fine of up to S$5,000 for a first offence and up to S$10,000 for a repeat offence; websites and messaging systems both count as publishing. Anyone who breaches a Family Justice Court order restricting publication faces a fine of up to S$5,000, up to 3 years' imprisonment, or both (FJA s 10(5)). So we charge law firms only a fixed service fee: never per lead, per case, per number of signed clients, or as a percentage of legal fees. Charging in any of these other ways risks an offence under s 33(3) on our part; if the law firm's side pays us a percentage of legal fees, that breaches r 19 (not sharing legal fees with a non-lawyer), and if it pays us per lead, per case or per signed client, that breaches r 39(2)(b) (no commission or other form of consideration for a referral) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1, A.2]. The fixed service fee itself [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: all of LPA s 33; check date: 2026-09-29), 70% confidence; have legal review the quote and the contract. The other five switches: - **Switch B (legally required fields), partly on**: there is no general required field of the "every piece of publicity must carry a registration number, and missing it is a breach" kind — only five places with a fixed, condition-triggered wording: an LLC's name carries "LLC" or "Law Corporation" wherever it appears (LPA s 154(3)); a team page listing an unregistered foreign lawyer copies out the minimum disclosure wording (PD 6.2.3 B); an LLP's or LLC's invoices and formal letters carry the limited-liability statement (s 139(2), s 154(4), not on web pages); flyers and TV advertisements state at least the firm's name (PD 6.2.2 C, PD 6.2.1 D(c)); a Chinese firm name needs written approval before it can be used (LPE Rules r 7) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2, A.3]. Extending the requirement to state at least the firm's name to every piece of publicity is our own practice [Conservative line (not statute text)]. A title can only be chosen from the approved list (r 33 + PD 3.5.2) — that is a restriction, not a required field, and belongs under 1.6. - **Switch C (regulated products), off**: law firms only sell legal services; PCR r 34 and the First Schedule govern property agency and debt-collection work that a lawyer carries on alongside practice. - **Switch D (spans two sides), depends on the client**, off by default. It is on when the same site also promotes the law-related services in the Fourth Schedule (intellectual property, tax, company secretarial work, litigation support and the like) or a non-legal business, when a foreign law practice and a local law firm share the same brand (JLV, Formal Law Alliance (FLA)), or when a family law firm's site also promotes non-lawyer "divorce consultants" or counselling; when it is on, write the whole site to PCR Part 5. - **Switch E (peer comparison banned), on**: it covers comparing other firms' fees or quality of service, whether the firm is named or can be identified [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; do not write an unnamed market range either [Conservative line (not statute text)]. - **Switch F (referral commissions banned), on**: what it bans is "commission or other form of consideration" (r 39(2)(b)), plus r 19, LPA s 83(2)(d)(e), s 33(3), GN 6.1.1 paras 35–36 and PD 6.1.2 [Statute text; see Appendix A.1–A.3]; LPA s 83(7) empowers the Minister to make exemption rules, and as at the check date not one has been made. We do not pay even a fixed entry fee to referral, case-assignment or matching platforms [Conservative line (not statute text)]. The only paid placement worth considering is the Law Society's own "Find A Featured Lawyer/Law Firm" directory (the Featured directory) [Conservative line (not statute text)], 70% confidence: the Law Society's page states that "the listings are paid by advertising", listed by practice area, chosen by the reader, with no referral or case assignment visible on the page. Buying this kind of display-only slot at a fixed rate card [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR r 39, GN 6.1.1 paras 33–37, PD 6.1.2, the Law Society's Featured directory page; check date: 2026-09-29); the rate-card terms were not obtained [Original text not obtained], see 6.2. ```split Figure: The seven tactics in law firms: two and a half taken away Tactic || Law firms' position Reviews || Limited: you can ask for them, keeping to the four conditions; republishing needs written authorisation Lists and directories || Half a tactic: write only your own entry — no self-awarded rankings, no self-built lists How prices are written || Limited: a range can be published, but no price comparison and no price poster Testimonials and results || Success rates are taken away; family case studies also have to clear two more criminal-law rules Person entities || Open: the LSRA register lookup; from 2027, also the SAL family-law directory Long educational articles || Open: do not mention confidential cases, review the date regularly Publishing on others' behalf and referrals || Publishing on the firm's behalf: yes; referrals paid per lead or for any consideration are taken away ``` The two and a half tactics taken away: results and success rates (r 43(1)(b)(ii), with no exception in the rule text) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1], and referrals billed per lead or for any consideration [Statute text; see Appendix A.1, A.2] — one tactic each; lists are cut down to only your own entry in a third party's list, counted as half a tactic [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Asking clients to leave reviews [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the revoked Publicity Rules, all of the Council's Practice Directions and Guidance Notes on publicity; check date: 2026-09-29), 70% confidence; when you ask, keep to the four conditions (offer no incentive, don't write the review for them, don't ask only satisfied clients, don't dictate the content) [Conservative line (not statute text)], see 1.5. For how each tactic affects rankings, see [[通用版 8.6 七项弹药：受监管与不受监管差在哪、凭什么动名次]]. **The three family-law rules** tighten the wording within each cell; they do not change the side. For family law firms, the case-study, republished-review and review-reply cells work like this: - Default to the strictest wording: no case studies, no republishing, replies use only a fixed template. Relaxing any one of them needs a written sign-off from a partner or director, item by item [Conservative line (not statute text)]. - Two of them come from the legislation itself, and no one's sign-off can release them: nothing that could identify a child or young person involved in the proceedings is ever published (CYPA s 112); nothing a Family Justice Court has restricted from publication is ever published (FJA s 10) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]. Custody and access proceedings within a divorce case also follow the child rule [Conservative line (not statute text)]. - So every family case study, and every review to be republished or replied to, first goes through our own de-identification check (Appendix B.4) before it is sent for sign-off; if it fails any item, it is not sent for sign-off. - A lawyer's signature does not take on our liability: these two rules punish whoever publishes, and if we publish, we are that person. A written sign-off resolves only the stop-and-escalate situations; it never turns something banned as Statute text into something publishable (see 1.1). The following six sentences are this book's account of its uncertainty; they appear here word for word, and you say them to the client in exactly these words too: 1. This book places Singapore law firms on the lightly regulated side, with 75% confidence. On 2026-09-29 we checked, rule by rule, the PCR 2015, the Legal Profession Act and its subsidiary rules, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes, and SAL's current specialist accreditation page. What we have not read are the more than 100 pieces of written ethics guidance in the Law Society's members' area and the 2019 and 2020 Ethics Digests, which may contain case-specific rulings on website fee pages or client reviews. 2. Where this book says you 'can' do something (publish your firm's fee ranges, ask clients to leave reviews, advertise a free first consultation, publish on a firm's behalf), the basis is always 'no current rule prohibits it', not 'a rule allows it'. To the client you may only say 'we found no rule that prohibits it'; you may not say 'the rules allow it'. 3. Family cases carry three extra rules: the Family Justice Courts hear cases in private and can make orders restricting publication (FJA s 10); no one may publish information that could identify a child involved in the proceedings (CYPA s 112); and the lawyer's duty of confidentiality (PCR r 6). For family law firms, case studies, republished reviews and review replies follow the strictest wording. Under the child-identity rule, whoever publishes bears the criminal liability personally, and a lawyer's signature cannot shield us from it. 4. The evidence covers only 9 practice areas serving individuals and SMEs: 22 questions for family law and 2–5 questions for each of the other 8 areas, so the proportions by practice area are directional only. 5. If any of the following happens, this book moves law firms to the strictly regulated side in that quarter: the members' area guidance or an Ethics Digest contains a ruling that 'fee ranges or price lists on a website are unbefitting the dignity of the profession' or that 'lawyers may not ask clients for reviews'; the Law Society issues a new Practice Direction on publicity; or the PCR is amended. If a client firm's compliance officer sets out a stricter position in writing, that firm follows the stricter position. 6. Today no family lawyer can describe themselves as an Accredited Specialist in Family Law: SAL's Family Law specialist accreditation only opened for applications in July–August 2026, and the first results are due to be announced at the Opening of the Legal Year 2027. The documents not read in sentence 1 account for the entire margin in that confidence figure. So when you take on a law-firm client, the start checklist includes one item: ask the client to use their Law Society members' account to export the written ethics guidance in the members' area and the two Ethics Digests and hand them to us; if you find a stricter position than this book's, that firm follows the stricter one, and the rest of the book does not change. The strongest objection (full text and sources in Appendix A.6): law firms, or at least family law firms, should run the whole site on the strictly regulated side — fees and quality of service, the two things r 43(1)(c) bans comparing, are exactly the two things buyers most want to compare; family clients' identities are confidential, and case studies are governed by two criminal-law rules besides; the Council's "dignity" standard has consistently read stricter than the rule text, and Practice Directions have found flyers, letterbox drops to HDB households, a firm's name on camera and TV price lists all unbefitting; when unsure, you should start on the stricter side. We do not adopt it: - The first two points govern the wording within each cell, and this book already writes each cell to the strictest reading. Reclassifying the whole site would, in substance, only add two further restrictions — no price ranges, no asking for reviews — and it so happens that the rule text bans neither; banning them anyway would mean adding a rule the regulator never made. - Every dignity finding whose original text we could check targets offline distribution, in-person solicitation and television. For websites, the Council instead states that "A law practice’s website can be used as an advertising tool" (GN 6.1.1 para 31), and flyer content may also go on the firm's own website (PD 6.2.2 A) [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]. - "When unsure, start on the stricter side" governs situations where the judgement is uncertain. All four questions have rule text to answer them; the only uncertain judgement is how a fees page should present itself, and that cell is already written to the strict reading. ```mermaid Figure: The three start gates: fail the second and downgrade, fail the third and do not take the job flowchart LR q1{"Licensed Singapore local law firm?"} -->|Yes| q2{"Can you give the firm's fee basis?"} q1 -->|Foreign firm, or unclear| s1["Stop and escalate; judge separately"]:::warn q2 -->|Yes| q3{"Sign off each batch, pay fixed fee?"} q2 -->|No| s2["Downgrade: no fees page, AI Mode only"]:::warn q3 -->|Yes| go["Start; fees page goes first"]:::hl q3 -->|No sign-off, or pays per lead| s3["Decline; no downgrade path"]:::warn ``` The three gates are questions 2, 3 and 4 of the twelve pre-start questions ([[通用版 4.1 选点全流程与开工前十二问]]), asked face to face; the other nine are asked in 2.1. The second gate asks "can you give the firm's own fee basis" (billing method, fixed fee or range, what's included and charged separately), not "are you willing to write a fixed price": a law firm can publish a range, and using a fixed price as the threshold would wrongly screen out a client who is actually compliant. If they cannot give one, downgrade — the reason is a real number: all 12 of ChatGPT's run-1 citations of law-firm websites in L3 (2026-09-29) fell into four question types — price 5/23, near-me 3/8, "is this firm good" 3/11, "who's best" 1/12; without a fees page, this leg barely gets in at all, so the first page becomes the office page and the explainer page instead, and you accept it against the AI Mode leg only. The third gate has no downgrade path: the sign-off sheet is our own control gate — no sign-off, no publication; charging per lead or per completed engagement is our own criminal liability (s 33(3) above). ## 0.3 Which of the 46 page types a law firm can build **What you'll do in this section**: check your own build list against this four-group table, first circle what you can build directly and what you can build after rewriting, then give every page type you don't build a stand-in of the same intent; do not start work straight from the General Edition's table of 46 types — law firms have their own four groups. | Group | Page types | How to handle | |---|---|---| | Build (21 types) | ①⑥⑦⑧⑨⑪⑫⑬⑭⑯⑰⑱㉒㉖㉗㉚㉞㊴㊵㊹㊺ | Build directly; use the table below to find the matching section | | Adapt (build after rewriting) (12 types) | ②④⑩⑲㉑㉓㉙㉛㉟㊱㊳㊸ | Build to the narrowed conditions given in the table below | | Cite only (off-site or citation only) (4 types) | ⑮ Legislation text page, ⑳ Register / approved list page, ㉕ Sentiment, forum and news pages, ㉝ Third-party directory listing | For ⑳ ㉝, go to 6.3 and fill in your own row completely, matching your website; ⑮ is cited as a source only, to the specific provision; ㉕ is defence only | | Do not build (9 types) | ③⑤㉔㉘㉜㊲㊶㊷㊻ | Replace with the stand-ins in the figure below | Where the 33 buildable types go (for the ones you can build after rewriting, the narrowed condition is given after the page type): | Which section | Page types | |---|---| | 3.1, 3.2 | ⑨ The firm's facts page and lawyer profile pages | | 5.4 | ② Fee guide page: the first page, no peer price ranges | | 5.5 | ① Single-matter fee page: one URL per case type | | 5.6 | ⑰ Legal aid and pro bono rules page (official numbers copied verbatim + check date), ㉗ amounts and limits page, ㊳ fee estimator (estimates legal fees only, never damages or outcomes) | | 5.7 | ④ Comparison page: compare procedures only, never law firms | | 5.8 | ㊸ "how to choose a lawyer" guide (with firm-by-firm comparisons removed), ㊹ concept pillar page | | 5.9–5.12 | ⑥ One question, one page, ⑦ requirements and eligibility page, ⑧ second-opinion page (the rights-deadline subtype), ⑫ Definition page | | 5.13–5.14 | ⑬ Step-by-step procedure page, ⑭ Preparation and bring-list page, ⑯ deadlines and key dates page, ㉒ Collected FAQ page | | 5.15 | ㊱ Case summary page: the subject is the court, not the firm | | 5.16 | ⑩ Obligations summary page, ㉓ official reply restatement page (these two types are built only as verbatim quote + link back + check date), ㉖ Policy hub page, ㉞ old-vs-new page, ㊵ Misconception page, ㊺ new-rules explainer page | | 5.18–5.19 | ⑪ Office page, ㉚ official register lookup page, ㊴ practising credentials wall | | 5.20 | ㉛ Engagement process page, ㉟ pro bono and legal aid page (optional), ㉑ confidentiality and privacy page: all three appear as the law-firm equivalent, standing in, respectively, for the General Edition's how-to page, integration listing and vendor terms page | | 5.21 | ㉙ Reputation and credentials page (write only expertise you can evidence, plus one line of platform ratings), ⑲ firm data page (no success rates, no track record), ⑱ long-form PDF guide | 5.17 Muslim marriages do not take up a page type: cases that go through the Syariah Court get their own separate set of fees pages and process pages. What these page types look like when cited in law-firm questions (page types roughly labelled by URL, heuristic): in family R1, R2 (2026-09-23), the courts' divorce-conditions page, procedure page and case summary pages were all cited by ChatGPT; law firms' single-price-list-type pages (①) got 1 ChatGPT citation, 3 AI Mode citations; law firms' "how does the divorce process work" type pages (⑬) got 5 AI Mode citations, 0 ChatGPT. In L3 (2026-09-29), ChatGPT's run 1 cited legislation text 5/146 and judgments 6/146; of AI Mode's 47 citations of law-firm pages, 26 were explainer articles and 9 were fees pages. For the same page type, ChatGPT mostly cites the court's or the government's version, so the firm's own version should say "how this step works at this firm, and how much it costs", not recopy the official procedure. ```split Figure: The page types law firms don't build all have a stand-in of the same intent Do not build || Build instead ③ Official pricing page (package cards) || ① Single-matter fee page, price lines ⑤ A self-built list || ㊸ Criteria guide + off-site through ranking-guide review ㉔ Third-party single-business review || ⑨ Facts page + a fully completed directory listing ㉘ Review aggregate page || One line on the facts page: platform · number of reviews · rating · check date ㊲ Category list page naming peers || The firm's own practice catalogue: what the firm handles, what it doesn't ㊶ Verdict-first page || ④ Procedure comparison page, with edge conditions in a section of their own ㊷ Time-limited promotion page || Standing fees page, with the fixed fee set in stone ㊻ Market observation page || ㊺ New-rules explainer page ㉜ Device and product regulatory documents || Not applicable: the courts' own practice guides are cited under ⑮ and ⑱ ``` Why each one is not built, in one sentence each: - ③ Official pricing page: package cards and a recommended ranking easily turn into comparison, and PD 6.2.1 D's dignity finding on TV price lists is unfavourable when applied to a web page too [Conservative line (not statute text)], 60% confidence — write fees instead as ① item by item (5.5). - ⑤ List page: not self-built [Conservative line (not statute text); ranking peers against each other is itself a comparison of quality of service, hitting r 43(1)(c), which is Statute text, and no sign-off can release a publishable version]; write only your own entry in a third party's list, as in 1.6, and never quote a ranking as self-praise. - ㉔ Third-party single-business review: reviewing another firm's service is itself a review of a peer's quality of service [Conservative line (not statute text)]. - ㉘ Review aggregate page: putting several firms' ratings side by side is itself a comparison [Conservative line (not statute text)]. - ㉜ Device and product regulatory documents: law firms have no version of this type. - ㊲ Category list page: never list peers [Conservative line (not statute text)]; the firm's own services are instead carried by the practice catalogue and the fee guide page. - ㊶ Verdict-first page: a verdict is itself comparison and recommendation [Conservative line (not statute text)]. - ㊷ Time-limited promotion page: no discounts, deadlines or promotional tone [Conservative line (not statute text), based on r 44(1)(b), 60% confidence]; this can be relaxed if the client gives written reasons. - ㊻ Market observation page: law firms have no first-party market data, so writing one would be empty theorising that also easily slides into comparison. ```mermaid Figure: In law firms, "who's best" is not won by self-built lists flowchart LR q["Asks which law firm is best"] -->|ChatGPT| a["Ranking-guide tiers, Law Society directory"] q -->|AI Mode| b["Law-firm homepage, directory page, map card"] a -->|Feed it| f["Complete listing, submit for ranking review"]:::hl b -->|Feed it| g["Business profile, office page"]:::hl q -->|Self-built Best page| x["Self-awarded ranking, not built"]:::warn ``` The "who's best" sample is thin: family has 1 question, L3 has 3, so treat it as directional only. Of L3's 7 recommendation questions (near me 2, "is this firm good" 2, "who's best" 3), across both runs ChatGPT cited a law firm's Law Society directory listing page for 3 questions, and paraphrased the listing's practice areas and description in its answers — a directory listing is a legitimate channel for putting the firm's own sentences on an authoritative domain (6.3). For the General Edition's general rules on matching page types, see [[通用版 0.3 哪些页型对你有限制、改做哪一型]] and [[通用版 5.1 页型总图：46 种、六个家族、三档证据、三侧开放]]. ## 0.4 What to tell the client: what we won't do, and what we are not sure about either **What you'll do in this section**: on the day you start, tell the client three things — what we will not do, what we are not sure about either, and how we charge; and separate which materials and numbers are for internal eyes only and must never go into any external material. ```split Figure: Say this to the client, not that Do not say || Say instead "The rules allow you to publish ranges and ask for reviews" || "We found no rule that prohibits it" "Rank high on Google and AI will cite you" || Of the URLs ChatGPT cites, 14% are in Google's top 10 "ChatGPT will cite your process article" || For process and rule questions, ChatGPT never cited a law firm in either batch of data "No one is doing this", "competition is near zero" || We count exactly who gets named, on the spot, in the baseline "our legal team", "free legal consultation" || We are not a law firm; we never use this kind of language Charging per lead or per signed client || We charge only a fixed service fee Sending out comparison material that names peers || This kind of material stays internal ``` Say the first line in full: publishing the firm's own fee ranges, proactively asking clients to leave reviews, advertising a free first consultation, and publishing on the firm's behalf are all things we will do [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes, the revoked Publicity Rules; check date: 2026-09-29; scope and confidence for each item: see Appendix A.6); to the client, say only "we found no rule that prohibits it", and also tell them which documents we checked and up to what date — what we have not read is that batch of guidance in the members' area. For what we are not sure about, say exactly the six sentences in 0.2, adding nothing and leaving nothing out. The numbers behind the second row (L3, 2026-09-29): of ChatGPT's 146 citations on run 1, only 20 of the URLs were in that same question's Google top 10 (13.7%); yet within the Google top 10 for the same batch of questions, law-firm websites accounted for 105/299 (35.1%). Across family law's 22 questions (2026-09-23), Reddit made Google's top 10 for 12 questions, and neither engine cited it even once. Do not sell an SEO ranking as "AI will cite you". The numbers behind the third row (L3 2026-09-29, family 2026-09-23): across L3's 15 questions in the process, definition, rule and calculation types, ChatGPT cited a law firm's website 0 times across both runs; across family law's 13 questions on process, requirements, definitions, rules, calculations and checklists, ChatGPT cited a law firm on 0 questions. Write these pages anyway, but accept them against the AI Mode leg only. Rows five and six are about our own criminal liability, not just politeness: sales material, case-study pages and landing pages never suggest we can give legal advice [The offence is Statute text, LPA s 33(1)(b); the specific wording is Conservative line (not statute text)]; when a law firm asks "can we pay you by results?", the answer is no — charging per lead, per case, per signed client, or as a percentage of legal fees risks an offence under LPA s 33(3) on our part, and breaches r 39(2)(b) or r 19 on the firm's side (0.2) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1, A.2]. Write "fixed service fee" into the quote and the contract, in those words. The price sentence: the first line you say to the client — even if you don't publish a price, AI quotes one for you anyway — is in [[通用版 B.2 口径句与话术]]. For law firms, add a second sentence: "we do not write a single other firm's price; we only write the firm's own fees in a shape AI can drop straight into a market-rate table" (1.3). For family R1's (2026-09-23) two questions about legal fees, ChatGPT built its own market price table straight into the answer both times, drawing on several firms' self-reported prices and one 2022 fee guide. Stop there — add no third sentence. Use this exact script overall: "We didn't make these rules; Part 5 of the PCR and the Law Society's Practice Directions did. Where the book says 'can', what we say is 'we found no rule that prohibits it', and we state which documents we checked and up to what date. Where it says 'do not write', every item is labelled with how firm its basis is: items that are Statute text carry the rule number, and items on the conservative line say that this is our own cautious practice. The final decision rests with your firm's partner: we publish only the draft they have signed. A signature does not transfer the lawyer's own responsibility, and it does not shield us from ours; in family matters, anything that could identify a child, and anything a court has restricted from publication, is not published, whoever signs." There are three kinds of material for internal eyes only: - **Comparison material that contains peer names or peer counts**: putting it on a page or sending it out at all runs into r 43(1)(c), and the bar for a named peer to complain is only a written complaint plus a statutory declaration (LPA s 85(1)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1, A.2]. So every example in the main text is anonymised ("a certain firm", "a certain keyword microsite"), and real names and URLs never go out with the deliverables. - **The question-by-question list of Google's organic results**: that is Google's own ranking; externally, state only the aggregate numbers. - **Scouting numbers**: figures from a one-off run on a generic search API, with the region not locked and a single engine. These are used only to order your own build sequence and must never be stated externally as the client's current position; to use them externally, first lock the region and retest against the frozen question pool, state the retest date and engine, and cite only the post-retest numbers externally — if any one condition is missing, treat it as unusable. For how to mark numbers, see [[通用版 D.1 数字纪律：数字怎么标、什么只能自己看]]. # Chapter 1 · Before you write: the red lines for fees, success rates, past cases, reviews and wording ## 1.1 How firm each rule is, and which situations mean you stop and get a partner's written sign-off **What you'll do in this section**: by the end of it you can do four things — spot a compliance sentence and recognise which of the three labels it carries; see the fixed phrase "no prohibition found in the current rules" and know it only means we found no rule that prohibits it; recognise the three situations that mean you stop and get a written sign-off from the firm's partner or director; and know what that sign-off records for the lawyer, and what it does not shield us from. This chapter is how [[通用版 0.4 合规句的三档标签与停笔规则]], [[通用版 5.2 三侧速查（一）：先判身份；价格、促销与赠送、结果数字]] and [[通用版 5.3 三侧速查（二）：证言与评价、比较、榜单、头衔、外链、FAQ 与图注]] apply to law firms. We do not repeat the mechanics those three sections already cover; this only writes down where law firms are different. ```mermaid id=sign-off Figure: all three stop-and-escalate situations go to sign-off, but a sign-off can only loosen the first two flowchart TD s1["① Facts only the client knows"] --> sign["Client's compliance officer signs off"] s2["② Labelled Conservative line (not statute text)"] --> sign s3["③ Labelled Original text not obtained"] --> sign sign --> loosen1["① and ② can be loosened by sign-off"]:::hl sign --> keep3["③ Even signed, not released: default wording"]:::warn ``` The figure above is the book-wide stop-and-escalate rule. This law-firm version adds four things: how the label gets attached at a law firm, how to write up something "no rule bans", who signs, and how responsibility splits after the signature. ```split Figure: How the source text is marked decides which label the writer attaches — never fill one in yourself What the source looks like || The label the writer attaches Already carries one of the three labels || Copy it exactly, word for word Only a rule number is given (e.g. PCR r 43(1)(c)) || Statute text; the number must match Appendix A A "should" or "advisable" sentence in a Practice Direction || Statute text, stated as the Council's advice The source writes "applying by analogy", "extending" or "conservative line" || Conservative line (not statute text) The source writes "inferred to be allowed" or "no rule found" || Original text not obtained + the fixed sentence "no prohibition found in the current rules" The source text was not obtained this round || Original text not obtained, write the default wording Nothing is labelled at all || Do not fill one in yourself; escalate to the editor ``` What the three labels mean in the Law Firms Edition: **Statute text** — a provision of the *Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules 2015* (PCR 2015), the *Legal Profession Act 1966* (LPA) and its subsidiary rules, or the two family-law Acts (the *Family Justice Act 2014* (FJA) and the *Children and Young Persons Act 1993* (CYPA)) says so in black and white, or the Practice Directions (PDs) or Guidance Notes (GNs) of the Council of the Law Society of Singapore (the Law Society) say so, or SAL's specialist accreditation rules or the Law Society's own page say so in their own words (Appendix A.5); **Conservative line (not statute text)** — no provision says this directly; it applies a rule to a case the rule does not name (for example, applying a judgement about TV advertisements to a website), or it is inferred by reading a rule more strictly; **Original text not obtained** — this splits into two cases, worded differently; see the next two paragraphs. Copy the three labels word for word; never invent a new one. Every "Statute text" label must trace to a rule number, an original sentence and a link in Appendix A — anything that does not match goes to the editor. Why Practice Directions count as Statute text too: LPA s 71(9) says these Directions remain in force until revoked (s 71(7) also says the PCR prevails where they conflict with it), and PCR r 44(1)(c) bans publicity in a manner the Council determines to be undesirable — so the examples a Practice Direction gives of what the Council judges improper are directly binding [Statute text; see Appendix A.2, A.1]. Quote sentences in a Practice Direction that use "should", "advisable" or "good practice" verbatim, but state that this is the Council's advice, not a ban — for example, PD 6.1.1 is phrased throughout as "should observe", and PD 6.2.1 D's sentence on fee detail uses "advisable" [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]. **The first sense of Original text not obtained: no current rule prohibits a practice.** The handful of things this book says you "can" do — publish the firm's own fee range and a "from" price, ask clients to leave reviews, advertise a free first consultation, put court fees and the firm's own fees on the same table, show one line of a platform's aggregate rating on your own page, publish on a firm's behalf, run a firm's marketing for a fixed service fee, buy a pure advertising slot on a fixed rate card — the basis for every one of them is that no current rule prohibits it, not that a rule allows it. Every one of these sentences carries [Original text not obtained], immediately followed by this fixed sentence: > No prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: ; check date: 2026-09-29) The rules for this tier: write the book's default wording, and do not treat it as a basis for judgement; to the client, say only "we found no rule that prohibits it", never "the rules allow it"; if a client firm sets out a stricter position in writing, that firm follows the stricter position, and the book itself stays as it is. The scope checked and the confidence for each item are in Appendix A.6. **The second sense of Original text not obtained: the source text was not obtained this round.** The biggest gap is the Law Society's members' area: "From 2015 to date, the Advisory Committee has issued more than 100 written guidances to members." There are also two Ethics Digests, from 2019 and 2020, whose download links both return a login page [Original text not obtained]. These may contain case-specific rulings on website fee pages or client reviews, and they are the main uncertainty behind the 75% confidence of this book's side decision. So the start checklist includes this step: **before work starts for the first law-firm client, ask the firm to export this batch of documents to us from its own members' account.** If the export sets a stricter position, that firm follows the stricter position; and if it contains a ruling such as "fee ranges or price lists on a website are unbefitting the dignity of the profession" or "lawyers may not ask clients for reviews", the whole book moves law firms to the strictly regulated side in that quarter (see 0.2). Everything else not obtained — the original text of the *Personal Data Protection Act 2012* (PDPA), CYPA's definition of age, the post-nominals and official Chinese translation for SAL's Family Law accreditation, and the field name for individual practising details on the LSRA — is flagged in place wherever a section uses it; a sign-off never releases it; write the book's default wording. Three situations mean you must stop and get the firm's sign-off: 1. Facts only the firm itself knows — whether fees include GST and court fees, which version of the letter of engagement is currently in use, whether every "expertise" sentence has evidence on file under r 43(2), whether the client has given written authorisation to disclose (r 6(3)(a)), whether a court has made an order restricting publication in a given family case, and on what basis each platform the firm uses charges it. 2. Judgement calls labelled Conservative line (not statute text) — if the firm wants to relax one, the signatory gives written reasons, we write to their signed version, and we file it. The exception is the conservative lines that protect us from our own criminal liability (treating CYPA s 112 as covering custody and access proceedings, reading age on the stricter basis, and charging only a fixed service fee): a lawyer's signature cannot shield us from our own criminal liability, so a firm's sign-off cannot relax these ones. 3. Items labelled Original text not obtained — even a sign-off does not release these: write the book's default wording; it is not used as a basis for judgement; assume neither that the rule exists nor that it does not. The signatory is a partner or director (in a sole proprietorship, the sole proprietor signs): the duty to procure rectification under PCR r 42(2) falls only on the lawyer personally and on the firm's directors and partners, not on employed lawyers [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. Every batch of materials needs a sign-off; this is our own control gate, not a legal formality [Conservative line (not statute text)]. The sign-off sheet's fields are in Appendix B.4. ```mermaid Figure: A partner's sign-off records the lawyer's judgement; it cannot shield us from our own criminal liability flowchart LR s["Written sign-off by a partner or director"] -->|records| a["the lawyer's judgement on this batch"]:::hl s -->|does not transfer| b["the lawyer's responsibility for the publicity"] s -->|cannot shield us from| c["the four offences that fall on us"]:::warn s -->|cannot release| d["what Statute text bans"]:::warn s -->|cannot release| e["items labelled Original text not obtained"] ``` Two points the figure can't show. First, at the PCR level only the lawyer is responsible. r 42(1) requires the lawyer to ensure that all publicity relating to their practice complies, whether the lawyer publishes it themselves or "by any other person on the legal practitioner’s behalf" [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. What we write and publish still counts as the lawyer's publicity, and the lawyer is responsible for its compliance; we are not a person the PCR regulates (r 3(7)), and a sign-off does not shift the lawyer's responsibility onto us. One cost of getting it wrong is that the Council can order the whole page taken down (r 42(3)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. Our basis for publishing on a firm's behalf is that r 42(1) presupposes this situation, not r 41(b) or r 46 [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full; check date: 2026-09-29), 85% confidence. Second, four criminal provisions fall directly on us, regardless of whether the lawyer has broken any rule, and a lawyer's signature cannot shield us from them [Statute text; see Appendix A.2, A.4]: - **LPA s 33(3)**: placing a lawyer's services at someone's disposal for a fee. Charging per lead, per completed engagement or by taking a share of legal fees may amount to this offence; a company faces a fine of up to S$25,000 for a first offence and up to S$50,000 for a repeat offence, with directors and employees separately liable (s 33(6), (7)), and if we are a partnership or a limited liability partnership (LLP), each partner is personally liable too (s 33(7A), (8)). So we charge law firms only a fixed service fee — never per lead, per case, per signed client or as a percentage of legal fees. The firm is in breach too: paying us as a percentage of legal fees or per case breaches r 19 (no sharing legal fees with a non-lawyer); paying us per lead, per completed engagement or per signed client falls into the "commission or other form of consideration" that r 39(2)(b) bans. Running a firm's marketing for a fixed monthly fee does not fall into this provision [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: all of LPA s 33; check date: 2026-09-29), 70% confidence. - **LPA s 33(1)(b)**: implying we are qualified to practise. Our own materials and sales collateral never use wording such as "our legal team" or "free legal consultation" [Conservative line (not statute text)] (the offence itself is Statute text; that this wording falls within it is our own reading, 75% confidence). - **CYPA s 112(5)(b)**: publishing information that could identify a child involved in the proceedings. The offence falls on "the person who publishes or distributes it", with a fine of up to S$5,000 for a first offence and up to S$10,000 for a repeat offence. - **FJA s 10(5)**: breaching a Family Justice Court's order restricting publication. "Any person" is covered, with a fine of up to S$5,000, up to 3 years' imprisonment, or both. **Where the last two provisions each reach**: FJA s 10 governs only Family Justice Court proceedings; CYPA s 112 covers a child or young person involved in any court proceedings, whether as the person the proceedings are against, the person in respect of whom they are taken, or a witness [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]. It comes up most often in family cases (custody and access proceedings in a divorce count too — see 1.7); it applies equally to a young defendant or witness in a criminal or traffic case, and an injured child in a personal injury case counts too on the stricter reading (1.4). So for a family law firm, whether to publish a case study, a republished review or a review reply is decided item by item, with the partner's or director's written sign-off; before that sign-off, our side first runs the mandatory de-identification check (Appendix B.4), and any hit means it is not sent for sign-off. These two provisions are the legislation's own words, and a sign-off never releases them; nor does a lawyer's signature take on our own liability as the publisher. **A written sign-off resolves only the stop-and-escalate situations; it never turns something banned as Statute text into something publishable.** --- ## 1.2 Your firm's own fees: you can give a range, but state how you charge, what is included, and that the letter of engagement sets the final fee **What you'll do in this section**: write every place your firm's own fees appear — page body copy, title, structured data, business profiles, directory blurbs, fee tables sent out, PDFs — in the same format: which service tier, what defines it, how it's charged, a fixed fee or a range, what's included and what's charged separately (court fees, disbursements, GST), how many payment stages, and "The final fee is set out in our letter of engagement." The format stays the same whatever the carrier. ```mermaid id=price-sides Figure: The price field is written by side, with one more split by half-life (how often the actual figure changes) flowchart LR p["The price field"] --> s{"Which side"} s -->|strict| f1["A fixed final price, item by item"] s -->|light| f2["Your own range + billing method"] f2 -->|switch B, legally required, is on| f2b["State all legally required fee items"] f2 -->|switch E, peer comparison banned, is on| f2e["Market sentence → official-basis sentence"] s -->|unregulated| f3["Structure + the variables that affect price"] f3 --> h{"How often the actual figure changes"} h -->|changes daily| feed["The actual figure goes only into the feed"]:::hl h -->|rarely changes| html["The actual figure goes into visible HTML"] ``` Law firms follow the figure's "light" → "switch E, peer comparison banned, is on" branch. Switch B only hits a few name and disclosure fields for law firms (see 1.6, 3.1); it does not include a fees element, so law firms do not take the figure's "State all legally required fee items" branch — but leaving out one significant charged-separately item still counts as omitting a material fact, which is misleading (r 44(2)(b)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. ```split Figure: For this same fees cell, what's banned and what to write instead Do not write || Rewrite as "the cheapest" / "lower than most firms" || Delete; write the billing method and what's included "market price S$X, ours S$Y" || Delete the market price; write only the firm's own price and conditions "limited-time offer" / "instant discount" || A standing fixed fee, with an effective date Only "from", with no condition after it || "From" is followed immediately by the defining conditions and the variables that push the price up "No hidden cost" || List what's included and what's charged separately, item by item "No win no fee" (on a family-law page) || Delete; write the billing method and the payment stages "Free consultation" || "First 30 minutes free of charge; document review not included" Price-list posters, screenshots of price lists || A visible HTML table, with the date it was last updated ``` A range and a "from" price can be written [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes, the revoked Publicity Rules; check date: 2026-09-29), 75% confidence. If you write "from", the figure must be followed immediately by the defining conditions and the variables that would push the total up — otherwise it is row four in the figure. Know the evidence that cuts the other way, exactly as it stands: PD 6.2.1 D holds that setting out price lists in a TV advertisement is unbefitting the dignity of the legal profession, then in the same paragraph says that referring to fixed fees in general terms is not improper, and goes on to advise that the duty to disclose fee detail is "best discharged by personally explaining it to the client" — that is the Council's advice (advisable), not a ban [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]. Applied to a website, the wording is: state on the page that "The final fee is set out in our letter of engagement"; do not build an eye-catching price poster, do not post a screenshot of a price list, and make the fee table a visible HTML table [Conservative line (not statute text)] (60% confidence). PCR r 17(3) is the lawyer's duty to inform the client at the point of engagement, and it is met through the letter of engagement (PD 7.4.3 E suggests writing it into the letter of engagement) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1, A.3]. All it shows is that "a range + a billing method" points the same way as the lawyer's duty — it cannot be used to argue that "the fees page must spell out the detail." Do not say that to a client. What never goes in this same cell: cheapest, lower than other firms, "market price X, ours Y" [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] (r 43(1)(c); how other firms' figures are handled is in 1.3); discounts, limited-time language, promotional tone [Conservative line (not statute text)] (r 44(1)(b), 60% confidence; a firm can relax this by giving written reasons). ```mermaid Figure: "no win no fee" can appear on only one kind of page flowchart LR q{"Are this page's proceedings on the CFA list"} -->|yes| ok["Can write it, stated as a CFA"]:::hl q -->|no, or it's family law| no["Do not write it"]:::warn p["Charging as a percentage of damages"] --> no2["Never write it, on any page"]:::warn ``` A conditional fee agreement (CFA) applies only to the proceedings listed in reg 3 of the *Legal Profession (Conditional Fee Agreement) Regulations 2022* (the CFA Regulations) (LPA s 107(1)(b), (3AA), s 115B; PCR r 18A) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2, A.1]. On the pages where it can be written, state that this is a conditional fee agreement entered into under Part 8A of the LPA and that it applies only to proceedings on the list. Family law is not on the list, so writing it on a family-law page is publicity for an arrangement the firm cannot enter into [Conservative line (not statute text)] (85% confidence). A contingency fee agreement, charging as a percentage of damages, is still prohibited — GN 5.6.1 says so plainly [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]. A free first consultation can also be written [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes; check date: 2026-09-29), 60% confidence. If you write it, state the scope and the length [Conservative line (not statute text)]: the basis is that r 44(2)(b) bans omitting a material fact [Statute text; see Appendix A.1], and whether writing "free consultation" without the scope counts as an omission is our own reading. Do not turn it into a touting hook, and do not put it in the title or the first-screen button [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Write the title using this formula: ` Fees in Singapore (2026): S$ | `. The words cheapest, lowest, best value, discount and limited time must not appear in the title; write the approved firm name exactly as registered, and for a law corporation (LLC) include the suffix (see 1.6). Write tiered fees like this: > **Example** (illustration; all figures are placeholders): `Uncontested divorce (no matrimonial home, no children): fixed fee S$ nett, inclusive of court filing fees, disbursements and GST. Payable in two stages: S$ on engagement, the balance on filing. Not included: . The final fee is set out in our letter of engagement.` Put the tiers with a matrimonial home or with children on lines of their own, each with its own conditions and price; only use a "from" price within a single tier when the total genuinely rises with some variable, and write that variable in the same sentence. What gets cited looks like this: > **Example** (family law, single case) In family R1 (the public dataset's first round, 2026-09-23), the page ChatGPT cited as its first source for a Chinese-language fee question was a price list of only 62 words in 4 lines, every line in the shape "service tier + defining conditions (matrimonial home or not, children or not) + nett price + no GST charged separately." On another fees page at the same firm, the sentence written on an all-in basis — a nett starting price, with disbursements, court fees and GST spelled out in brackets, split into two tiers for online and physical divorce — was cited by AI Mode. Both pages share the same sentence shape: conditions, price and what's included, all written in one sentence. How you write a price follows the content, not the carrier: the price field in structured data, the facts page (3.1), business profiles (3.4), self-supplied blurbs for directories and ranking guides (6.3), fee tables and fee materials sent out (6.4), and long-form PDFs (5.21) — all of these follow this section, and structured data and feeds take only the firm's own price. No carrier is an exception. --- ## 1.3 Court fees and market rates: publish the court's figures, never other firms' prices **What you'll do in this section**: court fees and official fee tables are money paid to the court — you can put them on the same table as the firm's own fees, in a separate column; you never write another firm's price range, whether or not you name them; AI will piece together its own market-rate table regardless, and that table is not yours to control — what you can control is whether the firm's own price appears, in a comparable, conditioned shape, among the raw material it pieces that table from. ```mermaid id=compare-sides Figure: The comparison field is written by side flowchart LR s{"Which side"} -->|strict| a["Only approaches and methods, not businesses"]:::warn s -->|switch E, peer comparison banned, is on| b["Compare procedures only, not peers"]:::hl s -->|light| c["Only approaches and forms, not businesses"] s -->|unregulated| d["May compare with peers, source + check date"] ``` Law firms take the "switch E, peer comparison banned, is on" branch: compare procedures only, never other firms. ```mermaid Figure: Court figures can go into the fees table; other firms' figures go in nowhere flowchart LR c["Court fees, official fee tables"] -->|a separate column: paid to the court| t["The firm's own fees table"]:::hl m["Other firms' ranges, market-rate sentences"] -->|same table or standing alone| x["Never write either"]:::warn t -->|the firm's own price becomes raw material| ai["AI's own market-rate table"] t -->|an outbound link as the fee-dispute outlet| lc["the Law Society's fee-dispute page"] ``` Court fees and the firm's own price on the same table [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes; check date: 2026-09-29). This is different from the Dental & Aesthetics Edition: for law firms there is no ban on "comparative listing of prices". Label the column clearly as "paid to the court", and under the table give the court page's table name and the date the figures were retrieved; if the original table cannot be retrieved, do not write a figure — just put a link to the court's page, never estimate, and never carry forward an old value ([[通用版 0.4 合规句的三档标签与停笔规则]]). On other firms' prices, PCR r 43(1)(c) bans "any comparison or criticism in relation to the fees charged, or the quality of the services provided, by any other legal practitioner or law practice" [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] — named, identifiable, or appearing in the same table or paragraph as the firm's own price all fall within this sentence. An unnamed market range written as a standalone sentence, with none of the firm's own prices next to it, is also never written [Conservative line (not statute text)] (85% confidence; the rule's own wording is "any other" — it does not require naming a name). Before you go live, search the whole page for market, generally costs, ranges from, average, typical fee, "市场", "行情", "一般在" — search the FAQ, figure captions, table headers, title and meta too, and delete on any hit (5.22). Fill the space you have cleared, following [[通用版 5.2 三侧速查（一）：先判身份；价格、促销与赠送、结果数字]], with two sentences: an official-basis sentence (how the court's fee table sets its figures, how the procedure itself decides the total cost), plus a procedure-variable sentence (1.8, category 3). Law firms do not write market rates, but AI reports them anyway. In family R1, for two questions that ask directly about legal fees, both of ChatGPT's answers pieced together their own market price table, using several firms' self-published prices and a third-party fee guide from 2022 as raw material (2/2, 2026-09-23); in L3 (our 2026-09-29 run: 30 questions outside family law, each put to ChatGPT twice), the five fee questions produced 10 ChatGPT answers in total, and all 10 carried a price table (judged by whether the answer's full text contains a table). Whether AI reports a market rate is not something you decide; what you can decide is whether the firm's own row is in the shape "service tier + conditions + nett price + what's included" — shaped so AI can lift it straight in. Of the same run's 30 questions, ChatGPT cited the Law Society's Legal Costs / Disputes page on both runs for 5 of them (3 price questions, 1 checklist question, 1 rules question; L3, 2026-09-29). Link the firm's fees page to it, as the official outlet for "who do I go to if I dispute a fee" — it is already the page ChatGPT cites for fee questions. > **Example** (family law, single case) In family R1, under the H2 that asks about price on one firm's divorce practice page, the first sentence was a sourced market range, immediately followed by a table setting the firm's fixed price against the market range, and both ChatGPT and AI Mode cited it. Being cited does not mean you can use it: this is exactly the wording switch E bans, and all it proves is that the shape — give a price in the first sentence under the price-asking H2 — works. In that same position, put the firm's own price plus an official-basis sentence instead. --- ## 1.4 Success rates, past cases and client names: what you can mention and what you never mention **What you'll do in this section**: delete success rates, win rates and "won N cases" entirely from page body copy, the FAQ, figure captions, table headers and the title, with no exceptions; mention past cases and client names only when the client has given written authorisation and it does not breach confidentiality; write case volume only as an operating number whose basis is spelled out — never write it, or imply it, as a success rate. ```split Figure: Content about results — what's banned and what to write instead Do not write || Rewrite as Success rate, win rate, "95% won" || Delete; write the process, the timeline, the statutory conditions "won N cases", "never lost a case" || Delete "we will get you custody, guaranteed" || Delete; write what factors the court considers, with the rule number Naming a client and the course of the case || Only with the client's written authorisation, and nothing confidential Client lists, client logo walls || Written authorisation from each one Family case studies || Run the de-identification check first, then sign off item by item (1.7) "handled N divorces" || Write the basis, the period, the denominator; pass the six checks "former partner, now a judge" || Do not write it while they hold that office ``` Success rates have no exception: PCR r 43(1)(b)(ii) bans publicity that mentions, directly or indirectly, the success rate of a lawyer, the firm or anyone in it [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] — dropping the number and writing "the vast majority of cases" or "never lost a case" still counts as mentioning it indirectly. Do not write "guarantee", "definitely" or "we will win" either; it creates an unjustified expectation (r 44(2)(d)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. Past cases and clients: never mention anything that would breach the duty of confidentiality (r 43(1)(b)(i)); whether it can be disclosed depends on whether the client has authorised it (r 6(3)(a)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. Authorisation must be written and filed, and must state how far disclosure is allowed — name, industry, matter type and outcome each count as one field [Conservative line (not statute text)] (r 6(3)(a) only says the client authorises it; written form and field-by-field scope are our own practice). The fact that someone is a client of the firm is itself treated as confidential [Conservative line (not statute text)] (80% confidence): without written authorisation, we do not even write "we have acted for [someone]." Client lists and client logo walls, common in corporate work, are also mentioning a client — get written authorisation from each one [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Where a case involves a minor, run it through CYPA s 112 regardless of practice area: a young defendant or witness in a criminal or traffic case is directly covered by the provision's own text [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]; an injured child in a personal injury case counts too, on the stricter reading [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Before writing this kind of case study, follow the order in 1.7: run our de-identification check first, then send it for sign-off. Saying you "specialise in" something and never writing a success rate do not conflict: r 43(2) lists seven factors that can be used to prove expertise, and one of them is the level of success achieved [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. Keep the material for that factor in the evidence file, backing up the "specialise in" sentence on the page; no success-rate figure ever appears on the page itself [Conservative line (not statute text)] (each rule is Statute text on its own; applying them together this way is our own reading). Write case volume only as an operating number [Conservative line (not statute text)] (75% confidence): before writing a figure such as "handled N divorces", run it through the six checks for numbers (what counts as one case, the denominator, the period, the sample, the data source, whether it can be published), never put it in the same sentence as a result word like "succeeded" or "won", and never place it next to a case study — placed close by, the reader reads it as a track record. The six checks are in [[通用版 5.10 页型共用件：数字六项检查、无公开价、计价单位、日期与 schema]]. When a former partner or lawyer is appointed to the judiciary, the firm's publicity does not mention that appointment for as long as they hold office (r 43(3)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. The "about us" and "our history" pages are where this is easiest to miss. --- ## 1.5 Client reviews: you can ask for them, but there are limits on how you ask, display and reply **What you'll do in this section**: sort reviews into the nine cells below by "who controls this content"; you can ask clients to leave reviews, but keep to four conditions; putting a single review on your own page needs the client's written authorisation; for a family client's republished reviews and review replies, run our de-identification check first, then get the partner's or director's written sign-off item by item, and even with a sign-off, never republish one that mentions a detail identifying a child; no reply ever discusses the client or the case, or comments on the opposing party. ```mermaid id=review-control Figure: Whether a review counts as your advertising depends on who controls the content flowchart LR r["A review"] --> c{"Who controls this content"} c -->|you invited, screened or rewarded it| ours["Counts as your advertising"]:::warn c -->|zero involvement; buyer posted unprompted| theirs["Does not count as your advertising"] c -->|you reposted or restated it on your site| ours c -->|you reply to it on the platform| reply["A reply is your content too"]:::hl ``` The figure above is the general framework for deciding "whose content this review is." For the cell that puts a review on your own page, law firms ask in this order: ```mermaid Figure: Whether a client review can go on your own page — ask in this order flowchart LR r["A client review"] --> a{"Has the client given written authorisation"} a -->|no| no["Do not republish"]:::warn a -->|yes| b{"Does it include a result or a success rate"} b -->|yes| no b -->|no| c{"Is this a family client"} c -->|no| ok["Republish verbatim, meaning unchanged"]:::hl c -->|yes| d["De-identification check, then per-item sign-off"] d -->|mentions a child's identity| no2["Not republished even with a sign-off"]:::warn d -->|checked and signed| ok ``` The nine cells in full: | # | Specific action | Verdict | Label | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | Posting a single client review verbatim on the website, owned social media, or a brochure | The client's written authorisation + no result or success rate + meaning unchanged | Authorisation and the success-rate ban: Statute text (A.1); meaning unchanged: Conservative line (not statute text) | | 2 | Putting a family client's review on the website | Run the de-identification check first (Appendix B.4), then get the partner's or director's written sign-off item by item; anything with a child's name, school, address or a detail that could piece together their identity is not republished even with a sign-off | Signed off item by item: Conservative line (not statute text); a child's identity: Statute text (A.4) | | 3 | Showing a platform's aggregate rating on your own page | Write only one line of visible text: platform · number of reviews · rating · check date; no star-rating widget | Can display: Original text not obtained: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes; check date: 2026-09-29). The one-line wording: Conservative line (not statute text) | | 4 | Asking clients to leave a review | Can do; keep to four conditions: offer no incentive, do not write the review for them, do not ask only satisfied clients, do not dictate the content; the metric counts only requests sent | Can ask: Original text not obtained: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the revoked Publicity Rules (in full), all category 6 Practice Directions and Guidance Notes on the Law Society's ethics page; check date: 2026-09-29), 70% confidence. The four conditions: Conservative line (not statute text) | | 5 | Giving a discount, a gift or a prize draw for a review | Do not do it | Conservative line (not statute text) | | 6 | Replying to a review on a platform | Neither confirm nor deny that the reviewer is a client of the firm; do not discuss the case; do not comment on the opposing party; the same template for every negative review; no personal data appears anywhere. For a family client's review, every reply is checked first, then signed off | Not commenting on the opposing party: Statute text (the Council's advisory wording, A.3), applied to review replies: Conservative line (not statute text); not confirming identity: Conservative line (not statute text); PDPA: Original text not obtained | | 7 | Deleting a negative review, asking a platform to take it down | Only ask the platform to handle offensive content under its own rules; never edit the wording of the review | Conservative line (not statute text) | | 8 | A third party writes its own "best N law firms" and lists the firm, with zero involvement from us | Does not count as the firm's own publicity; never cite a ranking back as self-praise; if an entry is wrong, the partner or director sends a correction letter under their own name | Conservative line (not statute text) | | 9 | Buying a spot on a paid "best" list, or accepting an award you get by paying | Do not do it | Conservative line (not statute text) (70% confidence) | Why reviews are not banned across the board: a full-text search of the current PCR and the revoked Publicity Rules for "testimonial" and "endors" returns 0 hits in both generations of rules [Statute text (historical fact); see Appendix A.6]. What actually governs reviews is a different set of provisions: confidentiality (r 6), the ban on writing a success rate (r 43(1)(b)(ii)), verifiability and unjustified expectation (r 44(2)(c), (d)), plus the criminal provisions in the two family-law Acts for family cases (1.7). The claim in online marketing articles that Singapore lawyer advertising must not contain testimonials: we checked both the current and the old rules and could not find where it comes from; do not repeat it. The four conditions rest on r 44(1)(b)'s ban on misleading publicity: a review that came with an incentive, was written for the client, or was requested only from satisfied clients no longer shows the reader a typical experience [Conservative line (not statute text)]. How to send the request and what template to use are in 6.5 and [[通用版 6.5 评价：请求怎么发、回复怎么写、空出来的格怎么补]]; the request template for family clients adds one extra line, "Please do not include your children's names, schools, or any detail that could identify them." (Appendix B.2). The reviews section of the monthly report counts only requests sent, never reviews received (7.1). That one line of rating in cell 3 rests on verifiability (r 44(2)(c)): write out the platform name, number of reviews, rating and check date in full, as visible text. AI reads visible HTML — burying only an aggregateRating structured-data field counts as not having done it. > **Example** (family law, single case) In family R2 (the public dataset's second round, 2026-09-23), for a question about "is this firm good", the rating ChatGPT relied on was the one with a denominator on the queried firm's own page, and the answer's own wording stated that the number came from the firm's own page; the other item copied for the same question was the rating and review-count block on the first screen of a review platform, not the review text itself. Being cited does not mean you can write it: what makes this cell writable is verifiability, not these two citations. Replies, in cell 6: PD 6.1.1 lists online remarks directed at a client, a judge or the opposing party as an example of improper conduct, and item (g) reads "to avoid adverse remarks on the conduct or character of the opposing party." [Statute text (the Council's advisory wording); see Appendix A.3], and applying it to review replies is Conservative line (not statute text) (85% confidence). In a reply, neither confirm nor deny that the reviewer is a client of the firm (r 6(2)) [Conservative line (not statute text)] (80% confidence) — the client writing it themselves in a review is not the same as the firm getting authorisation to confirm it publicly. Use the same template for every negative review, never argue back and never recount the facts of the case; the template is in Appendix B.2. PD 6.1.1 also expressly reminds firms to comply with the PDPA; the PDPA's original text was not checked this round [Original text not obtained], so no personal data appears in a reply at all. Cell 8: r 42(1) governs publicity issued "on the legal practitioner’s behalf"; a third party writing entirely on its own initiative falls outside it [Conservative line (not statute text)] — the moment we supply content, materials or payment, our involvement is no longer zero. If an entry is wrong, the partner or director sends a correction letter under their own name (applying r 42(2) to a third party's self-initiated entry: Conservative line (not statute text), 65% confidence). How to write a ranking on your own page is in 1.6. Beyond cell 9, the only paid placement worth considering is the Law Society's own "Find A Featured Lawyer/Law Firm" directory (the Featured directory) [Conservative line (not statute text)] (70% confidence); the conditions for buying it are in 6.2. Buying this kind of pure advertising slot on a fixed rate card (listed by practice area, chosen by the reader, with no referral or case assignment) [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR r 39, GN 6.1.1 paras 33–37, PD 6.1.2, the Law Society's Featured directory page; check date: 2026-09-29), 70% confidence; the rate-card terms were not obtained [Original text not obtained] — get them before you buy. --- ## 1.6 Expertise, titles and rankings: back every expertise claim with evidence, and never award yourself a ranking **What you'll do in this section**: for every sentence that says "specialise in" or "expertise", keep evidence on file under r 43(2)'s seven factors; pick titles only from the approved list; show accreditation only on the lawyer's own page, worded only in SAL's format; for rankings, write only "listed in which guide, which year, which tier" plus a link — never imply you rank above other firms. The main text, FAQ, captions and table headers are checked against the same word list: there is no exempt zone. ```split Figure: Wording that gets you into trouble, and the provable fact to put in the same cell instead Never write, or write with caution || Replace with best, No. 1, top (self-declared) || Delete; write your practice areas and years in practice leading || Write only if a third-party guide places you in a tier of that name; add the guide's name and year Divorce Specialist (as a title) || advocate and solicitor, plus a separately evidenced expertise sentence Expert or "专家律师" (expert lawyer), used as a title || Same as above Accredited Specialist (without accreditation) || Do not write Senior Counsel (not appointed) || Do not write guarantee, "包赢" (guaranteed win) || Delete; write the factors the court considers the Law Society's armorial bearings (its crest) || Do not use external designations for marketing and client-service staff || Word them so they cannot be mistaken for a lawyer's ``` **Back every claim to expertise with evidence**: any claim to expertise in your publicity must be justifiable (r 43(1)(a)); r 43(2) lists seven factors that may be taken into account in justifying it — academic qualifications, experience, proportion of working time involved, level of success achieved, complexity of law and practice, significance of the matters the lawyer or the firm has handled, and assessment by peers [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. Match every "specialise in" sentence to one or more of these factors on the sign-off sheet, with the evidence number attached (Appendix B.4); the level-of-success factor goes into the evidence file only, never onto the page (1.4). **Pick titles only from the approved list**: r 33(1) lets a practising lawyer describe themselves in only a few ways — advocate and solicitor, lawyer, a qualified legal consultant, an appointed Commissioner for Oaths or Notary Public, and so on [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. "Divorce Specialist", "Family Law Expert" and "专家律师" (expert lawyer), written under a name, in a directory's title field, or on a business card, are all being used as a title — none of them is on the approved list [Conservative line (not statute text)] (75% confidence; writing about expertise with evidence in the body text is a separate matter, governed by r 43). Non-lawyer staff at the firm: PD 3.5.2 says the designation on an executive support staff member's business card "shall be stated in a manner as not to give the impression that he is a legal practitioner." [Statute text; see Appendix A.3] Marketing and client-service staff follow the same standard for their external designations on team pages and social-media bios [Conservative line (not statute text)]. A few more fixed forms [Statute text; see Appendix A.1, A.2, A.3]: - Senior Counsel is limited to people appointed under s 30 of the Legal Profession Act (r 33(3)). - Consultant requires 10 years in practice (LPA s 75D); a foreign lawyer may only be called a Foreign Law Consultant, also requiring 10 years (RI Rules r 11(1), (2)). - Where a team page lists a foreign lawyer not registered in Singapore, copy PD 6.2.3 B's minimum disclosure wording exactly (see the original sentence in Appendix A.3). "legal associates" in PD 6.2.3 A means lawyers employed by the firm, not paralegals. - Do not use the Law Society's crest (r 42(4)). - An LLC's name carries "LLC" or "Law Corporation" everywhere — "Every law corporation must have either the words “Law Corporation” or the acronym “LLC” as part of its name" (LPA s 154(3)); the suffix cannot be dropped from structured data or a business profile either. - Where a firm's name includes a person's name, that name must match the practising certificate (LPE Rules r 8(2)); the spelling of a lawyer's name on their page follows the practising certificate and the LSRA register lookup (3.2); how a person page aligns with the rest of the record is at [[通用版 3.3 个人实体页与六处痕迹对齐]]. Only the approved Chinese name may be used for a Chinese firm name: "The name of a law firm must be stated in the English language; but the name may, with the approval in writing of the Director of Legal Services, also be stated in any of the other official languages." (LPE Rules r 7; for a limited liability law partnership (LLP) and an LLC, see r 15(1) and r 29(1) respectively) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2]. For a firm with no approved Chinese name, the Chinese page, Chinese business profile and Chinese directory listing all use the approved English name — never translate it yourself [Conservative line (not statute text)] (85% confidence). A Chinese page is itself optional: build one only if you have Chinese-speaking clients, and accept it against the AI Mode leg only (5.3). **Never award yourself a ranking**: calling yourself No. 1, top or best is an implied comparison against the service quality of every other firm (r 43(1)(c)), and it cannot be verified either (r 44(2)(c)), so by default do not write it [Conservative line (not statute text)] (80% confidence). Read "leading" carefully: what PD 6.2.1 D(a) judges to be misleading is "leading family law practice when it does not have expertise or experience in family law" [Statute text; see Appendix A.3] — it is not the word "leading" itself that is banned, but claiming to be leading without the expertise. So by default do not write it; write it only when a third-party guide places you in a tier of that name, and add the guide's name and year when you do [Conservative line (not statute text)] (70% confidence). A third-party ranking can be used to justify an expertise claim — it falls under r 43(2)(g)'s assessment by peers [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; the wording states only your own entry: publisher, year, category, tier, plus a link [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Do not draw "ranked above " or "the only firm listed" from a ranking — that is comparison again (r 43(1)(c)). The Law Society's Practice Excellence Award goes to individual lawyers, and the Society states that award winners receive a special Practice Excellence emblem to showcase in marketing materials [Statute text; see Appendix A.5]; put it on the winning lawyer's own page (year + full award name + issuer + category), and on the firm page write " of our firm received …", never write it as the firm winning the award [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Do not write an award that is granted simply for paying — see row 9 of the table in 1.5. Why that one line in a ranking guide is worth getting right: for "who's best"-type questions, ChatGPT sometimes bases its judgement directly on a ranking guide's tier (across the 3 L3 questions of this shape, what it cites most is still the Ministry of Law and the Law Society — see chapter 0, 0.1). For the family R1 question (2026-09-23), 4 of ChatGPT's 6 citations were ranking guides (two from Doyle's, one from Legal 500, one from Chambers), and it wrote Doyle's tier name straight into its reason for recommending the firm; for L3's criminal "who's best" question (2026-09-29), 1 of ChatGPT's 2 citations in run 1 was Doyle's (in run 2, 3 of the 4 were Doyle's, Legal 500 and Best Lawyers). Both are single cases and directional only. On your own page, write the tier name exactly as the guide words it — not one word changed. **Show accreditation only on the individual's own page**: SAL states, "Your accreditation is an individual attainment. It should not be used to promote your firm or organisation." [Statute text; see Appendix A.5] — accreditation goes only on the lawyer's own page, never on the firm's home page (paras 4.1 and 4.2 of SAL's *Marketing Your Accreditation* guide). Family-law accreditation is valid for 3 years (SAL's *Information for Specialists – Family Law*, v1.00, para 3.1) [Statute text; see Appendix A.5]: write the year of accreditation alongside it, and remove it the moment it expires. ```mermaid Figure: When a family lawyer may state a specialist accreditation flowchart LR t{"Listed in SAL's Directory and still valid?"} -->|No| no["Don't write; all family lawyers are here today"]:::warn t -->|Yes| f{"Has SAL published a Family Law post-nominal?"} f -->|No| full["Write only the full title + accreditation year"]:::hl f -->|Yes| sfx["Write the post-nominal in SAL's format"] ``` **No family lawyer can write Accredited Specialist in Family Law today**: SAL's Directory of Specialists holds 121 entries as of 2026-09-29, 0 of them in family law; applications for Senior Accredited Specialist in Family Law were open from 2026-07-01 to 08-31, with the first results due to be announced at the Opening of the Legal Year 2027 [Statute text; see Appendix A.5]. SAL's *Marketing Your Accreditation* guide (v7.01) does not yet have the Family Law post-nominal or its official Chinese translation [Original text not obtained]: once the first list is out, and until SAL publishes them, write only the full title — do not invent an abbreviation, and do not make your own Chinese translation. For the other three accreditation areas, copy the official Chinese translation only from para 4.7 of SAL's guide. --- ## 1.7 Three extra rules for family cases: children must not be identifiable, hearings are private, and amicable resolution comes first **What you'll do in this section**: run every case study, case-law commentary, republished review, review reply and bylined article from a family law firm through this section before it goes out. The first two rules punish whoever publishes, including us, so the order is fixed: our own designated person runs the de-identification check first (Appendix B.4), and any hit means it does not go for sign-off; once it clears, send it to a partner or director for a written sign-off item by item; only publish once it is signed. ```mermaid Figure: Family-law material passes through our own check first, then goes to the lawyer for sign-off item by item flowchart LR m["Family case, republished review, reply"] --> c{"Can the child in the proceedings be identified?"} c -->|Yes| x1["Delete; not published even with a sign-off"]:::warn c -->|No| o{"Is there a court order restricting publication?"} o -->|Yes| x2["Publish none of it"]:::warn o -->|No| d{"Does it cover hearing details or a witness?"} d -->|Yes| x3["Cut down to the legal points only"] d -->|No| s["Partner or director signs off item by item"]:::hl s -->|Signed| pub["Publish; sign-off does not shift our liability"] ``` ```split Figure: Family-law content, how to handle each kind Content || How to handle it A child's name, school, address or photo || Never shown, even after the child turns 18 Combinations such as age + school + parent's occupation || Never shown A case with an order restricting publication || Not a word about it Hearing details, witness information || Legal points and procedure only "Fight it all the way", "make the other side pay" || Write mediation and divorce by mutual agreement as the preferred option "Divorce consultants" and similar partners || Check the court's published list of touts before working with one ``` This is what the seventh tactic in [[通用版 8.6 七项弹药：受监管与不受监管差在哪、凭什么动名次]] — "Legal liability for advertising published on someone else's behalf" — looks like for family law firms: at the PCR layer only the lawyer bears responsibility, but these two family-law Acts write the publisher directly into the offence. 0.2 says family cases carry three extra rules: private hearings and orders restricting publication (FJA s 10), the ban on identifying a child involved in the proceedings (CYPA s 112), and the lawyer's duty of confidentiality (PCR r 6). The duty of confidentiality is the same for every firm, and is already covered in 1.4 and 1.5; this section covers the first two, plus one more practising duty that applies only to family lawyers and decides how the explainer text is written: amicable resolution first. **Children must not be identifiable**: CYPA s 112(1)(a) bans publishing information about court proceedings that "reveals the name, address or school or that includes any particulars that are calculated to lead to the identification of any child or young person concerned in the proceedings"; (1)(c) says the ban still applies once the child turns 18; (9)'s "publish" covers websites and messaging systems; (5)(b) punishes "the person who publishes or distributes it" [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]. If we publish or republish it, we are the person who publishes it. This rule is not only about family cases: any child involved in any court proceeding counts (1.1, 1.4). It covers custody and access proceedings in a divorce case [Conservative line (not statute text)] (80% confidence; the original text covers any proceedings in any court, plus "in respect of whom the proceedings are taken"). CYPA's age definitions for "child" and "young person" were not obtained this round [Original text not obtained]; take the stricter reading: a child involved in the proceedings is treated as a protected person, whatever their age now. Where a client's own review on a platform mentions anything that identifies a child, we do not republish it, and we do not repeat any of the detail in a reply either. **Hearings are private**: "all matters and proceedings in a Family Justice Court must be heard in private." (FJA s 10(1)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]. In practice: case pages and case-law commentary carry only the legal points and the procedure, never hearing details that could be matched to a specific party [Conservative line (not statute text)] (85% confidence). A Family Justice Court can make an order restricting publication (s 10(4)(a)), and "Any person" who breaches it commits an offence (s 10(5)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4], so nothing at all is written about a case under such an order. Only the firm knows whether an order exists — this is the first of the three stop-and-escalate situations in 1.1: ask before you write, and record the answer on the self-check sheet. **Amicable resolution first**: from the point proceedings are contemplated, and whenever reasonably possible, a family lawyer must "advise the client to consider resolving those proceedings amicably" (PCR r 15A(2)(b)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. This is a practising duty, not a publicity provision; in practice, explainer text presents mediation and divorce by mutual agreement as the preferred option, and does not write copy that plays up conflict [Conservative line (not statute text)] (65% confidence). **How the sign-off is used**: family case studies, republished reviews and review replies are not a blanket "never do it" — a partner or director decides item by item, in writing, whether to publish [Conservative line (not statute text)] — the sign-off records the client's authorisation (r 6(3)(a)) and the lawyer's judgement on confidentiality. But the child-identity rule and orders restricting publication come straight from the legislation: anything that could identify a child, or that a court has restricted from publication, is not published even with a sign-off; nor does a lawyer's signature take on our own criminal liability as the publisher (1.1). The checker is our own designated person; the self-check sheet is ticked item by item and dated, and filed together with the sign-off sheet (Appendix B.4). A few things that come up only in family law: - The registrar of the Family Justice Courts may publish a list of touts and unauthorised advisers, posted at the Registry of the Family Justice Courts and in the Gazette (FJA s 39(1), (6)); a lawyer may not employ anyone on the list, or pay them (LPA s 78(1)(e)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4, A.2]. Check this list before working with any divorce "consultant" or similar intermediary partner. - A conditional fee agreement does not apply to family law: do not write "no win no fee" on a family-law page [Statute text; see Appendix A.2] (1.2). - A foreign law practice may not do Singapore family-law work (LPE Rules r 50(1)(d)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2]; this book does not write about foreign law practices. - If the same site also promotes non-lawyer services such as "divorce consultants" or counselling, treat switch D as on and write the whole site to Part 5 of the PCR [Conservative line (not statute text)] (0.2). **A written sign-off resolves only the stop-and-escalate situations; it never turns something banned as Statute text into something publishable.** --- ## 1.8 What fills the gap: seven kinds of checkable fact a law firm can publish **What you'll do in this section**: for every piece of non-compliant content you delete, take one checkable fact from the seven kinds below and fill the same slot; when you are not sure whether a sentence belongs in these seven, ask who its subject is first. If a page has fewer than 5 checkable facts left after the cut, send it back and pick a different intent cluster. ```split Figure: Take the material for every banned cell from these seven kinds Checkable fact || What the sample sentence needs 1 The firm's own fees || service tier + conditions + nett price + what's included 2 Court fees || table name + retrieval date, with the court as the subject 3 Procedure variables || contested or not, a matrimonial home, children, number of court attendances 4 Statutory time limits || the provision word for word + its section number 5 Expertise sentence || which factor of r 43(2) + evidence number 6 Billing method || fixed, in stages, hourly, and when invoices are issued 7 Practising status || LSRA register lookup link + check date ``` Ask who the subject is first: if the subject is another firm, do not write it [Conservative line (not statute text); within it, "does not compare fees or service quality with other firms" is Statute text, r 43(1)(c); see Appendix A.1]; only when the subject is the firm itself, the court, the legislation or the procedure does it get into these seven kinds. Once it is in, run it through 1.2–1.7 as usual: "the firm's own success rate" also has the firm as its subject, and it is still not written. One sentence per kind (copy the sentence shape; swap in your own, evidenced content inside the angle brackets; every one below is an example): > **Example** (1 the firm's fees): `Simple will for one person: fixed fee S$, inclusive of GST. The fee covers one meeting, drafting, one round of revisions and the signing appointment. Not included: . The final fee is set out in our letter of engagement.` > **Example** (2 court fees): `Court fees are paid to the court, not to us: S$ for , per the court's published fee table "" (retrieved ).` If the original table cannot be retrieved, do not write the figure — write only `Court fees are charged separately according to the court's published fee table: .` > **Example** (3 procedure variables): `Three things move the total: whether the divorce is contested, whether there is a matrimonial home to divide, and whether there are children. Each changes the documents to be filed and the number of court attendances.` > **Example** (4 statutory time limits): `Section of the provides: "" (checked on SSO, ).` For provisions such as the grounds for divorce or divorce time limits, check the original wording on SSO before you write them; the Women's Charter provision barring a divorce action before a certain number of years of marriage has not had its rule number or original wording checked this round [Original text not obtained] — do not write the rule number or the number of years until it is checked. > **Example** (5 expertise sentence): ` has practised family law since . In , family matters made up about % of recorded working hours (source: firm time records).` This matches r 43(2)'s "experience" and "proportion of working time involved" factors; record the evidence number on the sign-off sheet (Appendix B.4), not on the page; run the percentage through the six checks for numbers first. > **Example** (6 billing method): `We charge a fixed fee in stages: % on engagement, % on filing, the balance on . Work outside the fixed fee is billed at S$ per hour and invoiced monthly.` > **Example** (7 practising status): ` is a Singapore law practice. Our lawyers' practising details can be checked on the LSRA "Search for a Lawyer or Law Practice" page: (checked ).` What the LSRA calls the field for a lawyer's individual practising number has not been verified [Original text not obtained]: until it is verified, do not write the number, only the register lookup link and the check date. SAL accreditation and the year follow 1.6; which practice areas an office handles goes into that office's address line (5.18). Where you put these seven kinds matters too: the sentences that get copied are almost always near the top of the page. Family R1 took apart 18 cited pages page by page; of the 14 pages where the copied position was marked, the earliest-copied sentence sat in the first 30% of the page on 13/14 of them, and in the first 10% on 9/14; of the 10 law-firm pages cited, 9 had a recorded position, and on 8 of those the earliest-copied sentence sat in the first 23% — the exception was a page where the copied text was an answer that gave its conclusion straight out, in an FAQ at around the 67% mark (position judged by eye, 2026-09-23). There is one official sentence shape worth learning from too: a parliamentary reply from the Ministry of Law put the total number of divorces, the number going through the simplified procedure, and the percentage all in the same sentence, and that sentence got copied (family law, single case). So write your checkable facts in the first 30% of the page, and put the numerator, the denominator, the percentage and the time window all in the same sentence. These seven kinds are a change of tactics, not an empty hand: once success rates, unauthorised case studies and "the best law firm" are deleted, fees, procedure, time limits, billing method and practising status are still numbers, still get copied, and every one of them can be evidenced. **If all that is left after the cut is empty phrases such as "professional team, years of experience, client-focused", the page is clean on compliance and zero on density**: with no exclusive checkable facts, AI has no reason to cite it. The density gate and the ban gate both carry a veto; if fewer than 5 checkable facts survive the cut, send the page back and pick a different intent cluster — that is a signal to change the topic, not to loosen compliance. See [[通用版 5.8 结论块、密度闸、出处闸]]. Write a short "why this page does not state a success rate" passage on every homepage-level page, linking to the original wording of r 43(1)(b)(ii): the passage itself turns a restriction into a trust signal. Check Chinese pages against the same English–Chinese word list ("最好" (best), "第一" (number one), "首选" (first choice), "领先" (leading), "胜诉率" (win rate), "包赢" (guaranteed win), "一定帮你拿到" (we will definitely get it for you), "专家律师" (expert lawyer), "离婚专家" (divorce expert); "资深大律师" (Senior Counsel) only for an actual Senior Counsel; a free consultation must state its scope) — the full list is in Appendix B.3, and the word list for the pre-launch full-page search is in 5.22. # Chapter 2 · Week one: check the website and save today's AI answers before you fix anything ## 2.1 Day one: look, don't touch, and ask the remaining nine pre-start questions **What you'll do in this section**: on D1 you look but change nothing — get read-only access to the access logs, Search Console, Bing and business profiles for every domain in one go, and also request two materials that only apply to law firms (letter of engagement templates, and the written ethics guidance in the members' area of the Law Society of Singapore); then go through the nine of the "twelve pre-start questions" that chapter 0, 0.2 did not ask. When you're done, you'll have an access-request list organised by domain and the law firm's answers to the nine questions; the door, every profile and the facts page have not been touched at all. **Hard gate: until the baseline is saved, do not change the door, any profile or the facts page.** ```steps Figure: week one — measure before you change, don't touch the door until the baseline is saved D1 | Read-only audit | Logs, GSC, Bing, business profiles; check every domain D1 | Finish the nine questions | Approved name, namesake lawyers, platforms in use, keyword microsites D2 | Freeze questions, sign off | 30 questions: English 24 · Chinese 6 D2–D3 | Web leg and full rounds | Run the web control leg first, add in its domains D4 | Freeze and noise band | Freeze the account-level Top 20, retest 3 rounds in the same week D4 | Brand-six run | Run all 36 in the same week, save it D5 | Fix the door | Change each domain one by one, record the split day D5–D7 | Build the fact table | Check fee rows item by item against the letter of engagement template ``` The reason to measure before you change is the same as in the General Edition: the page-type mix, the four states per URL, and the question shapes that the baseline needs to measure all have to be measured on the shelf as it stands, before the door has been fixed. Fix the door first and freeze the baseline afterwards, and what you freeze is a shelf you have already disturbed yourself — the before/after comparison in week 13 no longer holds. So on D1 you can do only three kinds of thing: request access, pull the logs (if none were kept, turn logging on that day), and record the current state. What the crawler hit table and the six-line door read look like is written in [[通用版 2.1 五道闸总览与闸零：访问日志（只读）]], [[通用版 2.2 闸一只读体检：nosnippet、robots、WAF 各看什么]] and [[通用版 B.1 开门模板]]; not repeated here. Law firms have one extra trap: **a law firm often has more than one domain**. Beyond the main site, there may also be microsites named after practice-area keywords (the "extra question" row in the nine-question table below). Do the D1 read-only audit by domain: one crawler hit table and one six-line door read for each domain. If you only check the main site, the baseline carries no record of whether the door on a microsite's side is open or closed. AI doesn't cite these microsites often, but it does cite them: in the L3 run (our 2026-09-29 measurement: 30 questions outside family law, covering 8 practice areas, plus 5 questions on choosing a lawyer and legal fees that every practice area gets asked; ChatGPT twice per question, AI Mode once), law-firm websites were cited 70 times in total across the three calls, 5 of them from microsites; in the public dataset's 22 family-law questions (2026-09-23, R1 across both engines plus R2 ChatGPT), law-firm websites were cited 37 times in total, 6 of them from microsites. ### D1 access and materials to request in one go | What to get | Who to ask | What it's for | |---|---|---| | For every domain: access-log exports, plus read-only access to GSC, Bing, robots and the CDN / WAF dashboard | Whoever manages the website | One crawler hit table per domain, built as in General Edition 2.1 | | Read-only access to the five business profiles | Whoever manages the profiles | Record the current state; don't claim them, don't change them | | LSRA register lookup screenshots: one for the firm, one for each lawyer | We take these ourselves | The source for the approved full name and how each lawyer's name is written; record the check date | | The current letter of engagement template for each practice area, with its version number | A partner or director | Used at D5–D7 to check each fee row in the fact table item by item against the template | | The Law Society's written ethics guidance in the members' area, plus the 2019 and 2020 Ethics Digests | The firm exports these using its own members' account | Read before drafting the fees page or anything about reviews | The last two rows are materials unique to the Law Firms Edition; each gets one paragraph below. **Letter of engagement template**: every fee row in the fact table must be traceable, item by item, to the same billing method, what's included and what's not, in some version of the letter of engagement template; a row that doesn't match stays off the page for now, and the version number also goes on the sign-off sheet (Appendix B.4). How to write fees is in chapter 1, 1.2; the fact table is in chapter 3, 3.1. **The written ethics guidance in the members' area**: the Law Society's own material states, "From 2015 to date, the Advisory Committee has issued more than 100 written guidances to members." [Statute text; see Appendix A.5] This guidance and the two Ethics Digests are open only to members, and we did not obtain them this round [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6]; they are also the main source of the uncertainty left in this book's side decision, held at 75% confidence (chapter 0, 0.2). So exporting these documents is a start-of-work step, not an optional one: the firm exports them using its members' account and hands them to us to keep on file, and we read them before drafting the fees page or any page about reviews. If they set a stricter position than this book, that firm follows the stricter position; the book as a whole does not change. ### The other nine questions: six are answered differently for law firms, plus one extra Of the nine questions, 5, 6 and 10 follow the General Edition; the other six are answered differently for law firms, and there's one extra question about keyword microsites: | Question | What law firms check | If the answer is | What to do next | |---|---|---|---| | 1 · Legal name and registration | The approved full name character for character, the UEN, the LSRA register lookup link, and whether there's an approved Chinese firm name | You can't get the approved full name exactly right; or there's no approved Chinese name | Leave that cell in the fact table blank for now; Chinese pages and Chinese profiles use only the English approved name | | 7 · Profile and webmaster access | Read-only GSC, Bing and logs for every domain | A domain can't give read-only access | The first two items for that domain can't be verified at acceptance; list it separately as a risk | | 8 · Namesake firms, namesake lawyers | Search the LSRA register lookup for every one of the firm's lawyers by name | There's a practitioner with the same name or spelling | The first batch switches to facts pages + profiles, not content pages | | 9 · Platforms and services in use | Platforms that charge per enquiry, per lead, per completed engagement, by commission, or as "membership fee + case assignment" | Currently in use | Stop it before you start; for platforms that charge per lead, per completed engagement or by commission, not even a sign-off can release them; a fixed entry fee is not paid either | | 11 · Chinese-speaking buyers | Whether the firm has Chinese-speaking clients | Yes | Set 6 Chinese questions per 2.2; if no, set all 30 in English; no Indonesian questions either way | | 12 · Intake channels | The share going through forms, phone and WhatsApp | Mostly phone | Observable tier; add "How did you find us?" as a required field in all three; no question is dropped from the pool because of this | | Extra question · Keyword microsites | Whether the firm is running microsites named after practice-area keywords | Yes | Add it to the domain list and include it in the D1 read-only audit; how to handle it is in chapter 3, 3.4 | What the table can't show is the basis for a few of its rows. **Question 1**: the name of a law corporation (LLC) must carry the suffix — the rule text reads "Every law corporation must have either the words “Law Corporation” or the acronym “LLC” as part of its name" (LPA s 154(3)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2], and the fact table, business profiles and structured-data fields may never drop it. A Chinese firm name needs written approval — the rule text reads "The name of a law firm must be stated in the English language; but the name may, with the approval in writing of the Director of Legal Services, also be stated in any of the other official languages." (LPE Rules r 7; the rules for limited liability law partnerships (LLPs) and LLCs read the same, see r 15(1), r 29(1)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2]; applied to Chinese pages, Chinese business profiles and Chinese directory listings, use only the approved Chinese name, and where there is none, use the English approved name — never translate it yourself [Conservative line (not statute text)]. The LSRA's field name for individual practising details was not verified this round [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6], so that row in the fact table reads only "LSRA register lookup link + check date", with no number written at all. **Question 9**: lawyers may not pay "any commission or other form of consideration" for a referral (r 39(2)(b)), and may not share legal fees with, or pay commission to, a non-lawyer (r 19) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; the Law Society's Guidance Note further states that a law firm joining an Internet referral scheme that requires it to "pay a fee or share fees paid for legal services referred" breaches the Legal Profession Act (GN 6.1.1 para 35) [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]. So stop any platform that charges per enquiry, per lead, per completed engagement or by commission; for this category, not even a sign-off can release it: **A written sign-off resolves only the stop-and-escalate situations; it never turns something banned as Statute text into something publishable.** The kind that works as "membership fee + case assignment" — joining for a fixed fee, with the platform then referring cases for the firm — is stopped too: that a fixed entry fee also counts as "other form of consideration" is this book's reading [Conservative line (not statute text)] (80% confidence), and this cell is fixed book-wide as "do not pay" (chapter 6, 6.2). The only paid placement worth considering is a listing in the Law Society's own "Find A Featured Lawyer/Law Firm" directory (the Featured directory), which the Law Society itself sells [Conservative line (not statute text)] (70% confidence): listed by practice area, chosen by the reader, with no referral or case assignment. Its rate-card terms were not obtained this round [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6]; a firm already using it should get the terms first, and how to judge it is in chapter 6, 6.2. This question also has to be asked of us: we charge law firms only a fixed service fee — never per lead, per case, per signed client, or as a percentage of legal fees. Charging per lead, per completed engagement or as a share of legal fees could amount to a criminal offence committed by us (LPA s 33(3)); on the firm's side, paying as a percentage of legal fees or a share per case breaches r 19, and paying per lead or per signed client falls under r 39(2)(b) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1, A.2]. How to write the contract is in chapter 6, 6.1. **Question 11**: without Chinese-speaking clients, don't set Chinese questions and don't build Chinese pages; a Chinese page is an optional item, built only where there are Chinese-speaking clients, and accepted only against the AI Mode leg (reasons in 2.2). Indonesian questions are never set. For the rest of the questions and how to read the answers, follow [[通用版 4.1 选点全流程与开工前十二问]]. If you can only do three things, use the General Edition's 48-hour version of shortcut 2 for the baseline instead — see [[通用版 4.8 两条捷径与本章 checklist]]; this 48-hour baseline must also be saved before you fix the door — everything else stays the same. Once the baseline is saved, week one does only two things: fix the door for each domain, and build the fact table. The /facts page, each lawyer's own page, and LSRA alignment are scheduled for weeks 1–2 (chapter 3); the Law Society directory listing is done in the same period (chapter 6, 6.3); the fee guide page is written from week 2 (chapter 5, 5.1, 5.4). It's fine if the fees page doesn't fit into week one, but don't skip the baseline just to hit a deadline. ## 2.2 The 30 questions: 24 in English, 6 in Chinese, only for work the firm actually does **What you'll do in this section**: set questions only for the one or two practice areas you are targeting this quarter, and fix the 30 questions by the firm's language ratio; fee questions, near-me questions, "is this firm good" questions and "who's best" questions must all be in the pool; questions that name a peer drop out of the pool and are used only for internal comparison. When you're done, you'll have a 30-question pool ready to sign in person; once signed, it doesn't change for the whole quarter. How the 30 questions split by language is fixed; two people must never come up with two different denominators: | Language | Questions | Note | |---|---|---| | English | 24 | Firms with no Chinese-speaking clients run the full 30 in English | | Chinese | 6 | 2 fee, 2 process, 1 near-me, 1 brand; every one carries "Singapore", and each counts toward the numerator for the location and price ratios rather than adding to the total | | Indonesian | 0 | Not run | The rest of the ratios (location ≥60%, price ≥30%, bare words ≤10%) and how to do the second-person check and sign in person follow [[通用版 4.2 题池：三十句从哪来、怎么配、怎么签]]; once signed, nothing changes for the whole quarter — changing a question is changing the ruler. **Only set questions for the one or two practice areas the firm actually handles and is targeting this quarter.** The question pool is the ruler for the whole quarter: measuring work the firm doesn't do measures someone else's shelf; and once there's more than one practice area, the way AI finds sources differs sharply between them — asking ChatGPT the same way, the share of citations going to government and public-body pages is 5/11 for conveyancing and property, and 13/13 for debt recovery and small claims (L3 run 1, 2026-09-29; run 2: 5/12, 15/15). With one practice area rising and the other falling, combining them shows nothing at all, so the denominator is split by practice area (2.3). ### The four question types that must be in the pool ```bars Figure: ChatGPT cites law-firm websites on only four question types; process, rules and the like get not a single one (L3 run 1, 2026-09-29) unit: citations Price | 5 | 5/23 Near me | 3 | 3/8 "Is this firm good" | 3 | 3/11 "Who's best" | 1 | 1/12 Process, definition, rules, checklist, calculation | 0 | 0/92 ``` Asking the same batch a second time lands in roughly the same place: price 6/26, "is this firm good" 2/10, "who's best" 2/14, near me 0/8, process/definition/rules/calculation 0/84, and 1 more citation landed on a checklist question (1/19, single case). Of the 22 family-law questions, ChatGPT cited a law-firm website for only 5, and all were price, near-me and "is this firm good" questions (public dataset R1, R2, 2026-09-23; entities labelled by hand, by domain). So if these four question types aren't in the pool, the ChatGPT leg barely measures the firm at all for the whole quarter. For "is this firm good", the only version that goes into the pool is "is good" — questions naming a peer drop out (see the three filters below). ChatGPT rarely cites law-firm websites for "who's best": these 3 L3 questions, across both runs, drew 26 citations in total — 3 to law-firm websites, 17 to government and public-body pages (8 to the Ministry of Law, 5 to the Law Society), and 4 to ranking guides; the 1 family-law question had 4 of its 6 citations go to ranking guides. The fix for this sits off-site (chapter 6), but the sample is thin (1 family question, 3 L3 questions) — take it as a direction only. **Rules, process and definition questions can go in the pool, but keep this on the record: they feed AI Mode only.** This is one place law firms differ from the General Edition — the General Edition doesn't choose educational questions, but for law firms, AI Mode still cites law firms on rules and process questions. The two legs read differently: across both ChatGPT runs, the share of citations going to government and public-body pages is 39/39 for rules, 85/92 for process, 17/18 for definition, 27/32 for checklist, and 12/14 for calculation; on AI Mode, the same 5 question types cite law-firm websites 28/76 (L3, 2026-09-29, AI Mode once per question); of the 47 law-firm-website citations across all 30 AI Mode questions, 26 are explanatory articles (heuristically labelled page type). When you read the numbers in chapter 7, only look at the AI Mode column for these questions. **The 6 Chinese questions run on both legs, but Chinese pages are accepted only against the AI Mode leg**: for L3's 4 Chinese questions, ChatGPT cited a Chinese page 0/47 across both runs, AI Mode 5/22 (Chinese pages labelled heuristically, 2026-09-29); of the 28 citations on the family set's 3 Chinese questions, only 1 was a Chinese page, and AI Mode cited it (single case, 2026-09-23). ### Three filters before a question enters the pool ```mermaid Figure: a candidate question passes three filters before it enters the pool flowchart LR c["Candidate question"] --> q1{"Does the firm take such cases?"} q1 -->|No| out["Drop from pool"]:::warn q1 -->|Yes| q2{"Does it name a peer?"} q2 -->|Yes| out2["Drop; internal comparison only"]:::warn q2 -->|No| q3{"Is it a price question?"} q3 -->|Yes| r["Reword to fit a billing method"] q3 -->|No| pool["Into pool: EN 24 · ZH 6"]:::hl r --> pool ``` The reason for each of the three filters: - **Drop what the firm doesn't handle**: the reasoning is in the "only for work the firm actually does" paragraph above. A practice area the firm handles but isn't targeting this quarter also stays out for now. - **Drop questions that name a peer**: for the two forms "which is better, Firm A or Firm B" and "is good", the firm has no page that can answer them without crossing the line — publicity may not make any comparison or criticism of other lawyers in relation to "the fees charged, or the quality of the services provided" (r 43(1)(c)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. Answers that come back naming a peer are kept only as internal comparison material. If what the buyer is really comparing is a procedure ("what's the difference between a simplified and a contested divorce"), reword the question into a procedure comparison and then put it in the pool — a procedure-only comparison page (chapter 5, 5.7) is what answers it. - **Reword price questions**: a question phrased as "how much does a lawyer cost for in Singapore" goes straight into the pool; one that already presumes "cheapest" or "cheaper than other firms" can't be answered by the firm's own fees page — words like "cheapest" and "lowest fees" cannot be written (r 43(1)(c)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] — reword it to ask about billing method and amount, then put it in; one that can't be reworded is dropped and logged, for the same reason the General Edition's check 3 screens out "the cheapest X" ([[通用版 4.5 买家归堆、年机会值与三道关]]). > **Example** (law firms) Three question phrasings used in the L3 run all pass the three filters (this only demonstrates the filter — to actually enter the pool, each one still needs evidence from source classes A–D, see General Edition 4.2): > "How much does a probate lawyer cost in Singapore?" > "Conveyancing lawyer near Jurong East MRT" > "新加坡劳资纠纷请律师大概要多少钱？" (roughly how much does a lawyer cost for an employment dispute in Singapore?) Two things are not decided at this pooling step: which page each question type ultimately lands on, and which page to build first (fees, near-me and "is this firm good" go first) — that's in chapter 4, 4.2; how to write Chinese pages and how to use the firm name is in chapter 5, 5.3. ## 2.3 Freeze today's answers, measure how much they vary, and ask AI for the first time whether it knows you **What you'll do in this section**: run the web control leg once first and add in the domains unique to it, then freeze the account-level Top 20, retest 3 rounds in the same week to measure the noise band, and complete all 36 brand-six runs in the same week as the baseline. Law firms only fill in a few cells with their own values: read the law-firm-website cell as the 3 rounds combined, split the denominator by practice area, and count keyword-microsite citations back to the firm. When you're done, you'll have a frozen account-level Top 20, a noise band, and a set of raw brand-six answers you can use as the baseline. The rulers for law firms follow the General Edition; only a few cells need the firm's own values filled in, and nothing is redefined: ```split Figure: the ruler's general discipline doesn't change; law firms only fill in these cells What the General Edition has you set || Law-firm value Noise-band rounds || 3 rounds; read the law-firm-website cell as the 3 rounds combined How to split the denominator || By practice area Factual errors (count) || Don't split into columns The two legs || Log separately; never merge into one score The fourth reference number || Forms, phone and WhatsApp must record the source; reference column only Brand-six run || Run all 36 in the same week as the frozen baseline, asked with the approved full name Web control leg || Run once before freezing; add in the domains unique to the web leg Keyword microsites || Citation counts are counted back to the firm ``` Five "whys" the figure can't show. **Why the law-firm-website cell is read as the 3 rounds combined**: asking the same question twice changes the list a great deal. Each of L3's 30 questions was asked of ChatGPT twice (2026-09-29): the intersection of the two runs' cited URLs over their union is 73/234 (31.2%), or 61/130 (46.9%) by registered domain, and only 2/30 questions had exactly the same URLs both times; of the 9 questions that cited a law-firm website at least once, only 5 cited one both times. The structure is stable, though: 30/30 questions cited a government or public-body page both times. So whether "the firm's own website was cited" is very unstable in any single question-and-answer, and this cell only reads two numbers: the citation count summed across the same-week 3-round retest, and the number of questions cited on at least one of the 3 rounds. Family-law questions haven't been rerun and their noise band hasn't been measured, so read them by the same rule. How the noise band itself is measured and used is in [[通用版 7.2 噪声带、页级信号与每月十步]]. **Why the denominator is split by practice area**: the numbers in 2.2 show that AI's way of finding sources differs sharply between practice areas. If this quarter's pool covers two practice areas, report both numbers, seat count and on the list and cited, as one row per practice area; the totals row is for reference only, never a basis for judgement. **Why the two legs are logged separately**: for the same question, the two engines cite almost none of the same pages — the shared URLs are 17/251 (6.8%, 2026-09-29) for L3 and 6/106 (5.7%, 2026-09-23) for family R1. Merge them into one score, and you can no longer tell which leg a rise or fall came from. The two legs have different denominators for share; only read "who cites what", never compare the sizes, see [[通用版 1.2 两条腿：ChatGPT 找源头，AI Mode 找二手]]. The AI Mode leg's number of passes and region parameters are also fixed in the week the baseline is frozen, with the same same-week 3-round retest, and don't change for the whole quarter; the seat name list is fixed the same week too — the common forms of the approved firm name, plus every one of the firm's lawyers' names as on their practising certificate. How the two are used is in chapter 7, 7.1. **Why keyword microsites are counted back to the firm**: the numbers in 2.1 show microsites do get cited. If the baseline doesn't count them in, then the day a microsite gets merged into the main site per chapter 3, 3.4, the same citations move from "someone else's" to "the firm's" — it will look like a rise, when really the accounting basis changed. So from day one of the baseline, count "the law firm, combined" — the microsite goes on the firm's domain list. **Why the web leg has to run first**: a candidate pool taken only from the API leg has a systematic bias that running more rounds cannot fix. The complete method for running it has exactly one specification in the whole book, in [[通用版 4.4 网页对照腿与冻结基线（全书唯一完整规格）]]; how to do the coarse screen into piles and the full rounds is in [[通用版 4.3 粗筛分堆、满轮与品牌六问基线]]. The frozen account-level Top 20 is the denominator for the entire quarter and does not change after that. ### The brand six questions: ask with the approved full name The composition of the six questions follows [[通用版 3.5 品牌六问与发现错误之后]], with not one question changed. Law firms only fix the wording in three places: - In the question text, `` is always the approved full name as it appears on the LSRA register lookup, with the LLC suffix; never a short form, never a microsite domain. - Question 4 asks about legal fees for this quarter's main practice area ("how much are 's legal fees for "); it's the most valuable of the six. - The 2 Chinese questions follow the General Edition, run only where there's a Chinese page, and are a separate ruler (denominator 12, not folded into the 36); use the approved Chinese name where there is one, and the English approved name otherwise. **Why the brand-six run only counts these 36**: the baseline's "X factual errors" figure comes only from this one run of 36. Any 2-round × 1-engine quick run (such as the two passes in shortcut 2) is only used to fix errors the same day, ahead of the queue — never as the baseline; a quick run and the 36 runs are not the same ruler, and if X came from a quick run, the before-and-after in week 13's "X → Y" would not be comparable. [[通用版 3.1 为什么排在写页之前 · 两小时清单]] also reads this same set of raw answers. The three rulers stay unchanged, the fourth reference number never counts as a criterion, the web leg runs first, and triage must not skip layers — these four rules are the general discipline and not a word of them changes; see [[通用版 7.1 复测的产出与量具]]. How to read review counts is in chapter 7, 7.1. ## 2.4 Fix the website settings: check each domain one by one, and record the day you change them **What you'll do in this section**: once the baseline is saved, fix the door through the General Edition's five gates, going through the main site and every keyword microsite one by one; record the day you fix the door as the split day; and review the words written into JSON-LD as publicity content. When you're done, you'll have one merged robots.txt per domain, one WAF allowlist rule for the layer in front of each domain, and a split day written into the work order (one per domain, where domains are fixed on different days). **Hard gate: until the baseline is saved, do not change the door, any profile or the facts page.** Exactly how to fix the five gates — the three nosnippet spots, the robots four-step merge, the three WAF allowlist steps — is all written in [[通用版 2.2 闸一只读体检：nosnippet、robots、WAF 各看什么]]–[[通用版 2.6 改门：nosnippet、robots 四步合并、WAF 白名单]]; not repeated here. Law firms add just one rule: **every domain is its own separate door**. ```mermaid Figure: fixing the door changes access settings for crawlers, domain by domain; words written into schema are reviewed as publicity flowchart LR dom["Every domain"] -->|One by one| fix["robots, WAF, nosnippet"] fix -->|Access settings, not publicity| ok["No sign-off needed"]:::hl ld["Words written into JSON-LD"] -->|Is publicity| rule["Write per chapter 1"]:::warn rule --> nm["LLC name carries suffix"] rule --> fee["Fees follow the 1.2 format"] rule --> sp["Expertise sentence needs evidence"] day["The day you fix the door"] --> mark["Record as the split day"] ``` ### Change each domain separately A microsite might sit on a different host, a different CDN, and its template and plugins may not match the main site's either (the D1 read-only audit will tell you whether they do) — so all three things are done by domain: - **robots: each domain counts its own N**: the N in the four-step merge's "Original wildcard `Disallow` lines = N" differs by domain; write one receipt sentence per domain, and copy each N from its own domain. - **nosnippet: grep each domain separately**: the main site coming up clean doesn't mean a microsite's template and plugins are clean too. - **WAF: check each domain separately**: an allowlist rule added at the main site's layer doesn't reach the layer in front of a microsite. Whether a microsite eventually gets merged into the main site is decided in chapter 3, 3.4 — **don't do it in passing on the day you fix the door**: merging sites is a separate change, and the day it happens gets its own separate split day; crowd it into the same day as fixing the door, and by week 13 you won't be able to tell whether a rise or fall came from opening the door or from merging sites. ```mermaid id=door-triage-edge Figure: at the logs / robots / WAF layer, every symptom maps to exactly one fix flowchart LR t["Door-layer symptom"] --> s1["OAI-SearchBot hits = 0"] s1 -->|fix| f1["Gate 1's three small steps, 2.6"] t --> s2["403 + 429 over 5%"] s2 -->|fix| f2["Allowlist it and move it out of the rate rules"] t --> s3["All 200 but only the homepage hit"] s3 -->|fix| f3["Sitemap, homepage internal links, IndexNow"] t --> s4["Admin paths showing up in search"] s4 -->|fix| f4["Redo the merge, get the count to N × 12"] t --> s5["No movement on the Apple profile"] s5 -->|fix| f5["Allow and verify Applebot first"] t --> s6["Blaming GPTBot being blocked for not being cited"] s6 -->|verdict| f6["Wrong call — don't use it as a criterion"]:::warn ``` ```mermaid id=door-triage-render Figure: at the rendering / indexing / nosnippet layer — Google has seats while ChatGPT is zero: check CSR first, not the choice of questions flowchart LR s1["Google has seats, ChatGPT is zero"] -->|check first| csr["CSR dependency"]:::hl s2["Four identities: c open, b not"] -->|verdict| csr csr -->|fix| ssr["Open an SSR or prerendering task"] s3["Four identities: b open, d not"] -->|verdict| waf["WAF, go back to the edge-layer figure"] s4["Seats drop after a redesign or plugin change"] -->|verdict| ns["nosnippet has come back"] ns -->|fix| m1["Revert all three to max-snippet:-1"] s5["Seats haven't moved, cause unclear"] -->|in order| five["Check five things, see below"] five -->|any one fails| door["It's a door problem, not the questions"]:::warn ``` These two troubleshooting diagrams aren't only for the day you fix the door: check the door layer unconditionally once a month, and also check it when seats rise ([[通用版 7.3 没动分诊与下月三个点]]). Law firms with microsites check every domain every month. ### Door changes need no sign-off; the words in the schema are reviewed as publicity The basis comes in two halves. The definition in PCR r 2(1) reads "“publicity” means any form of advertisement", and it states that this includes advertisements retrievable from the Internet [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. Settings such as robots, WAF and nosnippet are access settings for crawlers, not advertising content aimed at the public; we do not treat them as publicity, and changing them does not go through a partner's sign-off [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full [including the r 2(1) definition of "publicity" and Part 5], the Legal Profession Act and its subsidiary rules, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes; check date: 2026-09-29). To the law firm we say only, "We found no rule that treats these settings as publicity." The words written into JSON-LD are different: they are text the public can retrieve, so they are reviewed as publicity content, written per chapter 1 [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Schema only restates facts already stated in the visible HTML — not one extra word. This comes down to four rules for the fields: 1. **`name` takes the approved full name, with the suffix for an LLC**, matching /facts and the five profiles character for character (LPA s 154(3), rule text in 2.1) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2]. 2. **Only write expertise fields you have evidence for**: in publicity, the lawyer must ensure that "any claim to expertise or specialisation can be justified" (r 43(1)(a)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] — how to prepare the evidence is in chapter 1, 1.6; an expertise claim you can't back with evidence goes into neither the visible HTML nor the schema. 3. **Write the fees field per chapter 1, 1.2**: a price in structured data is another carrier of the firm's own fees, in the same format as the fees page — only the firm's own prices, every number traceable on that same page's visible HTML to its service tier, defining conditions, billing method and what's charged separately, with the page stating "The final fee is set out in our letter of engagement."; a price not written out in the visible HTML doesn't go into the schema either [Conservative line (not statute text)]. 4. **Leave out `aggregateRating`**: this is the General Edition's build rule, not a law-firm compliance judgement; the platform-rating line on your own page is written in the visible HTML, see chapter 1, 1.5. The General Edition requires four schema items to be written correctly; law firms fill them in this way: the legal-name field takes the approved full name; the address and phone match the five profiles character for character; for the "each practitioner's registration number" item, the LSRA's field name for individual practising details was not verified this round [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6], so write no number — instead, write the LSRA register lookup entry point and the check date in /facts's visible HTML; `identifier` takes the UEN; `sameAs` strings together the firm's listing page on the Law Society directory (where it has one), its profile page on a ranking guide, and its business profile pages, and links the SAL Directory of Specialists only for lawyers whose accreditation is current. Where the LSRA register lookup can't give a separate URL, it doesn't go into `sameAs`. These fields only matter to Google's Knowledge Graph — none of AI's live fetches read JSON-LD at all — so the same words must be written into the visible HTML first, see [[通用版 2.7 闸三闸四：收录通路与 JSON-LD 一次封版]]. The split day goes into the work order; at the week-13 settlement, every "before fixing the door vs after fixing the door" comparison is drawn against it, see [[通用版 7.4 守位与九十天结账]]. It's best to fix all domains on the same day; where that's not possible, each domain records its own split day, and at settlement each is measured against its own split day. # Chapter 3 · Make sure AI identifies your firm and every lawyer correctly **Read the General Edition first**: [[通用版 3.2 事实表与机构事实页]], [[通用版 3.3 个人实体页与六处痕迹对齐]], [[通用版 3.4 第三方资质分级、Wikidata 与五处商家档案]]. Law firms follow the General Edition's two-hour checklist in 3.1, and the brand six questions and correction timing in 3.5, as they stand (do not change a word of the brand six questions; ask them using only the approved full name — for the three places where law firms fix the wording, see chapter 2, 2.3). The raw answer to question 6 of the brand six questions (comparing you with other firms) names other firms, and is for your eyes only (see chapter 0, 0.4). This chapter covers only where law firms differ from the General Edition. ## 3.1 The firm's fact table and facts page (/facts): get the approved full name right, and say what you do and don't handle **What you'll do in this section**: build the 14-row fact table to the General Edition's blueprint, then make one /facts page. Law firms change eight rows on the general table — name, practice type, practising lawyers, address and scope of practice change how they're written; rows 11–13 are medical-only fields, replaced with the firm's own three rows — and the fee block follows the format in chapter 1, 1.2, checked item by item against the letter of engagement template. Copy the specification in [[通用版 3.2 事实表与机构事实页]] exactly for everything else. **Hard gate**: until the baseline is saved, do not change this page, and do not change any business profile (for freezing the baseline, see chapter 2, 2.3). ```wireframe id=pt09 Figure: Block order for the organisation facts page; the field table and hard fact cards are the rows AI copies whole title/H1 | Legal name + bare facts, zero adjectives | req First-screen credentials line | 2–4 numbers: credentials, registration number, year, etc. | req Hard fact cards | 3–5 KPI cards, each with a line below giving the definition, denominator and period | req,cite 14-row field table | One field per row, no narrative sentences mixed into the values | req,cite Practitioners | Name + registration number + official register link, one entry per line | req Price block | Fixed by side: a fixed price or a range + billing method | req,law Location and opening hours | Listed day by day; never "by appointment" | req Reviews | Entire block skipped on regulated sides; other sides: see elsewhere | opt,law FAQ | 3–6 questions, restating the conclusions in the body | opt Self-ratings / reposted reviews / before-and-after images | Never include | no,law Footer | Last verified date + owner | req schema | A one-time template, not written per page | req ``` | Row | General Edition field | Law firm wording | |---|---|---| | 1 | Legal name | The approved full name in English, word for word, including capitalisation and the suffix (LLC / Law Corporation / LLP) | | 3 | Industry licence or registration number | Practice type (law firm / LLP / LLC) + LSRA register lookup link + check date; if the firm has converted, the conversion date | | 4 | Practitioners | Each lawyer: name as on the practising certificate + link to their own page + LSRA register lookup link; do not write a practising number until it is verified | | 5 | Address | One line per office: address + postal code + which practice areas that office handles | | 10 | List of main services | Scope of practice: what you do and don't handle, on the same line | | 11 | Devices / materials | Changed to "Chinese name": the approved Chinese name, or write "The firm's name is registered in English only." | | 12 | Insurance / subsidy coverage | Changed to "number of practising lawyers": must match row 4 person for person, with the check date | | 13 | Follow-up and replacement policy | Changed to "billing method and invoicing": fixed fee, in stages or hourly, and when invoices are issued | **The name row is the hardest of all.** A firm renaming itself needs the Director of Legal Services' prior written approval, and the name must not mislead or be easily confused with another firm's [Statute text; see Appendix A.2] (LPA s 132(2), LPE Rules r 6(1)). The name of a law corporation (LLC) must carry the suffix: "Every law corporation must have either the words “Law Corporation” or the acronym “LLC” as part of its name" [Statute text; see Appendix A.2] (LPA s 154(3)) — the fact table, the H1, the `name` field in schema, business profiles and directory listings must never have the suffix stripped out, in any of them. Pushing "approved name, matched word for word" onto every part of the website and every third-party slot is this book's own reading [Conservative line (not statute text)], 75% confidence. Every page states the firm's name, on the basis of PD 6.2.2 C's sentence "At the very least, the name of the law practice should be stated in the flyer." — the original text is about flyers only, and it uses "should" [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]; pushing it onto every page of the website [Conservative line (not statute text)], 85% confidence. **The Chinese-name field**: A firm's name must be stated in English; writing it in Chinese or another official language as well needs the Director of Legal Services' written approval [Statute text; see Appendix A.2] (LPE Rules r 7; for limited liability law partnerships (LLPs) and LLCs, see r 15(1), r 29(1); for the original sentence, see chapter 5, 5.3). Applied to /facts, Chinese-language pages and Chinese-language business profiles: use only the approved Chinese name; where none has been approved, write "The firm's name is registered in English only." — never translate it yourself [Conservative line (not statute text)], 85% confidence. The Chinese-language page itself is optional — build it only if you have Chinese-speaking clients, and accept it against the AI Mode leg only (chapter 5, 5.3); this field on /facts is filled in regardless, even without a Chinese-language page. **State what you don't handle, in the scope of practice**: One of the misleading examples the Law Society of Singapore gives for TV advertisements in PD 6.2.1 D is a family-law one — a firm that handles only uncontested divorces, with no expertise or experience in contested divorces, but does not say so, can reasonably be treated as omitting a material fact and being misleading [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]; the original text is about TV advertisements, applied to the website [Conservative line (not statute text)], 85% confidence. So limiters such as "handles only uncontested divorce" or "this office handles only corporate work" go into row 10 and row 5 themselves, on the same line, not in an asterisked footnote (why a footnote doesn't work, see 3.4). > **Example**: For row 10, write "Family: uncontested divorce, prenuptial agreements, wills. Not handled: contested custody, cross-border divorce." Not "full-service family-law services". **Practice type and conversion date**: At the firm level, licensing and name approval sit in LPA s 131(1), s 138 and s 153 (for a law firm, an LLP and an LLC respectively) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2]. For a firm that has converted from a law firm to an LLP or LLC, write the conversion date into row 3: in L3 (2026-09-29), for the "is this firm good" question type, ChatGPT once restated verbatim a conversion date that was on a firm's contact page (single case) — AI will pick up this kind of fact, so wherever you write it, it has to match everywhere. **Practising lawyers and headcount**: Write only the name, the link to the lawyer's own page and the LSRA register lookup link. The field names and numbering for LSRA's individual practising details were not checked this round [Original text not obtained]; do not write a field name such as "practising number" until it is verified. The LSRA register lookup page carries its own disclaimer, stating that the Ministry of Law does not warrant the accuracy or completeness of the search results [Statute text; see Appendix A.5] — it is the source for alignment, but your pages must never describe it as "government-certified" [Conservative line (not statute text)]. **The fee block**: Write it in the format in chapter 1, 1.2 (service tier + defining conditions + billing method + fixed fee or range + what's included and charged separately + payment stages + "The final fee is set out in our letter of engagement."). Law firms can write a range, unlike dental and aesthetics [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes, the revoked Publicity Rules; check date: 2026-09-29), 75% confidence. This section adds only one ledger rule: **check every fee block item by item against the letter of engagement template, note the template's version number, and never copy an old value off the webpage**; every row records its source and the date it was verified, and figures you have only heard second-hand never go on the page. ```split Figure: What law firms must put on /facts and must never put there — don't fill a slot with the wrong one Must write || Never include Approved full name + LLC suffix || A shortened name, marketing name or business term as the heading The approved Chinese name, or "registered in English only" || A self-translated Chinese firm name What you do and don't handle, on the same line || "Full-service legal services" Fee block: billing method + what's included and charged separately || A market range, cheaper than other firms LSRA register lookup link + check date || The Law Society's armorial bearings (crest) Year founded, number of practising lawyers || Success rate, win rate, number of cases won ``` The right-hand column has three things that stay off even with a sign-off: success rate and win count, with no exception in the original text [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] (PCR r 43(1)(b)(ii)); comparing your fees with other firms' — whether named or identifiable [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] (r 43(1)(c)); and the Law Society's crest [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] (r 42(4)). A single sentence giving a market range with no firm named is, by default, also not written [Conservative line (not statute text)], 85% confidence (see chapter 1, 1.3). A written sign-off resolves only the stop-and-escalate situations; it never turns something banned as Statute text into something publishable (for the stop-and-escalate rule, see chapter 1, 1.1). The basis for the right-hand column's first row — "a shortened name", "a business term as the heading" — is this: a law firm's name must not consist only of an abbreviation or initials (LPE Rules r 9; an abbreviation may appear in a logo), and it must not contain a word describing the business or field of practice (r 10) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2]; the naming rules for LLPs and LLCs contain no such ban on descriptive words. We extend these two rules to website headings, business profiles, and LLPs and LLCs [Conservative line (not statute text)]. "Full-service legal services" and marketing names are inferred from the two paragraphs above [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Review text and star-rating widgets do not go on /facts, per the blueprint; a row reading "platform · number of reviews · rating · check date" [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes; check date: 2026-09-29) — write it, if at all, on the reputation and credentials page (chapter 5, 5.21); for the wording, see chapter 1, 1.5. Two more things the figure doesn't show. An LLP's and an LLC's invoices and official correspondence must carry a limited-liability statement — "every invoice or official correspondence of the limited liability law partnership bears the statement that it is incorporated with limited liability" [Statute text; see Appendix A.2] (LPA s 139(2); for LLCs, see s 154(4)); the original text does not cover web pages, so pushing it onto the /facts footer [Conservative line (not statute text)], 50% confidence — include one line by default, and a firm that would rather not has a partner give written reasons. The `name` field in the schema template matches the visible H1 word for word, with the suffix, and does not carry `aggregateRating` (see chapter 2, 2.4). /facts is still publicity: the PCR's "publicity" includes any form of advertisement retrievable from the Internet [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] (r 2(1)), and every word we publish on the firm's behalf counts as the lawyer's own [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] (r 42(1)). So this page goes through chapter 1's checklist and into this batch's sign-off sheet (Appendix B.4), with no exemptions. This page type — /facts — is not measured for law firms: in the public dataset's 22 family-law questions (2026-09-23, R1 across both engines plus R2 ChatGPT), the only organisation-level page type cited for law firms was the homepage: 3 of AI Mode's 29 firm citations, all in R1; 1 of ChatGPT's 8 citations across both rounds (R1 and R2), in a near-me question in R2 (entities relabelled against L3's own annotation table; page types roughly labelled by URL). Building it gives 3.4's six-trace alignment an authoritative original — it is not meant to be cited on its own. **How to check**: fetch the page source with a normal browser UA; the approved full name (with suffix), the LSRA register lookup link and the amounts in the fee block must all be findable, and must match the fact table word for word. ## 3.2 Lawyer profile pages: name as on the practising certificate, titles from the approved list, expertise backed by evidence **What you'll do in this section**: build a person page with its own URL for every lawyer, and fill in the fields to the General Edition's person profile page blueprint; the name follows the practising certificate and the LSRA register lookup, titles are chosen only from the approved list, and every expertise sentence carries an evidence number. This page is not expected to be cited on its own — it is the authoritative original for 3.4's six-trace alignment. ```wireframe id=pt09-person Figure: Block order for the person profile page (this whole page type is not measured, so nothing is marked cite) H1 | Legal name in its unique spelling + registered title | req Registration info strip | Registration number · register category and status · start of registration · official register link | req Compliance statement line | Regulated sides only: finalised by the compliance officer, with the check date | opt,law Credentials table | Degree + awarding institution + year, one entry per line; year practice began | req Third-party credential tier | Light/unregulated sides: tier name + awarding body; if it can't be looked up, write the date; strict side: never a manufacturer-granted tier, only technical-standard certification and registration status | opt,law Scope of practice and services | The services this person handles + a fixed price for each | req,law External anchors | Association profile / academic identifier / speaker page / professional social profile / Wikidata QID | req List of bylined content | Thick pages and videos bylined to this person, linking back to this page | req Updated | One line | req ``` Law firms change the following fields on the blueprint: - **H1 and `title`**: The name is word for word as on the practising certificate; the description of what the lawyer is comes only from PCR r 33(1)'s approved list (advocate and solicitor, lawyer, and so on) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. A person's name that appears in a firm's name must match the wording on their practising certificate [Statute text; see Appendix A.2] (LPE Rules r 8(2)); pushing this rule onto how names are written on lawyer pages [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Write the `title` as `, Advocate & Solicitor | ` (this wording is not measured). - **Registration line**: LSRA register lookup link + check date; do not write a practising number or its field name until it is verified [Original text not obtained]. - **Qualifications table**: Degree + awarding institution + year, and year of admission. Designations are chosen only from the twenty approved by the Law Society Council (PD 3.5.2: Partner, Associate, Consultant, and so on) [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]; the designation Consultant needs 10 years in the aggregate (LPA s 75D), and a foreign lawyer may only be called Foreign Law Consultant, which also needs 10 years (RI Rules r 11) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2]; Senior Counsel is limited to those appointed under LPA s 30 [Statute text; see Appendix A.1, A.2], and the SC list was not obtained this round [Original text not obtained] — verify each person before you write it. - **Third-party credential tiers**: Ranking tiers, individual awards and SAL Specialist Accreditation — for the wording, see 3.3. - **Scope of practice and matters**: Every "specialise in" / expertise sentence must be backed by evidence against the seven factors in PCR r 43(2) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; the evidence number is recorded on the sign-off sheet (Appendix B.4), and the evidence itself does not go on the page; for fees, see chapter 1, 1.2. - **External anchors**: The Law Society directory listing (if there is one), the SAL Directory of Specialists (only if accredited), individual profiles in ranking guides, LinkedIn; for Wikidata, use the General Edition's threshold. ```split Figure: A lawyer page's title comes only from the approved list; expertise and ranking each need their own evidence Banned || Write instead Divorce Specialist, Expert as a title || Advocate & Solicitor + a separate evidenced expertise sentence "Seasoned", "authoritative" || Year of admission + share of practice (only with a ledger behind it) Senior Counsel (not appointed) || Do not write it Accredited Specialist (without accreditation) || Do not write it; today every family lawyer is in this row "The firm won the Practice Excellence Award" || On the winning lawyer's own page: full name, year, category Laudatory words in the `title` || , Advocate & Solicitor ``` The basis for each row of the figure: Specialist and Expert are not on the approved list as a title [Conservative line (not statute text)], 75% confidence — r 33 governs how lawyers describe themselves in connection with their profession; expertise written in the body text with evidence is separately governed by r 43. "Seasoned" and "authoritative" are treated as expertise claims [Conservative line (not statute text)]: an expertise claim that cannot produce evidence under r 43(2) is deleted [Statute text; see Appendix A.1], and even one that can is rewritten into a checkable fact such as a year or a share of practice [Conservative line (not statute text)]. For the Accredited Specialist and awards rows, see 3.3. **The team page** follows the categories PD 6.2.3 A sets for letterheads: a letterhead lists only "(a) partners or directors of the law practice; and (b) consultants, foreign lawyers or legal associates employed by the law practice in accordance with Singapore’s legislative and regulatory requirements." [Statute text; see Appendix A.3] — legal associates are employed lawyers, not paralegals; pushing this onto the team page [Conservative line (not statute text)]. If you list a foreign lawyer not registered in Singapore, copy PD 6.2.3 B's minimum disclosure wording exactly (for the original sentence, see Appendix A.3) [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]. For non-lawyer staff such as marketing and client-service staff: PD 3.5.2 requires that the designation on support staff's business cards "shall be stated in a manner as not to give the impression that he is a legal practitioner." [Statute text; see Appendix A.3], pushed onto the team page and LinkedIn [Conservative line (not statute text)]. A lawyer's business card may print the firm's name, but not a description of the firm's business (PD 6.2.5) [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]; the original text is about business cards only. Whether directory blurbs should also be tightened to match this rule, we hold at only 50% confidence [Conservative line (not statute text)] — the Law Society's own directory listing carries a business blurb the firm wrote itself, so by default write scope of practice per chapter 6, 6.3, holding only to r 43 and r 44; a firm that wants to tighten its wording to match the business-card rule should write it that way. **Why one page per person, yet not expecting this page itself to be cited.** Lawyer profile pages themselves have almost no citation samples: of the 18 cited pages the public dataset's family-law R1 (2026-09-23) took apart page by page, 10 were law-firm pages, and a named author appeared on only 2 of them; among L3's (2026-09-29) citation counts for law-firm websites, of those heuristically judged to be lawyer profile pages, ChatGPT's run 1 had 1 of 12 (run 2: 0 of 11), and AI Mode had 1 of 47 — the same page, appearing in the criminal-law "is this firm good" question, where the firm is named after that lawyer (single case). But ask "who's best" or "is this firm good", and ChatGPT points to the lawyer as a person: for the family R1 "who's best" question (1 question), the first row of the recommendation table was one lawyer's name, with the reason being the individual tier a ranking guide gave him (single case); for L3's criminal-law "who's best" question (1 question), both runs listed lawyers one by one by their individual tier in a 2026 ranking guide (single case); for L3's criminal-law "is this firm good" question, both runs read published judgments aggregated by lawyer name in a case-law database (single case). So the main battleground for the individual anchor is third-party directories; the point of the lawyer's own page is to make sure that when a directory, database or listing matches a name to a person, it matches the same spelling. **Representative matters and family law.** The blueprint has no "representative matters" field, and the law-firm edition does not add one. If a lawyer insists on listing them: past matters and client names are mentioned only where it does not breach confidentiality and the client has given written authorisation, and success rate is never written at all (chapter 1, 1.4). Family-law matters, and reviews from family-law clients, are published or not case by case, decided by a partner or director's written sign-off; before anything is sent for sign-off, every item first goes through our own de-identification check (the family self-check sheet in Appendix B.4). Two of these rules come straight from the legislation, and no sign-off can release them: nothing that could identify a child involved in the proceedings is ever published (CYPA s 112); nothing covered by a Family Justice Court order restricting publication is ever published (FJA s 10) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]. Custody and access proceedings within a divorce follow the same CYPA rule [Conservative line (not statute text)], 80% confidence (see chapter 1, 1.7). Both of these rules penalise the person who publishes — CYPA s 112(5)(b)'s own words are "the person who publishes or distributes it" — a lawyer's sign-off only records the lawyer's own judgement; it does not cover our own liability as the publisher (for the four offences that fall on us, see chapter 1, 1.1). **A written sign-off resolves only the stop-and-escalate situations; it never turns something banned as Statute text into something publishable.** Pages for lawyers who have left follow the three scenarios in [[通用版 3.3 个人实体页与六处痕迹对齐]], keeping the `sameAs` link that points to the LSRA register lookup. **How to check**: fetch the page source with a normal browser UA; both the name (word for word as on the practising certificate) and the LSRA register lookup link must be findable; every expertise sentence has a matching r 43(2) factor and evidence number on the sign-off sheet. ## 3.3 Rankings, awards and specialist accreditation: you can mention them, but only your own entry **What you'll do in this section**: peer-reviewed rankings, the Law Society's individual awards, and SAL Specialist Accreditation are the three kinds of third-party credential tier available to law firms. Enter through the guide's normal process; once you're in, write the individual tier on the lawyer's own page only, and the firm tier on /facts, in the form "listed in × guide × year × category × tier" plus a link; do not write about an award you simply pay for. For the mechanism and the three hard rules on wording, follow [[通用版 3.4 第三方资质分级、Wikidata 与五处商家档案]]; here we only draw the firm's own decision path. ```mermaid Figure: For recommendation questions, when a checkable peer-reviewed ranking tier exists, ChatGPT copies the tier and the names on the list flowchart LR q["Who's best, is this firm good"] --> h{"Is there a peer-reviewed ranking?"} h -->|Yes| g["Copies the tier and the names"]:::hl h -->|No| d["Copies directories and news-site lists"] g --> p["Own page: only your own entry"] d --> f["Fill in directory listings fully"] ``` The sample is 1 family-law question plus 3 from L3. The public dataset's family-law R1 (2026-09-23) "who's best" question (1 question): 4 of ChatGPT's 6 citations were ranking guides (two Doyle's pages, Legal 500, Chambers). L3's (2026-09-29) criminal-law "who's best" question (1 question): both runs listed lawyers by their tier in Doyle's 2026 guide, with 1 of run 1's 2 citations being Doyle's (run 2: 3 of 4 were ranking guides — Doyle's, Legal 500, Best Lawyers); the conveyancing "is this firm good" question (1 question): both runs restated the tier Chambers 2026 gave that firm; the personal-injury "who's best" question (1 question) did not cite a ranking guide — both runs cited a legal news site's list article and the Law Society directory. Treat this only as a direction for the build work, never as a promise. Ranking guides are almost never in Google's top 10: across the family set's 22 questions, Doyle's made Google's top 10 in 0 of them, yet ChatGPT cited it in 2 (same-day Google top-10 archive, aggregate figures only) — SEO ranking can't get you into this slot. **This figure is a mechanism observation, not a compliance clearance**; what you can actually write is below. ```split Figure: Rankings, awards and accreditation — write only your own entry Write || Do not write Listed in × guide × year × category × tier + link || "Ranked above ", "ranked number one", "the only firm listed" `leading` only as a tier name, right after the guide name and year || `leading` with no matching tier name Individual awards go on the winning lawyer's own page || "The firm won an award" SAL accreditation + year of accreditation, on the lawyer's own page only || "Accredited specialist law firm", an expired accreditation Enter through the guide's normal review process || Awards you simply pay for, paid "best" lists ``` **Entering and citing them**: Taking part in these guides' review process [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes, the full category 6 list on the Law Society's ethics page; check date: 2026-09-29) — no regulator document deals specifically with guides such as Chambers or Legal 500 (Appendix A.5). Once you're listed, using it as evidence of expertise has a rule behind it: one of the seven factors in r 43(2) is assessment by peers [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. **How to write it**: only your own entry — guide name, year, category, tier, link [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Never infer that you're better than other firms from a ranking: r 43(1)(c) bans any comparison or criticism in relation to "the quality of the services provided" by any other lawyer or law practice [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; "the only firm listed" and "one of only X in Singapore" are also out [Conservative line (not statute text)], 80% confidence. "Leading" appears only as a tier name, immediately after the guide name and year [Conservative line (not statute text)], 70% confidence — PD 6.2.1 D's misleading example is a firm with no family-law expertise or experience calling itself a leading family law practice (Appendix A.3); it is not the word "leading" itself that is banned, so write it only when a matching third-party tier backs it up. Awards you simply pay for, and "best" lists you pay to be on, are by default not written [Conservative line (not statute text)], 70% confidence; to relax this, a partner gives written reasons and approves it case by case. For how to enter an annual ranking run jointly by a newspaper and a statistics firm, see chapter 6, 6.6. > **Example**: On the lawyer's own page: " is listed in the "Leading" tier of Doyle's Guide 2026 for Criminal Defence (Singapore)." plus a link; on /facts: " is ranked in Band for in Chambers Asia-Pacific 2026." plus a link. Add no adjectives, and never follow it with "one of the best". **The Law Society's Practice Excellence Award**: This is an award to individual lawyers, first given in 2025, with a Family category. In the Law Society's own words: "Award recipients will receive a commemorative plaque and a special Practice Excellence emblem to showcase in marketing materials." Nomination: "no fees are chargeable for this year’s nomination process." [Statute text; see Appendix A.5]. Write it on the winning lawyer's own page: year + full name of the award + awarding body + category; the firm page writes only " of our firm received …" [Conservative line (not statute text)]. The award emblem is issued to the individual winner; the Law Society's own crest still never goes on any publicity [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] (r 42(4)) — don't mix the two up. **SAL Specialist Accreditation**: "Your accreditation is an individual attainment. It should not be used to promote your firm or organisation." [Statute text; see Appendix A.5] — put it on the lawyer's own page only, never on the firm's homepage. Accreditation is valid for 3 years; once it lapses without reaccreditation, you may no longer market yourself as an accredited specialist (SAL's *Marketing Your Accreditation* guide, para 4.4) [Statute text; see Appendix A.5]; so write the year of accreditation alongside it, and remove it the moment it lapses without renewal [Conservative line (not statute text)]. For the other three specialisations (construction, maritime, and data and the digital economy), write the full name in the format SAL's guide gives, and copy the official Chinese translation only from para 4.7 of the guide [Statute text; see Appendix A.5]. **This row is empty for family lawyers today**: as at 2026-09-29 the SAL Directory of Specialists holds 121 entries, 0 of them in family law; applications for Family Law accreditation only opened in July–August 2026, and the first results are due to be announced at the Opening of the Legal Year 2027 [Statute text; see Appendix A.5]. So today no family lawyer can write Accredited Specialist in Family Law. Leave this field blank on family lawyers' pages, and check the directory before every launch; once the first list is out, write only the full title and the year of accreditation — SAL has not yet published post-nominals or an official Chinese translation for family law [Original text not obtained], so do not invent an abbreviation or translate it yourself. ## 3.4 Six-trace alignment, business profiles and keyword microsites **What you'll do in this section**: using the LSRA register lookup as the source, check the name, firm name and office locations word for word in six places, and have a partner or director issue a named correction the same day for anything that doesn't match. Fill in only factual fields on the five business profiles, with the website field pointing to the fees page or that practice area's page. Do not build new microsites named after practice-area keywords; merge any that already exist into the main site, or give every page the approved firm name and link it back. For the general method of alignment, follow [[通用版 3.3 个人实体页与六处痕迹对齐]]; for the claiming order and the monthly three-state check, follow [[通用版 3.4 第三方资质分级、Wikidata 与五处商家档案]]. Here we only pin down the firm's own answers to "who the six traces are", what the profiles can hold, and how to handle microsites. ```steps Figure: Using the LSRA register lookup as the source, align the six traces cell by cell at the lawyer level 1 | Register lookup screenshot | LSRA individual and firm; screenshot and file it on the spot 2 | Law Society directory | If there's a listing: name and blurb match the website 3 | SAL directory | Only checked if accredited 4 | Ranking guides | Individual and firm profiles; name as on the practising certificate 5 | Website profile page | Name as on the practising certificate, linked to LSRA 6 | LinkedIn | Same spelling for name, firm name and designation 7 | Correct the same day | Named by a partner or director, sign-off sheet on file ``` At the firm level, the six traces become: the LSRA firm register lookup, the Law Society directory listing, the firm's profile in ranking guides, the five business profiles, the /facts page on the website, and media coverage. The Law Society's "Find A Featured Lawyer/Law Firm" directory (the Featured directory) is, in the Law Society's own words, a paid advertising slot — "Please note this is not a complete list as the listings are paid by advertising." [Statute text; see Appendix A.5] — only check it where a firm has a listing (whether every listed entry is a paid slot is inferred from this line on the index page; it has not been checked entry by entry). Buying this kind of display-only slot, with no referral or case assignment, off a fixed rate card [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR r 39, GN 6.1.1 paras 33–37, PD 6.1.2, the Law Society's Featured directory page; check date: 2026-09-29), 70% confidence; it is the only paid slot this book suggests considering [Conservative line (not statute text)], 70% confidence — the rate-card terms were not obtained; for whether to buy it, see chapter 6, 6.2. Platforms that refer, assign or match cases for law firms, priced per lead, per completed engagement or by commission, are never used at all [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] (what r 39(2)(b) bans is "commission or other form of consideration"), and a fixed entry fee is not paid either [Conservative line (not statute text)], 80% confidence; third-party rating directories and lawyer directories are only claimed and fact-checked — not a cent is paid until their charging terms are clear (chapter 6, 6.2). Directory listings are worth aligning word for word because AI treats them as a source of fact: among L3's (2026-09-29) 7 recommendation questions (2 near-me, 2 "is this firm good", 3 "who's best"), ChatGPT's run 1 cited law firms' listing pages on the Law Society directory in 2 of them (run 2: 3), and AI Mode cited them in 2. The blurb each firm wrote for its own listing — which practice areas it handles, which lawyers handle them, how many years each has been practising — was restated item by item. For near-me questions, the office addresses ChatGPT listed were sourced from the firm's contact page, the Law Society directory listing, third-party rating directories, and once from the website of the building the firm's office is in (single case): the answer does not verify the entity, so whichever place has the wrong information, that's the wrong information that gets copied. Beyond the six traces, there are two more kinds of trace you cannot edit but AI reads anyway: published judgments aggregated by lawyer name in a case-law database, and entries in third-party rating directories (for L3's criminal-law "is this firm good" question, ChatGPT cited both of these in both runs, single case). The first can only be handled by keeping the practising-certificate spelling consistent everywhere, so records get grouped under the same person (not measured, inferred from the mechanism); for the second, send a correction at the timing set out in [[通用版 3.5 品牌六问与发现错误之后]], pointing only to the error, never discussing the rating. **Who sends the correction letter**: The duty to correct falls only on the lawyer personally and on the firm's partners and directors, not on employed lawyers [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] (r 42(2)), so the correction letter is signed by a partner or director; applying this duty to an entry a third party wrote itself [Conservative line (not statute text)], 65% confidence. We draft it and send it on the firm's behalf [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full; check date: 2026-09-29), 85% confidence — r 42(1) already assumes someone else publishing on a lawyer's behalf, but every word that goes out still counts as the lawyer's own [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. Law firms have no equivalent of dental's statutory *Letter of appointment for advertising*; our own control gate is this batch's sign-off sheet, signed by a partner or director [Conservative line (not statute text)]. **With no sign-off sheet on file, not a single correction letter goes out** (for the send gate, see chapter 6, 6.1; for the correction letter template, see [[通用版 B.3 外联邮件与评价回复]], and for the law firm's extra wording, see Appendix B.2). ```split Figure: What law firms may and may not fill in on the five business profiles May fill in || Must not fill in Name: approved full name, word for word, with the LLC suffix || Business words, place names or "best" added after the name Opening hours, office locations, which practice areas each office handles || Promotional posts, case posts, win posts Fees field: billing method and what's included || Cheaper than other firms, limited-time offers Website: the fees page or that practice area's page || The homepage Chinese name: only the approved one || A self-translated Chinese firm name Q&A and photo captions: same wording as the website || Reposted client reviews ``` Why the two columns are kept so strictly apart: every free-text box, business post, Q&A and photo caption on the five profiles is publicity [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] (r 2(1)), using the same word list as the website (Appendix B.3), and photo captions and business posts are the ones most often missed. A win post hits the same success-rate rule [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] (r 43(1)(b)(ii)); case posts are not published, following the General Edition's rule that limits post topics to factual updates; anything about past matters or clients must also not breach confidentiality and must have the client's authorisation [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] (r 43(1)(b)(i), r 6(3)(a); the authorisation must be written and kept on file, see chapter 1, 1.4), with family matters also subject to the two extra rules in 3.2. "Cheaper than other firms" hits r 43(1)(c) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; promotional language such as limited-time offers [Conservative line (not statute text)], 60% confidence (chapter 1, 1.2); for the basis of the name and Chinese-name rows, see 3.1. Write office-specific limits into the address row itself, not a footnote: an old draft recorded an office marked "*For Corporate matters only" that was still listed by ChatGPT as the divorce lawyer nearest a particular MRT station (single case; from an old draft's records — the dataset only stores the first 600 characters of an answer, so this can't be rechecked). The only field on the Google Business Profile with real leverage is the website field, so it must point to the page that can actually serve this buyer, and you must check the canonical domain (the www and https forms must be consistent). **Review replies on the profiles** follow the wording in chapter 1, 1.5 and the template in Appendix B.2: never confirm that someone is the firm's client, never discuss the matter, never comment on the opposing party. For reviews from family-law clients, every reply is signed off in writing by a partner or director, and goes through our own de-identification check before it is sent for sign-off; if a reviewer names their child or the child's school themselves, the reply does not repeat it either — anything that could identify a child involved in the proceedings, or anything covered by an order restricting publication, cannot appear in the reply even with a sign-off [Statute text; see Appendix A.4] (CYPA s 112, FJA s 10); we are the ones sending the reply, and a sign-off does not take on our own liability as the publisher. ### Keyword microsites ```mermaid Figure: What to do with a microsite named after a practice-area keyword — the first box is: don't build a new one flowchart LR s{"Any microsite named after a keyword?"} -->|No| n["Don't build one"]:::hl s -->|Yes| b{"Domain contains best or top?"} b -->|Yes| m["Merge into main site, 301 old domain"]:::warn b -->|No| c{"Every page carries the approved name?"} c -->|No| fix["Add name to every page, link back"] c -->|Yes| keep["Keep it, matches main site exactly"] ``` Why not build a new one: mechanically, this fragments the entity — the same firm appearing under two or three domains and two or three headings means none of them is strong enough when AI matches names to people (for the mechanism, follow the R5 passage in [[通用版 8.9 跨境：按哪边的法管]]). The data doesn't support it either: of law-firm citations, the share coming from this kind of microsite is 5/70 in L3 (2026-09-29, across the three calls) and 6/37 in the public dataset's family-law questions (R1 across both engines plus R2, 2026-09-23, relabelled against L3's own annotation table); one divorce-keyword microsite made Google's top 10 in 15 of the family set's 22 questions, yet ChatGPT cited it 0 times, and AI Mode gave it 1 citation in 12 questions (same-day Google top-10 archive, aggregate figures only). Three compliance points: a microsite page with no approved firm name on it is unverifiable publicity — PD 6.2.2 C judges a flyer that writes only "Legal Services" plus a phone number to be misleading [Statute text; see Appendix A.3], applied to microsites [Conservative line (not statute text)], 85% confidence; a domain containing best or top is a self-awarded ranking [Conservative line (not statute text)], 80% confidence; using a business term as the firm name in the heading amounts to inventing an unapproved name — a law firm's name itself must not contain a word describing the business or field of practice (LPE Rules r 10, see 3.1) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2], applied to microsite headings [Conservative line (not statute text)]. For microsites you keep, check robots, the WAF and nosnippet domain by domain (chapter 2, 2.4), and put the approved full name at the top of every page, linked back to the main site's /facts. # Chapter 4 · Which clients and which questions to go after first **Read the General Edition first**: [[通用版 4.5 买家归堆、年机会值与三道关]], [[通用版 4.6 四态、两层分母与弃权线]], [[通用版 4.7 逐态处置、十类问题与本季名额]]. This chapter covers only the three places where law firms differ from the General Edition: the unit for grouping is one type of matter; the "not-reachable" list within the four states, and the two thresholds that hold law firms back; and where each type of question goes — fees, near me and "is this firm good" come first. ## 4.1 Group by matter type and work out what each group brings in a year **What you'll do in this section**: take out the firm's fee records and its lawyer time records, group them by "one type of matter", work out an annual opportunity value for each group, and rank them by that number to decide which group to go after first. Get the monthly capacity cap from the time records; don't estimate it in a meeting. The annual opportunity value is for ranking only: it goes into no external material, and into no quote we give the law firm. ```bars Figure: An example: one family-law firm's books, for ranking only, not a revenue forecast; the numbers are illustrative values built from the formula unit: S$ Contested divorce | 288000 | capacity capped by lawyer hours Uncontested divorce (fixed fee) | 180000 | the fees page's main battlefield Probate | 120000 | close to the next group; first compare which is reachable enough Wills + LPAs (Lasting Powers of Attorney) | 115200 | competitors aren't only law firms Prenuptial agreements | 60000 | small volume, ranked last ``` The work unit is **one type of matter**: practice line × client type, such as "contested divorce · individual", "shareholders' agreement · SME owner", "wills + LPAs · older couples". Group by how the firm opens matters and charges for them on its own books, not by how questions are asked — the same client will ask about the process first, then fees, then near me, but it's the same piece of business being asked about. The five numbers in the figure aren't any real firm's books, and they aren't market rates — swap in your own. The formula and the rules follow [[通用版 4.5 买家归堆、年机会值与三道关]]: **annual opportunity value = price per order × gross margin × monthly capacity cap × 12**. Law firms fill in these four numbers with two differences from other trades: - **Price per order** is the firm's own legal fees actually collected on the most recent batch of closed matters, excluding court fees and disbursements paid on the client's behalf — that money is paid to the court and third parties on the client's behalf; it isn't the firm's own revenue. - **The monthly capacity cap is calculated from lawyer hours**: lawyer hours that can go into this type of matter each month ÷ the average lawyer hours a matter takes from intake to close = the most new matters that can be taken on each month. Both numbers are copied straight from the time records. A contested divorce can drag on for months; calculate by "how many new ones can be taken on each month", not by how many are currently open. > **Example** (illustrative values, not market rates): the contested-divorce cell in the figure: price per order S$20,000 × gross margin 40% × monthly capacity cap 3 matters × 12 = S$288,000. Copy the rules down together with the numbers. The first four follow the General Edition; the fifth is added for law firms: 1. Fill in the numbers yourself, confirm them in person, and put them somewhere visible in the plan. 2. **The monthly capacity cap is a hard cap** — if the time records say you can only take on 3 contested divorces a month, don't pick a target calculated on 8. 3. The annual opportunity value is for **ranking only**; not one word of it may be presented externally as a revenue forecast. Never multiply, divide or display it side by side with seat counts or enquiry counts. 4. When two groups have close annual opportunity values, pick **the group with less competition** — probate and wills + LPAs in the figure are a case like this; use 4.2 first to count which group has more reachable-enough positions. 5. **The annual opportunity value goes into neither our quote nor our contract.** We only charge law firms a fixed service fee — never per lead, per case, per signed client, nor as a percentage of legal fees or the matter's value: charging that way could make us guilty of an offence under s 33(3) of the Legal Profession Act (LPA), and that criminal liability is our own; on the law firm's side, it runs into PCR r 19 (not sharing legal fees with a non-lawyer, not paying commission) and r 39(2)(b) (no commission or any other consideration for a referral) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1, A.2]. The fixed service fee itself [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: all of LPA s 33; check date: 2026-09-29), 70% confidence. **For the wills + LPAs and probate groups, work out whether they're reachable enough before ranking them** — on the ChatGPT leg, these two groups are cited almost entirely by government, and the competition isn't only other law firms: - In the family set (public dataset R1, 2026-09-23, each question run once), for the question on LPAs, all 5 ChatGPT citations were government pages; for "how much does it cost to write a will", 4 of 7 were government pages and the SAL Wills Registry, and the other 3 were two will-writing companies and a wills directory site that calls itself not a law firm (entities labelled by domain and title, not checked page by page) — 0 law firms. On the LPA question, AI Mode also cited an article from a healthcare group about LPAs (single case) — doctors who can sign LPA certificates are in this group too. - L3 (the 2026-09-29 run, detailed below) has 4 questions in the wills, estates and LPAs practice area (3 on probate, 1 on how an estate is divided when there's no will): in ChatGPT run 1, 16 of 17 citations were government and public-body pages and 1 was a law-firm website, on the question about probate legal fees (in run 2, too, the only law-firm citation, 1, was on this question); AI Mode cited a law-firm website on all 4 questions (11/20). Conclusion: on the ChatGPT leg, so far the only way into these two groups we've seen is through fee questions; explainer pages feed the AI Mode leg only. The two legs have different denominators — read only who's cited, don't compare the sizes. Law firms are a professional-services buyer type. The General Edition's cross-industry research says this type wins through educational content (the sample doesn't include Singapore, 75% confidence; evidence in [[通用版 A.2 选点、写页、站外与复测的证据]]), and the tactic is to add long-form content and get onto directories and lists. Law firms should play it the same way, but remember that in this trade, long-form content feeds the AI Mode leg only (numbers in 4.2); the ChatGPT leg depends on fee pages, office pages and directory listings. Reviews are not the main lever; for how to ask for them and what conditions apply, see chapter 6, 6.5. Groups like contested divorce and criminal defence — where the client calls first, books a consultation first, and signs the letter of engagement later — do not drop out of the pool just because they're hard to attribute: attribution is a site-level capability, not a property of the question. On the day you start, put it on the "observable tier" for acceptance; for how the two tiers are split, see the three checks in [[通用版 4.5 买家归堆、年机会值与三道关]]. Add a required "How did you find us?" field to every form, phone call and WhatsApp chat (chapter 2, 2.1). ## 4.2 Where law-firm questions should land: fees, "near me" and "is this firm good" come first **What you'll do in this section**: first work out exactly which question types get ChatGPT to cite law-firm websites; judge the four states for every URL in the intent-level top 10, and fix the law firm "not-reachable" list as written below; then assign an action by question type — the first batch takes only fee questions, near-me questions and brand questions like "is this firm good"; process, definition and rules questions don't go in the first batch, and whatever's left is accepted on the AI Mode leg only; policy questions like legal aid get rewritten as execution questions before being judged again; finally, break each priority question down into the things AI will check, and match each one to the page or off-site entry you need. ```bars Figure: ChatGPT cites law-firm websites only in four question types (L3 run 1) unit: citations Price | 5 | /23 · 3 of 5 questions Near me | 3 | /8 · 2 of 2 questions "Is this firm good" | 3 | /11 · 1 of 2 questions "Who's best" | 1 | /12 · 1 of 3 questions Process | 0 | /43 · 7 questions Rules | 0 | /20 · 5 questions Checklist | 0 | /13 · 3 questions Definition | 0 | /10 · 2 questions Calculation | 0 | /6 · 1 question ``` L3 is the 2026-09-29 run: 30 questions outside family law (26 English, 4 Chinese), covering 8 practice areas and including 5 questions on choosing a lawyer and legal fees that come up across every practice area; ChatGPT was asked each question independently twice, AI Mode and the Google top 10 once each; the figure plots ChatGPT run 1. Four things the figure can't show: - **Run 2 is largely the same**: law-firm websites appear only in price 6/26, "is this firm good" 2/10, "who's best" 2/14, checklist 1/19. Near-me is 0/8 in run 2 — but both answers still listed law firms' names and addresses, with the source swapped for third-party pages. Being named in a near-me answer doesn't have to come from your own page being cited (see the paragraph on near-me questions below). - **The family set's 22 questions (2026-09-23, each run once) give the same conclusion**: ChatGPT cites law firms only for price (3 of 6 questions), near me (1/1) and "is this firm good" (1/1); the "who's best" question is 0/1, and the remaining 13 questions — process, requirements, definition, rules, statistics, calculation, checklist, complete guide — are 0/13. - **The AI Mode leg runs the opposite way**: at least one law-firm website was cited in 24 of L3's 30 questions, including 6 of 7 process questions and 4 of 5 rules questions. - **Small samples**: each type has only 1–7 questions, calculation has just 1, so the proportions are directional only. ### The four states: the not-reachable list and the two thresholds that hold law firms back ```mermaid id=four-states Figure: how a URL is assigned one of the four states; "to ask" is only a transitional state and must settle into "reachable" or "not reachable" before the baseline flowchart LR q1{"Is your name on the page?"} -->|yes| a["Already present"]:::hl q1 -->|no| q2{"Is it one of the five not-reachable classes?"} q2 -->|yes| d["Not reachable"] q2 -->|no| q3{"Can you point to an entry point?"} q3 -->|yes, can point to it| b["Reachable"]:::hl q3 -->|can't tell, and it hasn't said it's closed| c["To ask"]:::warn c -->|reply to the enquiry says open| b c -->|no reply after 7 days| d ``` How the four states are judged, the four thresholds for "reachable enough", and the abstain line are fully defined in [[通用版 4.6 四态、两层分母与弃权线]]. What law firms need to fill in are the specific values in the cells below. **Not reachable, judged by category directly** — pages belonging to government, the courts and statutory bodies, and the registers they maintain: - The courts: judiciary.gov.sg (including the Family Justice Courts), eLitigation judgment pages; legislation: sso.agc.gov.sg. - The Ministry of Law, mlaw.gov.sg, including the Legal Aid Bureau and the Public Defender's Office. - The Ministry of Manpower and the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM), ACRA, CPF, HDB, MSF (including its LPA pages), and government Q&As on ask.gov.sg. - The Law Society of Singapore's Practice Direction pages and its fee-dispute page. - The LSRA register lookup for lawyers and law practices, and the SAL Directory of Specialists — check only your own row; don't submit content to them. **Competitors' own domains are not reachable either**: other law firms' websites, including any keyword microsite they run under a practice-area name (the kind whose footer says the firm operates it). This is the category cited most on the AI Mode leg — 47 of L3 AI Mode's 122 citations were law-firm websites, and all of them are not reachable except your own; the only way to compete for position on this leg is to write your own pages. **Judge by URL, not by domain**: under the same Law Society domain, Practice Direction pages and the fee-dispute page are not reachable, but a law firm's listing page in the directory is reachable — the Law Society's own text states "the listings are paid by advertising" [Statute text; see Appendix A.5], but whether every listing is a paid placement, and the rate card, were not obtained this round. **The three most common "already present" cases for law firms**: the firm's own entry in the Law Society directory, an individual lawyer's tier in a ranking guide, and the firm's entry in a rating directory. The first thing to do is make the practice areas, office and fee basis on the entry match the firm's website word for word; for how to send a correction when an entry is wrong, see chapter 3, 3.4. **Of the four thresholds for "reachable enough", law firms get stuck on two**: - **"Allowed on this side"**: no platform that refers, assigns or matches cases for law firms counts as reachable enough, whatever it charges — per lead, per completed engagement, commission or a fixed entry fee. Charging per lead, per completed engagement or commission [Statute text; see Appendix A.1–A.3]; charging a fixed entry fee [Conservative line (not statute text)] (80% confidence). A "best" list spot you can only buy your way onto, or an award you get simply by paying, also doesn't count [Conservative line (not statute text)] (70% confidence). A "best" list a third-party editor writes themselves, with no payment: a law firm appearing in a third party's publicity is governed by r 46, and once in, it still has to follow r 43 and r 44 [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; for lists like this we only do two things — supply checkable facts and send correction letters — never pay, never ask for a ranking [Conservative line (not statute text)]. - **"Free, or the rate card is public"**: the Law Society's own "Find A Featured Lawyer/Law Firm" directory (the Featured directory), which it sells, is the only paid placement worth considering for law firms [Conservative line (not statute text)] (70% confidence) — listed by practice area, chosen by the reader, with no referral or case assignment. Buying this kind of pure advertising slot at a fixed rate-card price [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR r 39, GN 6.1.1 paras 33–37, PD 6.1.2, the Law Society's Featured directory page; check date: 2026-09-29), 70% confidence. But its rate-card terms were not obtained this round (the original page returns a 404) — **until you get the rate card, this one doesn't count as reachable enough.** The full method for judging paid placements is in chapter 6, 6.2. Judge ranking guides (Doyle's, Legal 500, Chambers, Best Lawyers and the like) URL by URL: one with an open submission channel counts as reachable; one that only takes peer nominations and doesn't accept self-nomination from firms counts as not reachable, as a "closed-door rating". This round didn't check each one's submission process and whether it charges; ask each one when you start, and record it in the basis column. **Record the two legs separately**: once you've judged the four states, add a "which leg cited it" column for each URL. In this trade, the two legs almost never cite the same URL — for the same question, the intersection over union of the two engines' URLs is 17/251 in L3 and 6/106 in family R1. On the same question, the ChatGPT leg might be all government pages while the AI Mode leg is all other firms' explainer articles; combining them into a single intent-level top 10 counts two different battlefields as one. ### Assign an action to each question type ```mermaid Figure: Where law-firm questions go by type; fees, near me and brand go into the first batch, process and rules feed AI Mode only flowchart LR s1["How much does it cost"] --> t1["① ② Fee pages · first batch"]:::hl s2["Which one is near me"] --> t2["⑪ Office page + directory listing"]:::hl s3["Is this firm good · AI got it wrong"] --> t3["Brand question · standalone deliverable"]:::hl s4["Who's best"] --> t4["Off-site: ranking guides and directories"] s5["Process, definition, rules, checklist"] --> t5["⑥⑦⑫⑬⑭ · AI Mode only"] s6["Legal aid · a policy question"] -->|turn into an execution question| t6["⑥ One question, one page"] s7["Changing lawyers · second opinion"] --> t7["⑧ Second-opinion page"] ``` **Fee questions go in the first batch.** This is the door ChatGPT walks through most often to reach law-firm websites. Across L3's 5 price questions, almost everything ChatGPT took from law-firm websites was that firm's own published fees — fixed-fee packages, hourly rates, consultation fees; it folds these into its own market-rate table, and some answers even name the firm. The question on probate legal fees did this both times, in wording such as "S$X nett including court filing/commissioner fees", "S$X before GST and excluding court fees", "S$X all-in": sentences shaped like "price + what's included or not". The AI will quote market rates on its own; a law firm can't control that. What a firm can control is whether its own price shows up, shaped as "service tier + defining conditions + price + what's included or not", in the raw material the AI is pulling its table from. Writing the firm's own fee range [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: the PCR in full [including Part 5 (r 37–49), r 17, r 18 and r 18A], all category 6 PDs and GNs on the Law Society's ethics page, the revoked Publicity Rules (in full); check date: 2026-09-29), 75% confidence, written as in chapter 1, 1.2. Leave peer price ranges out entirely: a range that names a firm or lets it be identified [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; an unnamed market range [Conservative line (not statute text)] (85% confidence). Not every fee question leaves room for a law firm, either: 2 of L3's 5 price questions cited no law firm in either run — the question on HDB conveyancing legal fees cited HDB, CPF and a bank's legal-fee estimate page; the Chinese-language question on how much a lawyer costs for an employment dispute cited the courts, the Ministry of Manpower or the Legal Aid Bureau, and the Law Society's fee-dispute page. For a fee question with an official or bank-published basis, run it through the four states and count the reachable-enough URLs first, then decide whether to include it. **Near-me questions go in the first batch.** Both L3 run-1 questions cited a law firm, always the contact page or the "find us" page; for the conveyancing near-me question, ChatGPT laid out a table with firm, address, phone and notes columns, with the notes column listing which practice areas each firm handles; one firm's notes were copied from a Law Society directory listing (single case). In run 2, law-firm websites were 0/8, but firm names still made it into the answer, with the source swapped for a Law Society directory listing, a rating directory and an office building's own website; one of these answers even listed a non-law-firm business's contact page as if it were a law firm (single case). So do all three things for near-me questions together: ⑪ the office page (address + nearest MRT station + which practice areas that office handles, on the same line), the Law Society directory listing, and the business profile — keep all three word for word consistent (chapter 5, 5.18; chapter 3, 3.4). The Law Society states that listings in this directory are paid for: fix up any entry you already have first; if you don't have one yet, get the rate card before deciding whether to buy, and do this after the free steps (chapter 6, 6.2). Community legal clinics turn up in this same group too — one L3 near-me question listed the Ministry of Law's published clinic list both times — that's a government page, not reachable, not worth competing for. **Brand questions ("is this firm good", AI getting the firm's own facts wrong) go in the first batch, and take slot 1 this quarter.** For L3's two questions and family's one question, the firm being asked about had its own page cited at least once on each question; across L3's three calls, every law-firm website cited was the firm being asked about (including any keyword microsite it runs). In the answers to these two questions, ChatGPT also read four kinds of third party: the practice areas and lawyer bios on the Law Society directory listing, the department tier in a ranking guide, the rating and review count on a rating directory, and how many published judgments a case-law database shows the lawyer as having handled; once it even warned readers to discount phrases like "charges dropped" and "best possible outcome" on a law firm's own website (L3's criminal question, run 1, single case). So what needs fixing for brand questions is the facts — /facts and the lawyer's own profile page (chapter 3, 3.1–3.2), rankings and directory listings (chapter 3, 3.3–3.4; chapter 6, 6.3) — not another page of self-praise. This is the one item in the ten types where stopping makes things go backwards, and the one cell a law firm can reproduce and see for itself: after the fix, what the AI says often changes first (not guaranteed), and whether it changed shows up in the monthly retest, so make it a standalone deliverable. **The main move for "who's best" is off-site.** Across L3's three questions, ChatGPT run 1 cited only 1 law-firm website (1/12): the criminal "best defence lawyer" question listed individual lawyers by their Doyle's 2026 tier both times, and run 2 additionally cited Legal 500 and Best Lawyers; the personal-injury question cited a "top-rated" list article on a legal-information site and the Law Society directory, with the directory listing's bio paraphrased into the answer. For the family-law question asking for the best divorce lawyer, 4 of 6 citations were Doyle's (×2), Legal 500 and Chambers (single case). Each question got only one or two calls, so this is directional only. The searches ChatGPT ran point the same way: across the 6 answers to these three questions (two runs each), all 6 searched the Law Society directory; only the criminal question searched ranking guides (in both runs), so treat ranking guides first as a move for practice areas that have rankings, such as criminal defence (question-breakdown table at the end of this section). Whether the firm's website is cited and whether the answer names the firm are two different things: across the 10 answers to the 5 "who's best" and "near me" questions (two runs each), 8/10 named specific law firms (each checked by hand), often citing the Law Society directory or a ranking guide rather than the firm's own website; across L3's three runs (ChatGPT twice, AI Mode once), 40 law-firm websites were cited, and 25/40 only once. Three moves: take part in ranking guides through their normal review process, and once listed, the lawyer's own page states only their own entry (chapter 3, 3.3); fill in your directory listing completely (chapter 6, 6.3); for editor-written lists, only supply checkable facts and send correction letters, never pay. **Never build your own ranking list** [Conservative line (not statute text)]: r 43(1)(c) bans any comparison of the quality of service provided by another lawyer [Statute text; see Appendix A.1], and treating a ranking of peers as that kind of comparison is this book's reading of the rule. One law firm's home page in L3, whose title calls itself the best personal-injury firm locally, was still cited by ChatGPT (the personal-injury question, run 2, single case): being cited doesn't mean you may write it; by default, don't call yourself best or No. 1 [Conservative line (not statute text)] (80% confidence). **"Which is better, A or B" only compares procedures, never law firms** — contested vs uncontested divorce, simplified vs normal procedure, probate vs letters of administration, mediation vs going to court; never make any comparison of another firm's fees or quality of service [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; for how to write it, see chapter 5, 5.7. L3 has only 1 question asking "what's the difference between A and B" with no fee attached (the difference between probate and letters of administration), classed as a definition question, and ChatGPT cited 0 law firms both times; a comparison page on "contested vs uncontested divorce" that does carry fees was cited once by ChatGPT in the family set (single case, page ownership to be verified). Writing the firm's own fee on each side of a comparison page is, so far, the only wording we've seen make it onto the ChatGPT leg. **Process, definition, rules, checklist and calculation questions don't go in the first batch; whatever's left is accepted on the AI Mode leg only.** Across both runs, ChatGPT cited a law-firm website only once in these types combined (checklist, run 2); AI Mode cites law firms anyway — 6 of 7 process questions, 4 of 5 rules questions, 2 of 2 definition questions, 2 of 3 checklist questions, 1 of 1 calculation question. Of the General Edition's ten question types, pure educational "what is it, should I hire one" questions drop out of the pool by default; a law firm's process, definition and rules questions come closest to that cell, but they don't drop out automatically: whether to keep them is judged by check 1 in [[通用版 4.5 买家归堆、年机会值与三道关]] — look at whether the answer names any firm at all, not whether it cites one. L3 only counted citations, not naming, so this cell should be decided by what you count in your own baseline. Whatever you keep gets written as ⑥⑦⑫⑬⑭ (chapter 5, 5.9, 5.10, 5.12, 5.13); don't expect these to win you position on the ChatGPT leg. When chapter 7 can't fill next month's three tasks, this is the type to thicken first (chapter 7, 7.2). **For policy questions like legal aid, rewrite as an execution question and judge it again.** L3 has 2 legal-aid questions: in ChatGPT run 1, 14 of 15 citations were government and public-body pages, and in AI Mode 8 of 9 were; neither leg cited a law firm. Judging questions like this not reachable straight away would kill off most of a law firm's questions on the ChatGPT leg along with them — 115 of L3 run 1's 146 citations overall were government and public-body pages. Rewrite the question first: turn "do I qualify for legal aid" into "if legal aid isn't approved, how does a lawyer charge for this kind of case, and can I pay in stages", then run it through the four states again; only count it against the abstain line if it's still dominated after the rewrite. The rewritten question goes to ⑥ one question, one page: copy the official eligibility conditions from the Legal Aid Bureau's own text and note the check date (for how to write ⑰, see chapter 5, 5.6); write the firm's own fees as in chapter 1, 1.2, and link across to the ① single-matter fee page; never write a sentence like "come to us if you can't afford a lawyer" (r 39(1) bans touting [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; applying it to a page like this: [Conservative line (not statute text)]; see chapter 5, 5.6). **Chinese-language questions** go to the same places as English ones, but are accepted on the AI Mode leg only: for L3's 4 Chinese questions, ChatGPT cited a Chinese-language page 0/47 across both runs, AI Mode 5/22; for family's 3 Chinese questions, 1 of 28 citations was a Chinese-language page (AI Mode, single case); Chinese-language pages are judged heuristically, by title and URL. A Chinese-language page is optional — only build one if you have Chinese-speaking clients (chapter 5, 5.3). ### Question breakdown: the pages a law firm needs Use the question breakdown in [[通用版 4.7 逐态处置、十类问题与本季名额]]. The table below counts, for each kind of question, how many of L3's 60 ChatGPT answers (30 questions × 2 runs, 2026-09-29, family law excluded) searched each category. "Who's best" has only 3 questions, so read it question by question, not as a proportion: | What AI checks | Which questions check it most | Which page or off-site entry answers it | |---|---|---| | The Law Society and directories | Who's best 6/6, is this firm good 4/4, fee questions 6/10 | Fill in the Law Society directory listing completely, word for word the same as the website (6.2, 6.3); office page (5.18) | | Fees | Fee questions 10/10 | Fee guide page (5.4), single-matter fee page (5.5), legal aid and pro bono (5.6) | | Courts and official procedure | Explanation questions such as process and rules 32/36 | One question, one page (5.9), step-by-step procedures and deadlines (5.13), requirements and eligibility page (5.10); this category is mostly held by the courts and ministries | | Reviews | Is this firm good 4/4 | Rating directories and reviews (6.5) | | Ranking guides | Only the criminal "best defence lawyer" question, in both runs | Take part in ranking guides through their normal review process (6.3); the lawyer's own page states only their own entry (3.3) | | Checking each named firm (by firm name or site: website) | Near me 4/4, is this firm good 4/4, who's best 2/6 | The named firm's /facts (3.1), lawyer profile page (3.2), single-matter fee page (5.5), office page (5.18) | This table counts what AI searched for, not what it cited; the citation figures stay on the L3 citation basis used earlier in this section. ### Changing lawyers and second opinions: not in the first batch The General Edition puts second-opinion / remedy questions in the first batch; the Law Firms Edition doesn't follow that — none of L3's 30 questions or family's 22 questions asked this way, so this cell has zero cited samples for law firms. If your firm genuinely handles this kind of work, put one question in the frozen question pool (chapter 2, 2.2) and rank it once your baseline gives you a number. If you do write the page, write ⑧ the second-opinion page; for its skeleton, see chapter 5, 5.11. Writing this page at all [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes; check date: 2026-09-29). ```split Figure: On the second-opinion page, the only subject allowed is the client's own situation; write none of the left column, write all of the right column Never write || Write only "The previous lawyer messed it up" || What stage of the process the client is in now, how much time is left "Many clients who come to us find that …" || Whether we can take the case; check for a conflict of interest first Urging the client to end the engagement || Not interfering with the existing engagement Success rate || The scope of the opinion and the fee ``` The four items in the left column don't all rest on the same strength of basis: - Criticising the previous lawyer [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] — r 43(1)(c)'s own text requires "the publicity does not make any comparison or criticism in relation to the fees charged, or the quality of the services provided, by any other legal practitioner or law practice". Never write anything that comments on a previous lawyer's fees or the quality of their work. - An opening like "many clients who come to us find that …" is either talking about another firm's quality of service or about another client's case — write neither [Conservative line (not statute text)] (for how far you may go in describing clients and cases, see chapter 1, 1.4). - Never write a success rate, full stop [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. - Never urge a client to end their engagement, and don't interfere with an existing engagement [Conservative line (not statute text)] — the basis is the ban on touting in r 39(1): "A legal practitioner or law practice must not tout for business or do anything which is likely to lead to a reasonable inference that the thing was done for the purpose of touting." [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. Applying it to "urging a client to change lawyers" is this book's reading. No provision specifically governing "urging a client to change lawyers" was found [Original text not obtained]; the earlier draft's line about not improperly influencing a client to end an engagement is no longer cited as a basis. A family law firm's second-opinion page doesn't write up any individual case either. For family law, case studies, republishing reviews and replying to reviews are done case by case, with the written sign-off of a partner or director, but only after passing our own de-identification check first (Appendix B.4): never publish information that could identify a child involved in the proceedings (CYPA s 112), and never publish family-proceedings content a court has restricted from publication (FJA s 10) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]. These two are statutory provisions: no lawyer's sign-off can release them. Whoever publishes bears the criminal liability personally, and a lawyer's signature cannot shield us from it either. A written sign-off resolves only the stop-and-escalate situations; it never turns something banned as Statute text into something publishable. When talking to a client about this type of question — in fact about the competitive picture for any question type — **you may say only one sentence**: "Who AI names for these questions today, and whose pages it cites as sources, we will count on the spot in the baseline." ❌ Never say "no one is doing this" or "competition is near zero", and never report a specific number of firms: if the client runs their own search next week and finds several, that is a loss of trust. ### This quarter's slots: how the first batch fills the list Once every question has an action assigned, fill this quarter's list following the three combination rules in [[通用版 4.7 逐态处置、十类问题与本季名额]]: at least one hold-pile question, at least one brand / correction question, and at most one national head term with no location. Here's how a law firm's first batch fills the slots: ```steps Figure: The order a law firm's first batch fills into this quarter's slots; the fee question and near-me question in the same group share one annual opportunity value Slot 1 | Brand question | What AI says about the firm and what it gets wrong; filled as N/A Slot 2 | Hold-pile question | The one with the highest annual opportunity value among questions whose baseline isn't 0 From slot 3 | Take in descending order | By annual opportunity value; within each group, fee and near-me questions go first Last slot | National head term | A "who's best" question with no location, at most 1 slot ``` Hold-pile questions are picked first from fee and near-me questions that have already been cited, or already been named: the baseline isn't 0, so a change can be measured within 90 days. A "who's best" question with no location, like "best divorce lawyer Singapore", counts as a national head term; its main move is off-site, and it takes at most the last slot. Explainer-type process and rules questions come after the fee and near-me questions in the same group. Once the slots are set, the first batch's build order is in chapter 0, 0.1. # Chapter 5 · Writing pages (1): rules for every law-firm page This chapter's numbers use two short source labels. "L3" = the 30 questions collected on 2026-09-29 (8 practice areas other than family law, plus 5 questions on choosing a lawyer and legal fees that come up across every practice area; 26 English · 4 Chinese): ChatGPT was asked each question twice, independently — the main text gives run 1, the number in brackets gives run 2; AI Mode and the Google top 10 were each asked once per question. "The family set" = the 22 family-law questions from the public dataset R1/R2 (collected 2026-09-23, each question asked once; AI Mode ran only the 12 questions from R1). L3's page types are all labelled heuristically by URL and title, not taken apart page by page by hand; where this matters, it is marked "heuristic". The family R1 cited pages were taken apart page by page; where this matters, it is marked "taken apart page by page". ## 5.1 The first page is always the fees page: ChatGPT mostly visits law-firm websites when asked about price **What you'll do in this section**: make the all-practice-areas fee guide page the first thing you write, starting in book-wide W2 (W1 counts from the day you fix the door); publish the English version first, and add a Chinese version only if the firm has Chinese-speaking clients (see 5.3). First work out why this is the firm's first page: the door through which ChatGPT enters a law-firm website is mainly this one — asking about price. When you're done, you'll have a fee guide page that is live and logged in the page register, with all three specs checked off one by one. ```mermaid Figure: The door through which ChatGPT enters law-firm websites is mainly fee questions; for process and rules questions it cites only government and the courts flowchart LR p["How much does it cost"] -->|ChatGPT| f["Law firm fees page"]:::hl n["Which firm is near me"] -->|ChatGPT| o["Office page"] b["Is this firm good"] -->|ChatGPT| s["Law firm's own page + third parties"] r["Questions about process and rules"] -->|ChatGPT| g["Only cites government and the courts"]:::warn r -->|AI Mode| e["Law firm explainer"] ``` The door in the figure comes from the measured numbers. In L3 run 1, ChatGPT cited law-firm websites in 12/146 citations, all falling into four question types: price 5/23 citations (3 of 5 questions), near me 3/8 (2 of 2 questions), "is this firm good" 3/11 (1 of 2 questions), "who's best" 1/12 (1 of 3 questions); the five types process, rules, checklist, definition and calculation together came to 0/92. Run 2 has roughly the same shape, but not exactly: price 6/26, "is this firm good" 2/10, "who's best" 2/14, checklist also picked up 1/19, and the 2 near-me questions came to 0/8 this time; every other type was 0. The family set gives the same conclusion: across 6 fee questions, ChatGPT cited a law-firm page for 3; the 13 questions on process, requirements, definitions, rules, statistics, calculation and checklists came to 0/13. For the type-by-type bar chart, see chapter 4, 4.2. The AI Mode leg is different: in L3 it cited law-firm websites in 47/122 citations, and at least one firm was cited in 24 of the 30 questions; in family R1 it was 29/52. It cited a law firm's own page across all 9 question types, and more than half of those were explainers (26/47, heuristic) — that part is handled by the explainer pages in 5.9–5.17. **For the ChatGPT leg, fee questions are the widest and steadiest door**: they account for 5/12 and 6/11 of its law-firm citations across the two runs, the most of any type in each; near-me questions were 3 citations in run 1 and 0 in run 2 — not steady. This only shows where the door is; it does not guarantee ChatGPT will cite your page. The reason for law firms is different from what [[通用版 5.12 价格指南页（一）：为什么第一页永远是它（pt02）]] says: it is not that compliance has locked up the off-site price-comparison slots — in the family set, a third-party fee guide from 2022 is cited by both legs (single case) — it is that ChatGPT mainly enters a law-firm website when asked about price in the first place. The fees page does not feed ChatGPT alone either: of the 47 law-firm pages AI Mode cited in L3, 9 were fee-type pages (heuristic). ### AI builds its own market-rate table; what you control is the shape of the raw material For L3's 5 fee questions, ChatGPT gave 10 answers across the two runs, and all 10 built their own fee table; the family set's two legal-fee questions do the same, drawing on several firms' self-published prices and that 2022 fee guide as raw material. How the market rates get reported is not up to the law firm; what the law firm can control is whether its own price appears in that raw material in the shape of "service tier + defining conditions + fixed fee or range + what's included". > **Example** (L3 commercial contract review, single case) In the fee table in its answer, ChatGPT wrote "one Singapore firm publicly lists S$ for review/advice on most contracts, excluding amendments and certain transaction-heavy agreements" (amount withheld) — the price, scope and exclusions all came from a fee sentence on that firm's own practice-area page, and AI carried them straight into the table, with the source attached. Fee sentences do not only get picked up from the fees page: of the 5 law-firm pages cited for fee questions in L3 run 1, 3 were practice-area pages, 1 was a fees page and 1 was an engagement-terms page (heuristic). So it is not only the fee guide page — wherever the firm's own fees appear, write them in the same format as chapter 1, 1.2. The firm's own fees can be written as a fixed fee, or as a range or a "from" price, immediately followed by the defining conditions and the variables that would push up the total [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes, the revoked Publicity Rules; check date: 2026-09-29), 75% confidence. To the client, say only "we found no rule that prohibits it", never "the rules allow it". Write the page as "billing method + fixed fee or range + what's excluded + the final fee set out in the letter of engagement", and do not build an eye-catching price poster [Conservative line (not statute text)] (60% confidence: based on the dignity judgement of the Law Society of Singapore (the Law Society) on price lists in TV advertisements, and its advice that detailed fee information is best explained to the client in person; rule text in Appendix A.3). For the table header, the sentence and the blueprint, see 5.4. ### The most-cited page: do not copy its market-range half The most-cited law-firm URL in the family set is a firm's own divorce practice-area page (3 citations across 2 questions, cited by both engines, single case): under the H2 on price, the first sentence gives a sourced market range, immediately followed by a table setting the firm's fixed price against the market range. This is exactly the wording switch E (peer comparison banned) bans: comparison of the fees charged by other lawyers [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; treating an unnamed market range as this kind of comparison too [Conservative line (not statute text)] (85% confidence). It only proves that the sentence shape "the firm's own price + conditions" works — the market-range half cannot be copied: leave no room for a peer range on the fees page; for the replacement wording, see chapter 1, 1.3. ### Three specs: law firms change only the one about the official benchmark ```split Figure: The fee guide page's three specs; law firms change only the second one: the official benchmark becomes court fees, in their own column in the same table General Edition || Law firms Every service on sale goes into one master table, each row linking to its single-service page || Unchanged: every practice area the firm handles goes into one table, each row linking to its single-matter fee page The official public benchmark is placed by side || Changed: court fees get their own column in the same table, with the table name and the date the figures were taken H1 carries the year, revised every quarter, with the "Updated" line updated at the same time || Unchanged: update dateModified, and state on the page which rows changed ``` Not a single peer's number goes on the page (switch E, see the previous subsection). Putting court fees in the same table as the firm's own fees, in a column of their own [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes; check date: 2026-09-29). For the 2 family R1 questions about legal fees, ChatGPT cited the fee table on the court's simplified-procedure page as the official basis both times (the same page); AI Mode did not cite it for either question. Court fees are always copied from the court's page that same day, with the fee-table name, a link to the court's page and the date the figures were taken; if the original table cannot be obtained, do not write a number — give only the link ([[通用版 0.4 合规句的三档标签与停笔规则]]: "never estimate an official figure, and never carry over an old value"). ### Which firms this section does not apply to, and when this page must be rewritten - **Law firms that will not publish their own fee basis**: these are already downgraded at the second start gate in chapter 0, 0.2 — no fees page is scheduled; the first page becomes the office page and an explainer page instead, and acceptance is judged on the AI Mode leg alone. This section governs only firms that have passed the second gate. - **Reclassification**: if law firms are moved to the strictly regulated side, the fee guide page and every single-matter fee page must be rewritten in full. We have not read the more than 100 pieces of written ethics guidance in the Law Society's members' area, or the 2019 and 2020 Ethics Digests [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6]; if any of them contains a ruling that "fee ranges or price lists on a website are unbefitting the dignity of the profession", this book moves law firms to the strictly regulated side in that quarter, and this page changes to state only tiered fixed prices — no ranges, no "from" prices. If the firm has completed the start-checklist step of exporting this guidance with its members' account, search it for fee-related rulings before this page goes live; if it has not, write to this book's default wording and log "members' area guidance not checked" in the page register. ### Scheduling, verdict and results The 30-day writing order and the three mechanical gates (the ranking gate, the language gate and the video gate) follow [[通用版 5.4 三十天写页顺序与三道机械闸]]; how the language gate changes for law firms is in 5.3. In this quarter's off-site verdict, this page counts as one item: whether the fee guide page (English; plus Chinese if the firm has Chinese-speaking clients) is live and logged in the page register, with all three specs checked off one by one. It does not look at whether a third party accepts your submission, only at whether you did the work yourself; the rest of the nine-item verdict follows [[通用版 6.8 站外判定、常见错与该砍的仪式]]. Whether it is working is checked separately: whether the 2–3 unique fact strings logged for this page (for example, a fixed-fee sentence for one of the firm's tiers) can be found by string search in the raw ChatGPT answer text saved to disk this month. How to read this is in chapter 7. ## 5.2 The skeleton of a law-firm page: where law firms change the seven general rules **What you'll do in this section**: carry over, unchanged, the General Edition's seven skeleton rules that hold for every page type, and change only six places to fit a law firm's rules; family law firm pages get one extra step, a de-identification check. Once you've made these six changes, you can write every law-firm page straight off the general skeleton, with no separate set of rules to remember. ```wireframe id=seven-rules Figure: where each of the seven rules lands on the page, top to bottom title | Pages whose content changes by year carry the year; the official pricing page is the exception (rule 4) | req H1 | A statement; the exception is one-question-one-page, which uses the original question (rule 5) | req Conclusion block | Core facts land in the first 30% (rule 2) | req,cite First H2 | The main question (rule 5) | req First sentence | Stands alone, can be lifted out whole (rule 1) | req,cite Table | Make it a table wherever you can; column headers use buyer-comparison wording (rule 3) | opt Other H2s | Statements, with the verdict written into the heading (rule 5) | req First sentence | Every paragraph's first sentence stands alone (rule 1) | req FAQ H3 | Questions are concentrated here, only restating the body's conclusions (rule 6) | opt Numbers | Precise, with unit, basis and date (rule 7) | req,law Prices, results, specs | In the first-screen HTML, not dependent on JS, images or IP-based routing | req ``` The above is the General Edition's seven-rule skeleton; law firms use it exactly as is, changing only the six places below. ```split Figure: The general skeleton changes in only these six places for law firms; everything else stays as is General Edition || Law firms What the H2s cover || Fees, procedure, statutory conditions and time limits, what the firm does and does not handle Byline || Named lawyer + year of admission + update date ≥3 outbound links to checkable original text || Specific sections on SSO, the court's page, the Law Society's fee-dispute page, LSRA register lookup Brand name || Approved full name, not inserted into every H2 Reviews block || None; a rating appears only as one line on the reputation and credentials page In-page splitting || Divorce is not split; companies are split by role ``` **H2 focus**: a law firm's content form is professional (see [[通用版 5.9 内容形态、FAQ、中文页与外语页]]), and the H2s are arranged around these five things (the figure leaves out the last one): billing method and fees, procedure steps and typical duration, statutory conditions and time limits, what the firm does and does not handle, and what documents to bring. Statutory conditions and time limits carry the section or rule number; the number and the original sentence are written only after being checked against SSO that same day — where they cannot be checked, no number is written (see chapter 1, 1.8). "What the firm does and does not handle" goes in the same paragraph, with no asterisked footnote: a Law Society Practice Direction gives failing to state that a practice handles only uncontested divorces as an example of a TV advertisement that misleads by omitting a material fact [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]; applying this to a website — stating clearly what is and is not handled — [Conservative line (not statute text)] (85% confidence). **Byline**: the byline goes on the first line under the H1. Where the lawyer wrote it themselves, use `Written by , (admitted ) · Updated `; where we drafted it and the lawyer reviewed it, use `Reviewed by , (admitted ) · Updated ` — never describe something we drafted as written by the lawyer themselves [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Take the designation only from the approved list in chapter 1, 1.6. At the end of the line, link to this lawyer's LSRA register lookup page and the check date; whether the register lookup page has a number field that can be publicly cited has not yet been verified [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6] — until it is verified, do not write any number. A byline is not a condition for being cited: of the 10 cited law-firm pages taken apart page by page in the family set, only 2 had a named author. In one case, a firm's blog post on whether you can divorce without a lawyer names its author at the top, and the author states up front that, as a lawyer, they have a conflict of interest — it was cited by AI Mode (single case). The reason a law firm needs a byline is so readers can check who is speaking, and until when the statement still holds: guidance from the Law Society's Ethics Committee under the old rules recommends periodically reviewing whether the general legal information on a website is still accurate [Conservative line (not statute text)] (guidance from under the old rules, see Appendix A.6). So the `Updated` cell is a visible date, changed every time the page is reviewed. **Outbound links**: the threshold of at least 3 outbound links per page to checkable original text does not change; law firms take them from the four kinds in the figure and the matching government pages (the Ministry of Law, the Ministry of Manpower, ACRA and the like). Link legislation to that section on SSO (a `?ProvIds=` URL), never to the whole Act: when ChatGPT cites legislation itself, it mostly anchors to a section or a Part — citations carrying `ProvIds`: 12/12 in the family set, 4/5 in L3 run 1 (run 2: 8/11). For the Law Society's Legal Costs / Disputes page, ChatGPT cited it in 5 questions in each L3 run (3 price questions, 1 rules question, 1 checklist question); link the fees page to it as the official channel for fee disputes. An outbound link is itself not a condition for being cited (see [[通用版 5.7 所有页型都成立的七条]]) — linking to the section is so both the reader and the AI can check it. Ranking guides, find-a-lawyer platforms and other firms' pages do not count towards these 3 links, and are not put into an explainer as an endorsement [Conservative line (not statute text)]; only your own entry gets written: an individual's tier goes on the lawyer's own page, the firm's tier goes on /facts, written as "listed in × guide × year × category × tier" with a link (see chapter 3, 3.3). The regulatory original text is itself a trust signal: > **Example** (fees page, the sentence under the table) "Under Singapore's professional conduct rules, we do not publish success rates or compare our fees with other firms'. What we can show you is how we charge and what is included." followed by an outbound link to PCR r 43 on SSO. Both things the page leaves out have a rule behind them [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; writing it as a sentence of explanation on the page is this book's own approach [Conservative line (not statute text)]. **Firm name**: write the approved full name on every page [Conservative line (not statute text)] (85% confidence: Practice Direction PD 6.2.2 C's own sentence, "At the very least, the name of the law practice should be stated in the flyer.", applies only to flyers and uses "should"; rule text in Appendix A.3), matching the approved wording character for character [Conservative line (not statute text)] (75% confidence). A law corporation (LLC) carries "LLC" or "Law Corporation" everywhere; the suffix must not be dropped from structured data, the footer or business profiles [Statute text; see Appendix A.2]. Do not insert the firm name into the first sentence of every H2; it appears only in the four places the General Edition uses (see [[通用版 5.6 两条腿，两种句子]]): the subject of the fee sentence, the lawyer actually handling the matter, the byline, and the organisation facts [Conservative line (not statute text)] (no dedicated rule on the law-firm side; not measured). **Reviews block**: explainers, process pages and the fees page never carry a reviews block — no aggregateRating, no star-rating widget and no client testimonials. Among law-firm questions, reviews are cited only when a question names a firm and asks "is this firm good": in L3 run 1, review-type pages accounted for 2/146 citations, both in the 2 questions of that type (run 2: 0/161, heuristic). Platform ratings appear only as one line, "platform · number of reviews · rating · check date", on the reputation and credentials page (see 5.21) [Conservative line (not statute text)]; how to judge whether a single review can be republished, and how to reply to it, is in chapter 1, 1.5. **In-page splitting**: split by who makes the decision; the mechanism follows [[通用版 5.5 页面单位：一个意图簇一页]]. For law firms, these patterns are all judgement calls, not measured: divorce is decided by one person (the other side is the opposing party, not a co-decision-maker), so it is not split; wills and LPAs (Lasting Powers of Attorney) are usually decided by a couple together, so they are not split, and both people's concerns are covered in full; corporate and commercial matters go to a board of directors, so H2s are split by role, each with its own rule number or source; criminal matters usually involve the individual plus family, so the page splits into an individual section and a family section. > **Example** (family law) For the buyer type "uncontested divorce", the questions in the question pool sort into the four decision stages, and each non-empty cell is one page: ① price and cost breakdown — how much legal fees cost, how much court fees cost, how much the online and physical routes differ ② selection and option comparison — simplified procedure or normal procedure, doing it yourself or hiring a lawyer ③ eligibility · process · duration — what conditions must be met, how many steps, whether a court appearance is needed ④ remedy · second opinion — what to do if the other side won't sign, wanting to change lawyers. **Length does not change**: length is set by page type; stop when the page is written, following [[通用版 5.7 所有页型都成立的七条]]. ### Conclusion block, density gate, source gate: the three facts law firms use in the conclusion block The general way to write the conclusion block, the density gate and the source gate follows [[通用版 5.8 结论块、密度闸、出处闸]]; law firms change only the three facts the conclusion block draws on: ```split Figure: The conclusion block's three facts; law firms change them to these three General Edition's pick order || Law firms change to ① Tiered fixed prices || The firm's own fee basis: billing method + fixed fee or range + what's included ② Registration number or licence number || Approved full name + LSRA register lookup link and check date, no number written ③ Process duration and number of visits || Number of procedure steps, typical duration, the court fee for this step ``` Take a law firm's exclusive checkable facts from the seven categories in chapter 1, 1.8; if, after deleting everything that hits a ban, you still have fewer than 5, go back and change the intent cluster instead — never relax compliance, and never pad it out with generic legal education. On a firm's own page where switch E is on, do not write any market sentence; swap the subject for the court, the legislation or the procedure, and write it as an official-basis sentence (for the sentence pattern, see [[通用版 5.6 两条腿，两种句子]]); a court figure inside an official-basis sentence is likewise copied from the court's page, word for word, that same day. ### Family law firm pages: the de-identification check comes before sign-off Family case studies, republished client reviews and review replies are judged item by item, and every one needs a partner or director's written sign-off before it is published. But two rules are the legislation's own words, and no sign-off can release them, whoever signs: 1. **Never publish anything that could identify a child involved in the proceedings**: name, address, school, and any detail that could piece together an identity [Statute text; see Appendix A.4] (CYPA s 112(1)(a)); this still applies after the child turns 18 [Statute text; see Appendix A.4] (s 112(1)(c)); custody and access proceedings in a divorce case are read under this same rule [Conservative line (not statute text)] (80% confidence). 2. **Not a word gets published from a family proceeding under a court order restricting publication** [Statute text; see Appendix A.4] (FJA s 10(4), (5)); the Family Justice Courts hear cases in private by default [Statute text; see Appendix A.4] (s 10(1)), and hearing details are treated as not public [Conservative line (not statute text)] (85% confidence). So every family case study or review passes our own de-identification check (the family self-check sheet in Appendix B.4) before it goes for sign-off; if any item hits, it does not go for sign-off. A lawyer's sign-off covers the lawyer's own judgement — it does not cover us: CYPA s 112(5)(b) writes "the person who publishes or distributes it" directly into the offence, and a website counts; FJA s 10(5) penalises "Any person" — we are the ones publishing, so the criminal liability falls on us too [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]. **A written sign-off resolves only the stop-and-escalate situations; it never turns something banned as Statute text into something publishable.** Family law also carries the separate duty of confidentiality (PCR r 6); how to judge the three together is in chapter 1, 1.7, and how to write the confidentiality one is in 1.4 and 1.5. ### Every page counts as the lawyer's own publicity The lawyer must take responsibility for every page we write and publish on the firm's behalf as if they had published it themselves [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] (PCR r 42(1)). So before every page goes live, it goes into that batch's sign-off sheet, signed by a partner or director (Appendix B.4) — the sign-off sheet is our own control gate, not a legal formality [Conservative line (not statute text)], and signing it does not transfer the lawyer's responsibility. The self-check before handing over a draft is in 5.22. ## 5.3 Chinese pages: for Google AI only, using only the approved Chinese firm name **What you'll do in this section**: first ask whether the firm has Chinese-speaking clients — if not, do not build a Chinese page, and this does not count as a missing page; if it does, build one, but judge acceptance on the Google AI (AI Mode) leg alone — do not expect ChatGPT. On a Chinese page, the firm name uses only the firm's approved Chinese name; if none has been approved, use the approved English name — never translate it yourself. When you're done, you'll have a list of Chinese pages, decided by whether the firm has Chinese-speaking clients; every page you build clears the items below before it goes live. ```split Figure: The General Edition's Chinese-page rules; law firms change these five places General Edition || Law firms Mandatory for every buyer type, in the same batch as the English page || Only if the firm has Chinese-speaking clients Language gate: the next page opens only once Chinese and English in the same batch are both done || Skipped for firms with no Chinese-speaking clients Both legs judge acceptance || Only whether AI Mode cites it Chinese name (not listed separately in the General Edition) || Only the approved Chinese name; if none, the approved English name Minority languages: search live first, then decide || Not scheduled ``` Why only AI Mode: for L3's 4 Chinese questions, ChatGPT cited Chinese pages 0/47 across both runs, citing English government and court pages for Chinese questions just the same (run 1: government + public bodies 20/21); AI Mode was 5/22 citations (Chinese pages judged by whether the title contains Chinese characters or the URL contains /zh or /cn, heuristic). Across the family set's 3 Chinese questions, of 28 citations in total, only 1 was a Chinese page: a firm's Simplified Chinese "简易离婚" (simplified divorce) page, cited by AI Mode (single case). So a Chinese page feeds AI Mode alone, and the monthly retest reads only this leg too (see chapter 7). When ChatGPT cited a law-firm page while answering a Chinese question, the only case seen was an English fee table (family set, single case); for L3's 4 Chinese questions it did not cite a single law-firm page — on Chinese questions, this leg too relies on English fees pages. The ratio of Chinese questions in the question pool is in chapter 2, 2.2. Write the Chinese pages you do build following [[通用版 5.9 内容形态、FAQ、中文页与外语页]]: a separate page, changing the question wording but not the facts (reusing the same fact-table row numbers), counted as 0.8 of a page's workload, finished in the same batch as the matching English page; no bilingual text on the same page, and machine translation may not be published directly. Before it goes live, complete the items below; miss one and it does not go live: ```steps Figure: The items before a Chinese page goes live; miss the first one and you don't build it 1 | Does the firm have Chinese-speaking clients | If not, do not build it — not a missing page 2 | Firm name | The approved Chinese name; if none, the approved English name 3 | The three hard gates | H1 contains "新加坡" (Singapore), an S$ amount in the first paragraph, an MRT station or area named 4 | Proof the Chinese wording | Against the Chinese–English mapping table in Appendix B.3 5 | Acceptance | Only whether AI Mode cites it ``` The three hard gates are exactly as the General Edition's: the H1 contains "新加坡" (Singapore); an S$ amount appears in the first paragraph, and the firm's own fee is immediately followed by "含 GST" (incl. GST) or "未含 GST" (before GST) — on a page about procedure, the first paragraph carries this step's court fee or the firm's own fee instead; the body text names a specific MRT station or area at least once — a generic "新加坡" (Singapore) on its own does not count. **Firm name**: a law firm's name may only be registered in English, and a Chinese name needs written approval — "The name of a law firm must be stated in the English language; but the name may, with the approval in writing of the Director of Legal Services, also be stated in any of the other official languages." [Statute text; see Appendix A.2] (LPE Rules r 7; for limited liability law partnerships (LLPs) and LLCs, see r 15(1) and r 29(1) respectively). Applied to Chinese pages, Chinese business profiles and Chinese directory listings: use only the one approved Chinese name, character for character; where none is approved, write the approved English name — never transliterate, never translate the meaning [Conservative line (not statute text)] (85% confidence). **Chinese pages are governed by Singapore's publicity rules too**: PCR r 49 reads "(a) publicity is conducted in a jurisdiction in which the publicity is reasonably expected to be received or accessible in the normal course of events; and (b) publicity is not conducted in a jurisdiction if the receipt of the publicity in the jurisdiction is incidental." [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] (together with r 48). A page aimed at Chinese readers in Singapore that can be opened normally in Singapore counts as publicity conducted in Singapore, and the whole of PCR Part 5 applies to it [Conservative line (not statute text)] (85% confidence). Whatever the English page may not say, the Chinese page may not say either — do not relax it just because "this page is for Chinese readers". **Chinese wording**: the Chinese wording for a specialist accreditation is copied only from para 4.7 of SAL's *Marketing Your Accreditation* guide, which gives only three categories — construction, maritime, and data and the digital economy [Statute text; see Appendix A.5]; SAL has not yet published a Chinese translation for family law [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.5]. Today, no family lawyer holds this accreditation either (the SAL Directory of Specialists had 121 entries on 2026-09-29, 0 of them family law), so the Chinese page says nothing about it at all. Proof Chinese designations, and Chinese banned words such as "最好、第一、胜诉率、包赢、专家律师、离婚专家……" (best, No. 1, win rate, guaranteed win, expert lawyer, divorce expert …), against the Chinese–English mapping table in Appendix B.3; for a word not in the table, write the English original — never invent a Chinese rendering [Conservative line (not statute text)]. **What not to build**: Indonesian-language and other minority-language pages are not scheduled — neither of the two formal law-firm measurement rounds (the family set's 22 questions, L3's 30 questions) contains a single minority-language question, so there is no evidence to support them. Pages aimed at buyers in mainland China are generally not something law firms deal with; for which jurisdiction's law governs cross-border work, see [[通用版 8.9 跨境：按哪边的法管]] — this book does not go into it. # Chapter 5 · Writing pages (2): fees pages and how-to-choose pages This chapter's figures use the same source short forms as 5.1: "L3" = the 30 questions collected on 2026-09-29 (2–5 per practice area outside family law; ChatGPT is asked each question twice, independently — the main text gives run 1, the bracket gives run 2; AI Mode once per question); "the family set" = the 22 family-law questions from the public dataset R1/R2 (collected 2026-09-23, each question asked once). Page types are labelled heuristically by URL and title; an observation resting on just one page or one question is labelled "single case". ## 5.4 ② Fee guide page: the law firm's first page **What you'll do in this section**: follow the blueprint and build the fee guide page — put every matter type the firm handles into one master table with a row per stage, give court fees their own column, turn the conclusion block and the first sentence of "What affects the price" into an official-basis sentence and a procedure-variable sentence, and in the section below the table write the billing method, what's charged separately, and "The final fee is set out in our letter of engagement." Why this page comes first, and what the three specs are, is in 5.1; this section only covers how to build it. When you're done, you'll have a law firm's fee guide page ready to build from: every group links to its single-matter fee page, and every court figure carries a page name and the date it was retrieved. ```wireframe id=pt02 Figure: price guide page block order; AI most often copies the conclusion block and the price grid table under the first H2 title | Cost in Singapore (): | req H1 | Statement, with the year; the Chinese version includes the country | req Byline and date line | Named reviewer + month and year, or "Updated " | opt Conclusion block | 40–130 words: own sentence + market sentence, one of four formats | req,cite,law Data basis line | One line right above the table: sample, source or check date | opt H2 main price question | How Much Does Cost? | req First sentence | At , costs S$X (incl. GST) | req,law Price grid table | / Cost / Suitable for, one figure per cell | req,cite,law Official public benchmark | Its own section, with table number and update date; no own prices inside the section on the strict side | opt,law H2 What affects the price | First sentence is the market sentence, 3–5 factors each with a numbered H3 | opt,law Subsidies, insurance and tax H2 | Separate fact paragraph; government figures carry the table number and update date | opt What's included and excluded H2 | Table or list, 4–8 items | opt FAQ | 5–12 questions, 40–60 words each | opt Related price pages, cross-links + CTA | List, only one CTA | opt ``` For the blocks the general blueprint marks `law`, law firms follow the six points below. 1. **The master table's five columns**: `Stage / What we do at this stage / Our fee (incl. GST) / Court fees payable to the court / Typical elapsed time`. Group by matter type, one row per stage within each group; a matter type with only one stage (a simple will, say) gets one row; the first row of each group links to its matching single-matter fee page (5.5). Every matter type the firm handles goes into the table, and each row matches the version number of a letter-of-engagement template in the sign-off sheet (Appendix B.4); a matter type the firm does not handle gets "We do not handle this" — never a silent omission; a matter type the firm handles only part of (uncontested divorce only, say) gets its qualifying condition written into the same row — the reason is in 5.2. 2. **The court fees column**: copy it item by item from the court's current fee table, and under the column write the page name and the date retrieved. If you cannot get the original table, do not write a number — write "Charged separately, per the court's fee table: see " — never estimate, never carry over an old value. Putting the court's figures and the firm's own fees in the same table, in a separate column [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes; check date: 2026-09-29). For how to judge this, see chapter 1, 1.3. This column goes out of date fastest: at each quarterly revision, check it row by row against the court's page, and where the court's page shows a visible update date, log it next to the date retrieved too. 3. **The elapsed-time column**: where possible, copy the timeframe stated on the court's page, and cite the source; for the firm's own elapsed-time figures, first run them through the six checks for numbers (chapter 1, 1.4), and write them as a sentence with a denominator and a period, such as "the median across N matters in the past 12 months". Never write it as a guarantee: words such as guarantee, assured outcome do not appear [Statute text, r 44(2)(d); see Appendix A.1]. 4. **The conclusion block and the first sentence of "What affects the price"**: the General Edition puts market sentences in both spots; law firms do not write a single market figure. A peer's price that names a firm, or that lets readers work out which firm it is, counts as a comparison of another lawyer's fees [Statute text, r 43(1)(c); see Appendix A.1] — a sign-off cannot release it either; a market range with no name is left out just as completely [Conservative line (not statute text)] (85% confidence). For how to judge this, see chapter 1, 1.3. Turn the conclusion block into an own sentence plus an official-basis sentence: the own sentence gives the price line for the tier the firm handles most often; the official-basis sentence's object is the court's fee table or the Law Society's explanation of legal fees, copied from the original page, with the date retrieved. Turn the first sentence of "What affects the price" into a procedure-variable sentence whose subject is the procedure: whether it is contested, whether there is a matrimonial home, whether there are children, how many hearings it takes — how the firm's own price varies with these. The sentence-form spec is in [[通用版 5.6 两条腿，两种句子]]. 5. **The section below the table**: state the billing method (fixed fee, by stage, hourly — for hourly billing, give the rate for each level of lawyer), what's charged separately (court fees, commissioner's fees, certification fees, GST), the payment stages and when invoices are issued, and end with "The final fee is set out in our letter of engagement." Link out to the Law Society's Legal Costs / Disputes page as the official channel for fee disputes (ChatGPT already cites it on fee questions — the figures are in 5.2). Leaving out a charged-separately item that would push up the total omits to state a material fact [Statute text, r 44(2)(b); see Appendix A.1]. Where "set out in the letter of engagement" comes from is in chapter 1, 1.2. 6. **The title, H1 and revisions**: build the title with the formula in chapter 1, 1.2; write the firm's approved full name, and for a law corporation (LLC) include "LLC" or "Law Corporation" [Statute text, LPA s 154(3); see Appendix A.2]. Give the H1 a year, revise the page once a quarter, update `dateModified` and the visible "Updated" line in step, and state in the page which rows changed this time; if a quarter ends with no revision, treat the page as an expired asset. Build the fee table as a visible HTML table; never a price poster, never a pasted screenshot (basis and label in chapter 1, 1.2). ```split Figure: cited law-firm fee columns — which ones stay: the firm's own price stays with conditions added, the market-range column is deleted whole Cited column header || How the firm rewrites it Our fixed price vs market range || Delete the market-range column; add defining conditions to the firm's own price Uncontested divorce · online · physical || Keep: give defining conditions and what's included for each tier Nett starting price + disbursements and court fees included || Keep: spell out the all-in basis item by item Typical market fee (citing a third-party guide) || Delete: replace with court fees or a procedure-variable sentence ``` Why the first row, "our fixed price vs market range", gets cited — and why it cannot simply be copied — is in 5.1. Where the firm's own price is not in the raw material, the slot goes to someone else: asked about the conveyancing fee for an HDB resale flat, ChatGPT both times used the estimated legal fee on a bank's page as the market rate, and cited no law firm at all (L3-PRO-01, single case). > **Example** (probate, single case) Asked "How much does a probate lawyer cost in Singapore?", ChatGPT's run 2 answer wrote out the filing fee, the Schedule of Assets fee and the certified true copy fees from the court's "How to file for a Grant of Probate" page item by item, then wrote the legal-fee portion separately, as publicly listed fixed-fee packages — the two kept apart (L3-EST-02). The master table, which splits the firm's own fees and court fees into two columns, hands over raw material with the same structure; whether the whole table gets cited has not been measured. Build the Chinese-language version only if you have Chinese-speaking clients, and accept it only on the AI Mode leg; how to write it is in 5.3. Of the 5 Chinese pages (heuristically labelled) that AI Mode cited across L3's 4 Chinese questions, one was a Chinese-language legal-fees article written by a law firm itself (L3-EMP-03, single case). For the general write-up (blueprint, column headers, sample sentences, most common mistake), see [[通用版 5.12 价格指南页（一）：为什么第一页永远是它（pt02）]], [[通用版 5.13 价格指南页（二）：施工图、列头、句子（pt02）]]. ## 5.5 ① Single-matter fee page: one URL per type of matter **What you'll do in this section**: open one page per type of matter, with a price line as the very first line on the first screen — service tier, defining conditions, price and what's included all in the same line. You can write a range or "from", but in the same sentence follow it immediately with the defining conditions and the variables that would push the total up; break "No hidden cost" into an itemised list of what's included and what's charged separately; for a type of matter with no fixed price, write one qualifying sentence that carries the billing method. When you're done, you'll have a single-matter fee page template you can copy for a different matter just by changing the name — it fits divorce, probate, conveyancing, criminal plea in mitigation and contract review alike. ```wireframe id=pt01 Figure: Single-service price page; AI most often copies the own-price sentence and the price table right after it H1 | Statement, with the year | req Byline and date line | Named reviewer + month and year, or "Rate card reviewed " | opt Own-price sentence | 1–3 sentences, 40–130 words, opens with the figure | req,cite,law Price table | Right after the price sentence: service tier + defining condition + price + what's included | req,cite,law Tier criteria H2 | First sentence states what decides the tier; one figure per tier | opt Included vs charged-separately table | Item / Fee / Notes | opt Subsidies and payment H2 | Separate fact paragraph, apart from the price table | opt Alternatives H2 | First sentence gives your own price for both options; the market sentence can go here | opt FAQ | Restate the billing rules as complete sentences | opt Related price pages, cross-links | List | opt ``` ```split Figure: cited fee sentences — how the law firm rewrites them: the firm's own price stays with conditions added; the market sentence and "the cheapest" are deleted whole Cited wording || How the firm rewrites it Our fixed fee + typical market S$A–B, same H2 || Delete the market sentence; add defining conditions to the firm's own price "starts from S$X" || Keep, with defining conditions and charged-separately items right after it in the same sentence "No hidden cost" || List what's included and charged separately, item by item "the cheapest divorce lawyer" || Delete; write the billing method and what's included ``` Five things the figure cannot show: 1. **The format of a price line**: one tier per line, ` (): S$ Nett ()`; use `Service and conditions / Our fee (incl. GST) / Included / Charged separately` as the price-table column headers. A single-matter fee page can simply be the service page for that type of matter, as long as the first line on the first screen is a price line — the law-firm pages ChatGPT cites on fee questions are mostly practice area pages that carry a price (figures in 5.1). Writing a range or "from" [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes, the revoked Publicity Rules; check date: 2026-09-29), 75% confidence, and to the client we say only "we found no rule that prohibits it". Applied to this page: only use "from" where the price within the same tier genuinely rises with some variable, and write that variable into the same sentence rather than a separate paragraph; delete "the cheapest" or "lower than most firms" whole [Statute text, r 43(1)(c); see Appendix A.1]. 2. **What's included travels with the price**: write it in the same sentence, never in a footnote, never in the FAQ. > **Example** (probate, single case) Asked "How much does a probate lawyer cost in Singapore?", ChatGPT's run 2 answer listed three tiers of publicly listed fixed-fee packages, each written together with its own what's-included wording: "S$1,150 nett including court filing/commissioner fees", "S$1,500 before GST and excluding court fees", "S$2,500 all-in". Both runs devoted a paragraph telling the reader to ask whether a quote includes court fees, commissioner's fees and GST (L3-EST-02). If the page already lists what's included and charged separately item by item, you have already answered that checklist for the reader. 3. **The type of matter with no fixed price** (contested divorce, litigation, hourly-billed advisory work): write a qualifying sentence that stands on its own, with the billing method in the same sentence. Sample (not measured): " has no fixed fee at : we charge S$ per hour (incl. GST) for and give you a written estimate before we start." A qualifying sentence gets copied whole too: the opening line of one firm's maintenance guide, "no fixed formula", was picked up by AI Mode almost verbatim as the start of its answer (family law, single case). For hourly billing, give the rate for every level of lawyer: asked "How much does it cost to hire a lawyer in Singapore?", ChatGPT took its tiered hourly rates from one firm's terms-of-engagement page (L3-GEN-01 run 1, single case). 4. **The first consultation gets its own row**: in the same question, the first row of the fee table ChatGPT pieced together was the first consultation, in both runs (L3-GEN-01, single case). If it's charged, write the price and the length; if it's free, write the scope and the length, such as "First 30 minutes free of charge; document review not included" [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes; check date: 2026-09-29), 60% confidence; leaving out the scope omits to state a material fact (r 44(2)(b)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. These are the firm's own terms of service, written only on the firm's own pages; our own materials never use wording like free legal consultation (see chapter 1, 1.1). 5. **Worked fee examples on family-law pages**: write them as an "illustrative scenario" — a matrimonial home, two children, terms already agreed — built up from the defining conditions, never borrowed from a real client's case. To use a real case, treat it as a family-law case study: our side first runs the de-identification check (Appendix B.4), and only after it passes does the item go to a partner or director for a written, item-by-item sign-off. Two rules are the words of the legislation itself, and no sign-off can release them: anything that could identify a child involved in the proceedings is never published (CYPA s 112); anything from family proceedings that a Family Justice Court has restricted from publication is never published (FJA s 10) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]. A lawyer's signature does not cover our own criminal liability as the publisher either (see chapter 1, 1.7). A written sign-off resolves only the stop-and-escalate situations; it never turns something banned as Statute text into something publishable. Family-law pages never write "no win no fee", and no page anywhere writes fees as a percentage of damages; for how to judge this, see the figure in chapter 1, 1.2. This is exactly what buyers hear back in the answer: asked in Chinese, "劳资纠纷请律师要多少钱" (how much does a lawyer cost for an employment dispute), ChatGPT, citing the Law Society's fees page, said that contentious matters generally cannot be charged on a "赢了才收费/抽成" (pay only if you win / take a cut) basis (L3-EMP-03 run 1, single case). For the general write-up (structure, sample sentences, most common mistake), see [[通用版 5.11 单项目价格页（pt01）]]. ## 5.6 ⑰ Legal aid and pro bono, ㉗ amount limits, ㊳ fee estimator **What you'll do in this section**: copy legal aid eligibility word for word from the Legal Aid Bureau's own text and write the check date, with no touting sentence for the firm tacked onto the page; write each amount limit as one figure, tiered by effective date; write "can I bring a lawyer?" in the court's own words; the estimator only estimates the firm's own legal fees by stage — never damages, never an outcome — and build no maintenance calculator either. When you're done, you'll have a minimum viable version of each of the three page types, plus a list stating what you don't do. ```wireframe id=pt17 Figure: Subsidy and limit rules page; AI copies cells from the itemised limit table H1 | scheme's full name with abbreviation | req First-screen summary + update date | one summary sentence, update date in the first screen not the footer | req H2, three to four questions | What is it / Benefits / Who is eligible / How to use | req Itemised limit table | one row per item + upper limit amount | req,cite Old and new tables side by side | when limits change: one current table, one for the new effective date | opt Eligibility table | which group can use which tier, listed by group | req Numbered procedure steps | download form → fill in → submit | opt Your own three-column table | item / limit / what you pay; availability depends on the side | opt,law ``` ```wireframe id=pt27 Figure: Parameter and rate basis page; AI copies the current value given as a tax-exclusive and tax-inclusive pair title | the original-question form, or the category + location form | req First-screen basis sentence | who sets the price, how often it is adjusted | req Current value as a pair | tax-exclusive and tax-inclusive values fixed in the same sentence | req,cite Time-tiered table | parameter name / current value / effective period | req Single current-value sentence | one sentence stating the current figure and the year it took effect | req,cite Formula and worked example | total formula + a three-column worked example (not measured) | opt Units H2 | unit and average usage | opt Everything in static HTML | the numbers are still there with JS off | req ``` ```wireframe id=pt38 Figure: Calculator page; what gets copied is the first-screen tier conclusion and the static reference table, not the widget title = H1 | tool name + year + what it calculates + site name | req First-screen tier conclusion | one sentence with a number range: tier A maps to X, tier B maps to Y | req,cite,law Calculator widget | JS, cited 0 times, don't invest in it | opt Large static reference table | pre-computes and lays out the results flat | req,cite FAQ | 5 questions, restating the definition of the calculation | opt Definition sentence for the calculation | one sentence: how it's added up, what the range is | req ``` ```split Figure: what each of the three pages calculates and doesn't — only the official figures and the firm's own legal fees Page type || What to write, what not to write ⑰ Legal aid eligibility || Copy word for word from the Legal Aid Bureau's own text + check date, no touting sentence ㉗ Amount limits || One figure, tiered by effective date, copied from the court's page ㊳ Legal-fee estimate || Estimate the firm's own legal fees by stage, write "set out in the letter of engagement" Damages estimator || Do not build Maintenance calculator || Do not build: on both questions, ChatGPT said there is no formula ``` On all three question types, ChatGPT cites almost nothing but official sources: across L3's two legal-aid questions, 14/15 of ChatGPT's citations (15/17) went to government and public-body pages and 0 to law firms; on the small-claims limit question, both runs gave 3/3 citations to the court's pages (L3-DEB-02, single case). A law firm cannot take the official page's place, so the law-firm version only does downstream work: copy it, write the check date, link back to the original page, then add one sentence the official page will not — how this step runs at the firm, and what it costs. ### Legal aid and pro bono rules page (pt17) 1. Copy the eligibility conditions (the means test, which cases are handled, which are not) word for word from the Legal Aid Bureau's page, and write the check date. Skip the block the general blueprint calls "your own three-column table": the firm's own fees never appear on this page; the firm's fees get only a link, pointing to the fee guide page or a single-matter fee page [Conservative line (not statute text)]. 2. Never write anything like "can't afford a lawyer? come to us" on the page. The basis is PCR r 39(1): "A legal practitioner or law practice must not tout for business or do anything which is likely to lead to a reasonable inference that the thing was done for the purpose of touting." [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; applied to the legal-aid page [Conservative line (not statute text)]. The fact that the firm takes part in pro bono work goes on the pro bono and legal aid page (㉟, see 5.20). ### Amounts and limits page (pt27) 1. One figure, tiered by effective date: for figures such as the Small Claims Tribunals (SCT) and Employment Claims Tribunals (ECT) claim limits and filing fees, copy them from the court's page and write the page name and the date retrieved; where a figure has changed, write the old value, the new value and the effective date side by side. Never estimate, never carry over an old value. 2. Write "can I bring a lawyer?" in the court's own words. Where the court says a lawyer cannot appear for a party, write that a lawyer cannot, then write what the firm can do instead (pre-hearing advice, preparing documents) and what that part costs. When ChatGPT answered the small-claims question, right after the lines on the claim limit came "lawyers are not allowed to represent parties at SCT consultations or hearings", sourced from the court's page (L3-DEB-02 run 1, single case). Writing "we will appear for you" would be misleading: publicity containing a material misrepresentation is misleading under r 44(2)(a) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; placing this sentence under (a) is an application [Conservative line (not statute text)]. ### Fee estimator (pt38) 1. Estimate only the firm's own legal fees: the inputs are the stage and the circumstances (contested or not, a matrimonial home or not, how many hearings), and the output is the firm's fee for each stage, with "set out in the letter of engagement" written next to it. Flatten each stage's fee into a static table so it still shows with JS turned off; the estimator component itself is not the part that gets copied. 2. Build no damages estimator: creating an unjustified expectation about the results is misleading [Statute text, r 44(2)(d); see Appendix A.1], applied to an estimator [Conservative line (not statute text)]. The official side already owns this slot: asked "How much compensation can I get for a car accident injury in Singapore?", all 6 of ChatGPT's run-1 citations came from government sources, court judgments and MACO, the motor-accident claims simulator run by a statutory body — 0 from law firms; the injury-compensation ranges in the answer followed the court's compensation guidelines (L3-INJ-01, single case). 3. Build no maintenance calculator: on both of the family set's maintenance questions, ChatGPT volunteered that there is no fixed formula or official calculator (family R1-LAW-06, R2-LAW-04, 2/2); a figure a calculator produces is one readers will treat as what the court is going to award [Conservative line (not statute text)]. The rule the courts use to set maintenance was not obtained this round [Original text not obtained], so the page does not write a sentence like "the law states there is no formula" either. 4. Never put guarantee, we will win or "包赢" (sure win) next to an estimate [Statute text, r 44(2)(d); see Appendix A.1]. For why AI does not click through to a calculator and instead takes the unit price and the limit and works it out itself, and for the general write-up of all three types, see [[通用版 5.21 价格类档 B：补贴限额、参数口径、品类列表、计算器、限时促销]]. ## 5.7 ④ Comparison page: compare procedures, not law firms **What you'll do in this section**: put only procedures and options on both sides of a comparison page — contested vs uncontested divorce, divorce by mutual agreement vs litigation, small claims vs a court action, doing it yourself vs instructing a lawyer. No peer column appears anywhere in the table; a family-law comparison writes the settlement path as the preferred option; where the law does not require a lawyer, the first sentence states this plainly. When you're done, you'll have a procedure comparison page with the verdict up front, ordered by scenario, in which no law firm appears at all. ```wireframe id=pt04 Figure: comparison page; AI most often copies the conclusion block and the verdict in the first sentence of the first H2 title / H1 | title is a question, H1 is a statement, both carry the year | req Comparison-basis line | Check date + both sides' version or tier | req Conclusion block | 60–120 words, or a by-scenario verdict table | req,cite,law H2 main question | First sentence gives the verdict with its condition, followed right away by the scenario table | req,cite Criteria H2 | Numbered H3s, each first sentence states the threshold that flips the verdict | opt Master comparison table | In the first 25%, one checkable value per cell | req,law Per-criterion H2 × N | The verdict goes into the heading; the first sentence repeats it with a figure | opt Price comparison H2 | Same tier, same currency, same billing cycle | opt Scenarios where the other one fits better H2 | ≥2 specific scenarios, each paired with one public fact about the other side | req Not-a-fit conditions H2 | Skip it if… | opt Data sources and dates | Source + check date for every figure | req FAQ | H3 questions, first sentence answers directly | opt Related comparison pages, cross-links | 3–5 entries | opt ``` ```split Figure: everything a law firm's comparison page can compare is a procedure — touch a peer or say "choose us" and you cross the line Can compare || Do not do Contested vs uncontested divorce || Our firm vs another firm Divorce by mutual agreement vs litigation: write agreement as the preferred option || "Three reasons to choose us" Simplified vs normal procedure || "cheaper than the big firms", "faster than our peers" Small claims vs a court action || A market-range column, a peer-fees column Doing it yourself vs instructing a lawyer: if it isn't required, say so || Comparing success rates, win rates ``` Five things the figure cannot show: 1. Write a source for the conditions, steps, elapsed time and court fees on each side (the court's page, the specific section on SSO); rewrite "better, faster" as "which conditions it suits". Each side may state the firm's own fee for that path, with the figure drawn from the same source and matching value as the single-matter fee page (the same-source part has not been measured). 2. No peer column appears in the table, and never write "our firm vs another firm" or "cheaper than the big firms": that is a comparison of another lawyer's fees or quality of service [Statute text, r 43(1)(c); see Appendix A.1]. A market-range column with no name in it is left out just the same [Conservative line (not statute text)] (85% confidence; how to judge this is in chapter 1, 1.3). A paragraph like "three reasons to choose us" is not written either — it steers the procedure comparison toward the firm being better than its peers [Conservative line (not statute text)]. 3. A family-law comparison writes the settlement path as the preferred option: family lawyers have a duty to advise the client to consider resolving the proceedings amicably (PCR r 15A(2)(b); the original wording is in chapter 1, 1.7) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] — this is a professional duty, not a publicity provision. On this basis, write mediation and divorce by mutual agreement as the preferred option, and never write "fight it all the way" or "make the other side pay" [Conservative line (not statute text)]. A comparison page does not, by default, tell the story of a particular client moving from litigation to an agreement; to tell it, follow 5.5 point 5 — run the de-identification check first, then send it for sign-off item by item — and a sign-off still cannot release the two rules on a child's identity and on court-restricted publication. 4. "Doing it yourself vs instructing a lawyer": where the law does not require a lawyer, the first sentence says so, then says which circumstances make it worth instructing one, and what that costs. Publicity that contains a material misrepresentation or that omits to state a material fact is misleading under r 44(2)(a) and (b) alike [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; placing two things under those items — writing something as required when it is not, and stating only the benefits of instructing a lawyer without saying that the law does not require one — is an application [Conservative line (not statute text)]. 5. Who cites this: the evidence is thin. On the ChatGPT side there is only one case: a family-law page on contested vs uncontested divorce (pros, cons and costs) was cited 1 time; it sits on a keyword-named domain whose ownership was not verified (single case; with ownership unverified, it does not count as any particular firm's keyword microsite). AI Mode has cited a law firm's blog post on whether you can divorce without a lawyer (family law, single case, see 5.2), and has also cited two law-firm pages whose titles carry "vs" — but that question asked "what's the difference", which under 5.8 belongs to ㊹, not this type (L3-EST-03, single case). The most common mistake is writing the procedure comparison as a firm-vs-firm comparison ("why choose us over the big firms"). That runs into the ban in point 2; it is not a formatting issue. > **Example** (company incorporation, single case) Asked "Do I need a lawyer to incorporate a company in Singapore?", ChatGPT cited only the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority's (ACRA) pages both times, run 1 3/3 citations (4/4); the first sentence of both answers said you do not need one, and run 1's exact wording was "Usually, no" (L3-COR-01). The law firm's "doing it yourself vs instructing a lawyer" must line up with this: say first that it isn't necessary, then say which circumstances make instructing a lawyer worthwhile. For the general write-up, see [[通用版 5.15 对比页（pt04）]]. ## 5.8 ㊸ How to choose a lawyer and ㊹ concept pillar page **What you'll do in this section**: take the traffic you cannot win on "which law firm is best" and turn it into a criteria guide on "how to choose a lawyer" — list the criteria, rank no one, name no one; the criteria are official steps the reader can check for themselves. A concept pillar page explains just one concept gap clearly, such as probate versus letters of administration. When you're done, you'll have a minimum viable version of each of these two types, plus one boundary you never cross. ```wireframe id=pt43 Figure: Block order for the Buyer's selection framework (not measured as a whole; spec taken from an external teardown; no block is marked cite); on the strict side and when switch E is on, the two blocks marked law are removed entirely title | How to Choose a for | req Quick answer | 2–3 sentences answering the title question directly, followed by a Disclosure statement | req H2 What does measure? | Opens with one punchy sentence, then 5–6 bold labels | opt H2 What a useful should show | Numbered, 5–7 items, one sentence each | opt H2 Research snapshot | Evidence paragraph: what the status quo is missing | opt H2 Evaluation dimensions | 5 "Label:" paragraphs, no bullets | req H2 Provider comparison matrix | Column headers: Provider / Dimension 1 / Dimension 2 / Best for | opt,law Per-provider card | One card per provider; write each limitation as a buyer task | opt,law H2 How to interpret common results | Short sub-sections without bullets, each opening with a label | opt H2 How to run a defensible baseline | Numbered, 5–10 imperative steps | opt H2 What a free diagnosis cannot prove | 100–160 words, spelling out what the diagnosis cannot prove | req H2 Questions to put in the RFP | 8 items, each a complete question ending in a question mark | req H2 Final recommendation | When to switch from X to Y, 2 paragraphs | opt FAQ + Method and sources | 5–6 questions, at most 2 naming your own brand | req ``` ```wireframe id=pt44 Figure: block order for the concept pillar page (the whole diagram is not measured, spec taken from an external teardown, no block marked cite) title | {NEW} vs {OLD}: the concept gap + the outcome noun | req intro | one-line axiom: the two complement each other, they're not substitutes | req H2 Why AI doesn't recommend you | 200–280 words, 4–5 buyer questions inline | req H2 The difference in 30 seconds | 180–250 words + comparison table | req H2 Why it matters now | 250–350 words | req H2 What is OLD / What is NEW | 250–320 / 320–420 words respectively | req H2 The core difference | 250–320 words + difference table | req H2 Why you need NEW when you already have OLD | 450–600 words + figure + 3 "Pattern" subheadings | req H2 The most common problems in real projects | evidence section, 550–700 words + figure + numbered subheadings | req H2 Four common problems | 350–450 words: doesn't exist / known but not recommended / wrong information / buried under old information | req H2 Priority differs by engine | 300–400 words + figure + comparison table | req H2 Will it replace it → How they work together → Which to do first | 180–250 / 300–400 / 300–400 words + 3 "Case" subheadings | req H2 Summary | 250–320 words + figure: OLD governs search results, NEW governs AI answers | req FAQ | 8–11 items, answers must have no bold, no links, no bullets, no brand name | req ``` Neither blueprint has been measured at all: pt43's spec is drawn from an external teardown, and pt44 has 0 cited samples in the General Edition. ㊸ is the stand-in for the ⑤ List page, which law firms do not build; the full table of stand-ins is in chapter 0, 0.3. ### ㊸ How to choose a lawyer ```steps Figure: ㊸'s skeleton is five steps the reader can check for themselves — not one of them compares law firms against each other 1 | Check practising status | Look up the lawyer and the firm on the LSRA register lookup 2 | Check specialist accreditation | The SAL Directory of Specialists; family law is empty today 3 | Ask for a written estimate | Billing method, what's charged separately, payment stages 4 | Look at the letter of engagement | The final fee is set out in the letter of engagement 5 | Where fee disputes go | The Law Society's Legal Costs / Disputes page ``` 1. Delete both blocks the blueprint marks `law` (a side-by-side rating table, per-firm cards) in full: scoring peers side by side is a comparison of other firms' quality of service [Statute text, r 43(1)(c); see Appendix A.1]. Keep only three blocks in the body: the evaluation criteria, "a free first consultation doesn't prove much", and "questions to ask before instructing a lawyer"; the firm's own name appears following the naming rule in 5.2, and at most 2 FAQ items name the firm [Conservative line (not statute text)]. 2. Use the five steps in the figure as the evaluation criteria. When ChatGPT itself listed the questions to ask before instructing a lawyer, the first item was checking practising status on the LSRA register (L3-GEN-02 run 1, single case). The SAL directory step states the current position plainly: no one holds Family Law specialist accreditation yet — as of 2026-09-29 the directory holds 121 entries, 0 in family law, with the first results due to be announced at the Opening of the Legal Year 2027 [Statute text; see Appendix A.5]. Never put success rate or win rate into the criteria: a lawyer's publicity is already barred from stating either figure (r 43(1)(b)(ii)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. 3. On this kind of question, ChatGPT does not cite law-firm criteria guides: asked "How do I find a good lawyer in Singapore?", ChatGPT cited only the Ministry of Law (including the LSRA register lookup and the Legal Aid Bureau), the Law Society and pro bono organisations, in both runs (L3-GEN-05, single case); asked "What questions should I ask a lawyer before hiring them in Singapore?", ChatGPT gave government and public-body pages 4/4 citations (5/5), and AI Mode gave only 1 citation — a law firm's article on 6 things to ask a family lawyer before hiring one (L3-GEN-02, single case). So ㊸ serves only AI Mode and on-site landing; it is not measured, 65% confidence — schedule one article first as a control. 4. ㊸ cannot reach the "who's best" slot: on recommendation-type questions, what ChatGPT copies is a ranking guide's tier (figures in chapter 1, 1.6); that slot runs through third-party assessments and directories instead — see chapters 3 and 6. Never promise a client a place in any ranking guide, or a citation in any particular answer. 5. The boundary: no client reviews or testimonials cited (for family law, reviews are covered in chapter 1, 1.5 and 1.7); no steering toward an outcome; byline a named lawyer plus the update date; never suggest in the text that the firm is better than its peers. ### ㊹ Concept pillar page 1. Explain one concept gap clearly: probate (grant of probate) versus letters of administration, simplified versus normal procedure, custody versus care and control. Compare only the concepts, never the firms; write the fees section as the firm's own price line, following 5.5; link the legislation to its section on SSO (a URL with `ProvIds`); write the byline following 5.2 — a named lawyer, year of admission and the update date. 2. The evidence points a direction only: asked "What is the difference between a grant of probate and letters of administration in Singapore?", ChatGPT cited only the court's pages, the legislation and the Syariah Court's page in both runs, run 1 3/3 citations (3/3); of AI Mode's 5 citations, 3 were law-firm pages, 2 of them titled "Grant of Probate vs Letters of Administration" (L3-EST-03, single case, page type heuristic). These 3 pages were not taken apart page by page, so whether they count as a pillar long-form article in the blueprint's sense is not known — pt44 therefore still stands as unmeasured in the Law Firms Edition. 3. The title's wording decides whether a page belongs to ④ or to this type: "which is better" belongs to ④; "what's the difference" belongs to this type, or to ⑫ the Definition page if it explains only one concept. How to judge it is in the figure at the link below; fix which side the title falls on before you write, and each keyword may be taken by one page only. 4. Family-law concept pages (custody versus care and control, and the like) write only the legal points and the procedure, never hearing details that could be matched to a specific party (see chapter 1, 1.7). For how to write each block and how to judge titles, see [[通用版 5.30 档 C 四型：未验证页型]]. # Chapter 5 · Writing pages (3): FAQ, process, deadline and case-law pages The abbreviations for this chapter's numbers match 5.1: "L3" = the 30 questions collected on 2026-09-29 (8 practice areas other than family, plus 5 questions on choosing a lawyer and legal fees that come up across every practice area; ChatGPT is asked each question twice, independently — the main text gives run 1, the brackets give run 2; AI Mode is asked each question once); "the family set" = the 22 family-law questions from the public dataset R1/R2 (collected 2026-09-23, each question asked once; AI Mode only ran the 12 questions in R1). "Law-firm websites" are entities labelled by hand, by domain; L3's page types are labelled heuristically by URL and title; an observation held up by only one page or one question is marked "single case". The two legs have different denominators — read only who each one cites, not which number is bigger. ## 5.9 ⑥ One question, one page: the first sentence of the answer stands on its own **What you'll do in this section**: one high-frequency question gets one URL; the H1 is the buyer's original question, and the sentence right under the H1 gives the conclusion; the answer states only the general rule and never makes the call for the reader's own case; when someone asks for a lawyer publicly online, the public area gives only general information, and any quote or offer of engagement goes out privately. When you're done, you'll have a set of short-answer pages that match up sentence for sentence against the statute and the court's pages, and you'll know which leg this page type — along with the rest of this chapter's page types — mainly feeds for law firms. ```wireframe id=pt06 Figure: one question, one page, short version; what AI copies is the answer paragraph right under the H1 H1 | The buyer's original question, word for word | req Answer paragraph | First sentence gives Yes/No or a figure, conditions in the 2nd and 3rd sentences, 40–90 words | req,cite,law Boundary sentence | Which part cannot be judged online, and who judges it | opt Source line | Source + check date | req,law Own-fact paragraph | Sub-heading "At ", 1–2 sentences of own facts only | opt Byline and date | One line | opt Related questions | 3–4 items, each linking to its own URL | opt ``` ```split Figure: for every cell of one-question-one-page, law firms have a way of writing it that doesn't make the call for the reader or cross the line Don't write it this way || Write it this way First sentence: "it depends" || First sentence: Yes/No or a number, with the conditions in sentences 2 and 3 "In your situation, you can get a divorce" || State the general rule; end with "Whether this applies to you is for a lawyer to decide after reviewing your documents." Source given only as "under the law" || Link to that section on SSO or the court's FAQ page, and give the check date The firm's own section states a win rate, or "extensive experience" with no evidence || The firm's own section states only whether the firm handles this kind of case, and how it charges Quoting a price or inviting engagement directly under a public post || The public area answers only general questions; quote the price privately ``` What the figure cannot show: for law firms, this type mainly feeds AI Mode; the page types in 5.10, 5.12–5.14 and 5.16 do the same (the page type in 5.11 is not measured, and the case-law page in 5.15 is a separate story). Across the five question types in L3 — process, definition, rules, checklist and calculation — 18 questions in total, ChatGPT run 1 cited law-firm websites 0/92 (run 2: 1/103), citing court, Ministry of Law and SSO pages instead; AI Mode cited law-firm websites 28/76 across the same five types. Of the family set's 22 questions, 13 cover process, requirements, definitions or rules, and ChatGPT cited not a single law firm. So to clients we say only one sentence: this type of page feeds the Google AI leg; whether ChatGPT cites a law firm on process or rules questions is something we do not promise. On ChatGPT's side, the slot that one-question-one-page occupies goes to official FAQ pages instead: in L3, ChatGPT run 1 cited official FAQ pages (heuristically labelled) 5/146 (run 2: 5/161), AI Mode 0/122. Law-firm-specific approach: 1. Treat short-answer pages as publicity. In the Law Society's Guidance Note's own words, "A law practice’s website can be used as an advertising tool or to provide generic legal information" (GN 6.1.1 para 31) [Statute text; see Appendix A.3] — the generic legal information on the website sits right next to the firm's own section and the contact details, and this book treats all of it as publicity [Conservative line (not statute text)]. So every sentence on a short-answer page — the answer section, the firm's own section, related questions, the title, the meta description — goes through chapter 1's word list (Appendix B.3). 2. The answer is generic information. The same paragraph goes on to say, "If legal advice is given, a law practice must realise that it could give rise to attendant obligations and risks in law." [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]. Where the question itself contains specific facts ("my husband…", "the company gave no notice before…"), the page still answers only the general rule, and case-specific advice is kept for the consultation; the page does not write "you're sure to get it" or "a case like this is a guaranteed win" (r 44(2)(d)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. 3. The firm's own section states only facts about the firm itself: whether it handles this kind of case, which procedural stage it takes it on at, and how it charges. Write fees in the format from chapter 1, 1.2; if a sentence or two can't cover it, just link to the single-matter fee page in 5.5. Do not write a win rate or win count (r 43(1)(b)(ii)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1], and do not write a case volume that reads as a track record [Conservative line (not statute text)] (see chapter 1, 1.4). 4. Check numbers such as time limits and monetary caps word for word against the original section on SSO or the original court page, and give the check date on the page; where the original text has not been checked, write only the section number and the link for now, with no figure. 5. When someone asks publicly online for a lawyer (a forum, social media, a Q&A platform), the public area answers only general questions, and any quote or offer of engagement goes out privately, out of view of anyone who did not ask for it [Conservative line (not statute text)] — the basis is a piece of Law Society guidance from the old-rules era (the *Law Gazette* article of August 2012, para 9; see Appendix A.6), which the current Practice Directions do not include. When someone asks publicly off-site for a lawyer, it is the firm's own lawyer who replies under this rule; we reach out only to editors, directory operators and media, and never send messages to potential clients on a firm's behalf (see chapter 6, 6.1). > **Example** (family law) The court's FAQ page on ask.gov.sg, "Must I engage a lawyer for my divorce application?": the H1 is the original question, the whole page runs to about 40 words, and the answer sits right under the H1 — the first sentence (beginning "There is no legal requirement…") was restated almost word for word by ChatGPT (family R1, single case). Of ChatGPT's 60 citations in family R1, 11 came from ask.gov.sg (9 court FAQs, 2 LifeSG). Even this short, it still gets cited: what matters is not the length, but that the first sentence stands on its own. See [[通用版 5.17 一问一页（pt06）]] for the general-edition approach. ## 5.10 ⑦ Requirements and eligibility page: can it be done, and what must be met **What you'll do in this section**: write the statutory requirements as a "Fact / What it means / When it applies / Source" table, with a section number on every row; the requirements are the general rule, never written as a judgement on the reader's own case; the family requirements page presents mediation and divorce by mutual agreement as the primary options. When you're done, you'll have a requirements page shaped to match the court's requirements table, with figures such as time limits filled in only once the rule text has been checked. ```wireframe id=pt07 Figure: eligibility and process page; AI most often copies the verdict in the first H2's first sentence and the steps table H1 | Task-style statement | req Byline and date line | Named reviewer for personal-safety pages; "Last updated" for others | opt Conclusion block | Five-cell spec strip + own sentence + market sentence | req,law H2 main question | First sentence answers directly, ≤35 words | req,cite Steps table | Step / Result, each row states the duration and the number of visits | req,cite Conditions H2 | Numbered H3s covering every case, or a fact × explanation × when-it-applies table | req Bring-list H2 | 3–8 items | opt Itemised fees H2 | Item or service / Fees | req Parts that cannot be judged online H2 | 40–80 words | opt,law Branches after assessment H2 | Four-column branch table; the price cell states the final price or "confirmed after assessment" | opt Risks and exceptions H2 | General risks only, never written as an individual diagnosis | opt,law Alternatives H2 | Option / When / Time / Price | opt Who makes the final call H2 | Who decides, and at what point, ≤50 words | opt FAQ | H3 questions, 40–60 words each | opt ``` ```split Figure: for every cell of the requirements page, there's a way to write it that states only the general rule and doesn't make the call for the reader Don't write it this way || Write it this way Requirements stated only as "it depends" || List the statutory facts one by one, each with a section number "Meet these three conditions and you can get a divorce" || "Whether you meet them is for a lawyer to decide after reviewing your documents." Requirements table with no source || Link each row to that section on SSO or the original court page, and give the check date Writing a time-limit figure before the rule is checked || Before checking, write only the section number and the link, with no figure The family requirements page says "fight it all the way" || Mediation and divorce by mutual agreement are presented as the primary options ``` What the figure cannot show: why the table has to follow the shape of the court's own table — on family-law questions, the court requirements table in the example is cited by both legs, and cited more than any other page; a law firm's own requirements page shows up only in AI Mode (family R1: two law-firm pages, one on divorcing within 3 years of marriage and one on grounds for divorce, were each cited by AI Mode 1 time; the former sits on a separate keyword microsite run by a law firm). The law-firm version follows the shape of the court's table with one extra column for the source, and it feeds the AI Mode leg (see 5.9). Law-firm-specific approach: 1. The column headers are `Fact / What it means / When it applies / Source`: the first three columns line up with the court's requirements page's own headers (Fact / What it means / When you can apply), and the law-firm version adds one more column for the source (the URL of that section on SSO + the check date). 2. In the five-cell conclusion block, `Who decides` names the court (or the relevant authority), never the firm; `Who it is not for` states clearly which situations the firm does not take on. A qualifier such as "we only handle uncontested divorces" needs to be stated: the Law Society's own example is that a firm with no experience in contested divorce, which handles only uncontested divorce, and whose TV advertisement does not state this, can reasonably be treated as omitting a material fact and therefore misleading (PD 6.2.1 D(b)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.3], which this book applies to websites [Conservative line (not statute text)]. 3. Write figures such as time limits only once the rule has been checked. The provision on how many years of marriage must pass before a divorce can be filed (Women's Charter s 94) has not yet had its original wording checked against SSO [Original text not obtained]; until it is checked, write only the section number and a link to the court's page, with no number of years. 4. The "after the document review" branch block uses `If the review finds / Next step / Added time / Fee (incl. GST) or "confirmed in the letter of engagement"`; the fee cell follows chapter 1, 1.2, and states that the final fee is set out in the letter of engagement. 5. The family requirements page presents mediation and divorce by mutual agreement as the primary options, and does not write "fight it all the way" or "make the other side pay": family lawyers have a professional duty to advise clients to consider settlement; in the rule's own words, "advise the client to consider resolving those proceedings amicably" (PCR r 15A(2)(b)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1], which this book applies to web copy [Conservative line (not statute text)]; see chapter 1, 1.7. > **Example** (family law) On the court's "Understand the requirements for getting a divorce" page, a table lists 6 statutory facts for divorce row by row (Fact / What it means / When you can apply), and ChatGPT's answer is essentially that table restated row by row. This page accounts for 8 of the 171 citations across the two family rounds, covering 7 of the 22 questions, and appears in both engines and both rounds. Every H2 on the page is a statement — not a single question among them — so what gets copied is the table, not the headings. See [[通用版 5.18 资格流程页（pt07）]] for the general-edition approach. ## 5.11 ⑧ Second-opinion and change-of-lawyer page: deadlines first, then the conflict check **What you'll do in this section**: readers who want to change lawyers or get a second opinion need to know first how much time they have left. Lay out the page on the seven-block skeleton, and don't move a single block out of order; the subject is the reader's current situation — don't criticise the previous lawyer, and don't urge the reader to terminate their engagement. When you're done, you'll have a second-opinion page template you can send to a partner for sign-off — this entire skeleton is not yet measured, and the law-firm questions don't yet have a citation sample for this kind of question either; add the evidence through the chapter 7 retest once it's live. ```wireframe id=pt08-deadline Figure: rights-deadline remedy page, deadlines first, then pathways (not measured as a whole, so no block is marked cite) H1 + byline | H1 states the situation; the byline gives the practitioner's name + years in practice | req Urgent-deadline table | Deadline / What it applies to / Source | req,law Whether we can take it | Which types, at which stage, we can take on, and which we cannot | req Conflict check | No case details are taken before the check clears | req Documents to bring | Document / Why we need it | opt Scope of the second opinion | Covered / Not covered | req Fee table | Service / Fee / Includes / Excludes | req No interference with your existing representation | We do not advise ending your current engagement, and do not contact your current provider ourselves | req,law FAQ | H3 questions, 3–5 items | opt ``` ```steps Figure: how a law firm fills the second-opinion page's seven blocks, in fixed order 1 | Urgent deadline | Appeal window, limitation period, with the section number and check date 2 | Can we take it | Which type, which stage we take it on at; state what we don't take 3 | Conflict of interest | Check for conflicts first; no case details collected before it clears 4 | Documents to bring | Document / Why we need it 5 | Scope of the opinion | Covered / Not covered 6 | Fees | Fixed fee or hourly, final fee set out in the letter of engagement 7 | Existing engagement | Don't urge termination, don't contact the current lawyer ``` What the figure cannot show: why the deadline comes first — this is a rights-deadline question, and the skeleton the General Edition sets for this type is deadline first, path second; the reader needs to know how many days are left, from what date they run, and under which provision, before the later blocks mean anything. Why criticising the previous lawyer is banned: the original text of r 43(1)(c) bans "comparison or criticism in relation to the fees charged, or the quality of the services provided" about other lawyers [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] — "the previous lawyer botched it" falls squarely in this box; an opening such as "many clients only discover this once they come to us…" mostly falls here too, and the rest of it talks about other clients' matters (see chapter 1, 1.4). For how to reword it, see chapter 4, 4.2's comparison figure. Law-firm-specific approach: 1. Every row of the deadline table quotes the statute or the court page's original text, with the date the value was taken. Not a single limitation period or appeal window in this round has been checked against SSO [Original text not obtained]; until checked, write only the section number and the link, with no number of days. 2. Don't urge termination, and don't reach out to the reader's current lawyer. The basis is the ban on touting: lawyers "must not tout for business" (r 39(1)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; applying that to "urging a client to change lawyers" is this book's own reading [Conservative line (not statute text)]. We found no provision specifically governing urging a client to switch lawyers [Original text not obtained], and the earlier draft's statement that a client must not be improperly influenced to terminate is no longer cited as a basis. 3. The "can we take it" block states clearly which cases the firm handles and at which procedural stage it takes them on, and also states what it does not take on; write the qualifier the same way as 5.10, item 2. 4. No case details are collected before the conflict check clears: the page's form collects only the items the conflict check needs — the reader's name, the other party's name, and the stage the case is at. 5. The fees block follows chapter 1, 1.2: a fixed fee or hourly rate, stating what's included and what isn't, with the final fee set out in the letter of engagement. You can say the first consultation is free [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes; check date: 2026-09-29); if you write it, state the scope and duration, and don't turn it into a promotional hook [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Building the second-opinion page itself carries the same fixed sentence too (see chapter 4, 4.2). 6. The page does not tell individual-case stories such as "we turned the case around after taking it on"; if you do need to write about a specific matter, run it through the decision figure in 5.15 first. 7. A partner or director signs off before launch (sign-off sheet in Appendix B.4). The sign-off covers the professional content and wording; it never turns something banned as Statute text into something publishable (see chapter 1, 1.1). > **Example** (second opinion) Illustrative wording, not a measured original sentence. Own sentence: "At , a second-opinion review of your documents is a fixed fee of S$ (incl. GST) and covers ; is quoted separately in the letter of engagement, and we do not contact your current lawyer." Deadline sentence: "The deadline to is set by s (checked ); it runs from ." See [[通用版 5.19 补救与二次评估页（pt08）]] for the general-edition approach. ## 5.12 ⑫ Definition page: a one-sentence definition plus the section number **What you'll do in this section**: write the one-sentence definition once under the H1 and once again, word for word identical, under the first H2, with the definition linking on to that section on SSO; write H3s as the buyer's original question, and under each question write the first sentence as a conditional in the form "If…, the court may…", with the court or the legislation as the subject, never the firm. When you're done, you'll have a definition-page template with three things locked down: the reviewer line, the link to the rule, and the conditional sentence. ```wireframe id=pt12 Figure: Definition page; AI copies the conditional sentence under each H3 question Reviewer line | named reviewer + date, above the summary | opt,law First-screen summary | 100–150 words, in this fixed order: what it is / when it's needed / how long recovery takes | req One-sentence definition, written twice | once under H1, then word for word again under the first H2 | req Every H3 written as the buyer's original question | What is / How painful / How long… | req First sentence under each H3 is a conditional | if , then | req,cite ``` What the figure cannot show: the three-part order in the blueprint's first-screen summary cell (what it is / when it's needed / how long recovery takes) was written for medical pages; law firms change it to "what it is / when it applies / who decides". For the reviewer line marked `law`, law firms write the named lawyer + year of admission + month and year. Law-firm-specific approach: 1. Place the reviewer line above the H1: the named lawyer + year of admission + month and year. Don't write a practising number — whether the LSRA register lookup's individual practising details have a number field that can be publicly cited has not been verified [Original text not obtained]; until it is verified, write the LSRA register lookup link plus the check date (see chapter 3, 3.2). 2. Link the definition sentence on to that section on SSO (a URL with the `ProvIds` section parameter), never to the whole Act. What ChatGPT wants when it cites a provision is one section: across the two family rounds (public dataset, 2026-09-23) ChatGPT cited SSO 12 times, and all 12 carried the section parameter; on the L3 question about minority shareholder oppression (2026-09-29), ChatGPT linked to that one section, Companies Act s 216, on both runs (single case). 3. Pages explaining the difference between two concepts (such as probate versus letters of administration) don't belong to this type — they belong to ㊹ in 5.8; only one page may take any given term. 4. The law-firm version of this type feeds AI Mode: across L3's 2 definition questions, ChatGPT cited government and public-body pages 17/18 in total over both runs, law-firm websites 0/10 on run 1 (0/8 on run 2); AI Mode cited law-firm websites 5/9, with 3 of those on the question asking for the difference between two concepts. In family R1, AI Mode cited law-firm legal-encyclopedia pages roughly 5 times (rough labelling). 5. Don't call yourself "the most authoritative"; by default, don't write "leading" — write it only when a third-party ranking's matching tier backs it up (chapter 1, 1.6); schema restates only the facts visible on the page (chapter 2, 2.4). > **Example** (family law) The court's guardianship page: "Guardianship gives a person the legal responsibility to care for a child below 21 years of age." This sentence appears once under the H1 and once again under the first H2, with the term itself as the subject, said in one sentence — and ChatGPT copied it verbatim (family R2 measured ChatGPT only, single case). However the page gets chunked, this complete sentence is what gets pulled out. See [[通用版 5.23 问题与规则类档 B（一）：监管义务、定义词条]] for the general-edition approach. ## 5.13 ⑬ Step-by-step procedures, ⑭ preparation lists and ⑯ deadlines and key dates **What you'll do in this section**: write one page for each of the three types. The step-by-step procedure page doesn't recopy the court's generic process — it writes "how this step runs at the firm, and how much this step costs"; the preparation and bring-list page is currently an empty slot, so do it first; on the deadlines and key dates page, every deadline carries a section number and effective date, and numbers of days are never written for a rule that hasn't been checked. When you're done, you'll have three ready-to-fill skeletons. The leg for all three types is the same as in 5.9. In L3 (2026-09-29), across 7 process questions, ChatGPT cited government and public-body pages 85/92 over both runs, law-firm websites 0/43 on run 1 (0/49 on run 2); across 3 checklist questions, government and public-body pages 27/32, law-firm websites 0/13 (1/19). AI Mode cited law-firm websites in these two types at process 13/35, checklist 4/12. In family R1 (2026-09-23), law-firm pages explaining how the divorce process works were cited by AI Mode 5 times (1 of them a Simplified Chinese page) and by ChatGPT 0 times. ### Step-by-step procedure page (pt13) ```wireframe id=pt13 Figure: Step-by-step procedure page; what AI copies are cells from the step table and the form table H1 | starts with a verb + track qualifier | req Deliverable sentence | one sentence stating what this page provides | req Step table | Step / Result, with the time limit fixed in the cell | req,cite Form table | document name / form number and source | req,cite Official fee table | Item or service / Fees | req H3s split by channel | one block each for online / offline | opt ``` Law-firm-specific approach: 1. The government page gives the generic track; the law-firm version writes this step at this firm. Illustrative wording (every figure is a placeholder): "At , for , step is , the result is , and it usually takes working days; the firm's fee for this step is S$ (incl. GST), and the court fee of S$ is charged separately (, taken on )." 2. Copy the official fee table only from the court's or the relevant authority's current table, writing the table's name and the date retrieved; if the original table can't be obtained, put in only a link (chapter 1, 1.3). The firm's own fees follow chapter 1, 1.2, and are never compared with other firms (r 43(1)(c)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. 3. Timeframes state only how long the procedure takes to run; never write "guaranteed judgment within N weeks" (r 44(2)(d)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. 4. Give online and physical, simplified and normal procedures one H3 each; don't mix them together. 5. The family process page presents mediation and divorce by mutual agreement as the primary options (chapter 1, 1.7). 6. Build a Chinese version only where there's a Chinese-speaking client base, and accept it against the AI Mode leg only (5.3): across L3's 4 Chinese questions, ChatGPT cited Chinese-language pages 0/47 over both runs, AI Mode 5/22 (Chinese-language pages judged heuristically by title and URL). > **Example** (family law) The Ministry of Social and Family Development's FamilyAssist "Types of Divorce Proceedings" page writes the timeframe as a "step + duration" sentence (the simplified procedure takes about 1 month to get an interim judgment, then another 3 months' wait), and AI Mode pulled it apart almost word for word into the timeline in its answer (family R1, single case). Duration written into the original sentence, not buried in a lead-up paragraph, is what gets pulled apart like this. ### Preparation and bring-list page (pt14) ```wireframe id=pt14 Figure: Preparation and bring-list page; AI copies the timing sentence and "what we already provide" Timing sentence | at the top, when to start preparing | req,cite ID/document group | institutions' proper names written out in full | req Fasting or emergency-referral items | their own bullet, never folded into a paragraph | req,law Reverse checklist | already provided / no need to bring, a two-column table | req,cite Grouping rule | grouping by identity copies best, then by time, then a one-page checkbox sheet | req ``` What the figure cannot show: the blueprint's "Fasting or emergency-referral items" row belongs to medical pages; law firms have no equivalent, so delete it, and use the rest of the cells as they are. Law-firm-specific approach: 1. This is an empty slot, so do it first. On family R2's "Documents checklist for filing divorce in Singapore" question, all 5 of ChatGPT's citations were court pages, and not a single dedicated checklist page was cited; across L3's three checklist questions, ChatGPT cited only 1 law-firm website in total over both runs (on run 2), and even that was a legal-encyclopedia article about shareholders' agreements (page type heuristic). 2. Order the groupings by how copyable they are: grouping by identity (applicant / respondent, executor / beneficiary) beats grouping by timing (before filing / before the hearing), and grouping by timing beats a one-page tick-box sheet. 3. Write the reverse checklist as two columns — "documents the firm drafts for you" / "originals you bring" — the first column is the half nobody else can copy. 4. Write document and form names word for word from the court's original page, and note the check date; the moment a rule changes, update the checklist the same day and link it to the old-vs-new page in 5.16. 5. Don't write result-promising words such as "easily gather everything" or "get it right the first time." ### Deadlines and key dates page (pt16) ```wireframe id=pt16 Figure: Schedule and deadline page; AI copies the first-screen date range and the date table H1 | the process name, no year | req First-screen sentence | who can apply + this year's opening date | req,cite Four fixed H2 sections | Criteria→Procedure→Schedule→Enquiries | req Two-column date table | Period / Actions, three rows for application/shortlisting/results | req,cite Eligibility judgement | this type does not write conditional reasoning | no ``` Law-firm-specific approach: 1. Write every deadline as one row: the deadline + the date it runs from + the full name of the legislation and the section number + the check date, linking to that section on SSO. Check limitation periods and appeal windows one by one against SSO [Original text not obtained]; until they are checked, don't write a number of days. 2. Write a new rule's effective date into the date table, not into the H1; cross-link it with the old-vs-new page in 5.16. 3. The blueprint's "Eligibility judgement" cell is marked `no`, and law firms need to hold to it even more strictly: the deadline page does not write "your case still has time" — whether there's still time is for a lawyer to decide after reviewing the documents. 4. What AI wants for deadline questions is the provision: on L3's debt-recovery question (L3-DEB-01), ChatGPT run 1 linked straight to that section of the Limitation Act (SSO, anchored to the section, single case). Only a page that gives the section number and the link can connect to an answer like this. See [[通用版 5.24 问题与规则类档 B（二）：办事步骤、准备清单]] for the general-edition approach to the step-by-step procedure page and the preparation and bring-list page; see [[通用版 5.25 问题与规则类档 B（三）：日程、集合 FAQ、政策 hub、变更公告、误解纠正]] for the deadlines and key dates page. ## 5.14 ㉒ Collected FAQ page **What you'll do in this section**: write the real questions for one type of case onto a single page, one question per block, each answer 40–80 words with the first sentence giving the conclusion; an FAQ is not an exempt zone — write questions such as "how much does it cost", "is there a charge for the first consultation?" and "can I get a no win, no fee arrangement?" the way chapter 1 says to. When you're done, you'll have an FAQ that can supply several citations at once, and wherever AI chunks it, it lands on a conclusion. ```wireframe id=pt22 Figure: Collected FAQ page; several Q&A blocks on the same page get copied separately Whole page alternates Q and A | no body paragraphs, no lead-in | req Question written in the buyer's own words | each one independent | req Each answer 40–80 words | the first sentence is the conclusion | req,cite One-sentence answer with a threshold | copied even when placed further down | req,cite Footnote numbers | superscripts 1, 2, 3 on key claims | opt schema | FAQPage | opt ``` What the figure cannot show: most of the law-firm pages that get cited carry an FAQ. Of the 10 cited law-firm pages taken apart page by page in family R1, 7 had an FAQ block; on a page whose body-text H2 opens by setting up how complicated the matter is, AI will go looking in the FAQ for that one conclusion sentence (see the example, single case). Law-firm-specific approach: 1. Every answer goes through chapter 1's word list (Appendix B.3); write the questions and answers where they're visible on the page, and don't stack FAQPage schema just to chase rich results ([[通用版 2.7 闸三闸四：收录通路与 JSON-LD 一次封版]]). 2. Answer "how much does it cost" in the format from chapter 1, 1.2: billing method + fixed fee or range + what's included and what isn't + the final fee set out in the letter of engagement. Don't write "cheaper than other firms" (r 43(1)(c)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1], and don't write an unnamed market range either [Conservative line (not statute text)] (see chapter 1, 1.3). 3. You can answer "is there a charge for the first consultation?" with "no charge" [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes; check date: 2026-09-29). If you answer "no charge", state the scope and duration (for example, "First 30 minutes free of charge; document review not included") — leaving out an important limitation is omitting a material fact (r 44(2)(b)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; don't turn it into a promotional hook [Conservative line (not statute text)]. 4. Answer "can I get a no win, no fee arrangement?" with "conditionally, yes" only on pages for proceedings listed on the conditional-fee list (LPA s 107, s 115B, PCR r 18A, CFA Regulations 2022 reg 3) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1, A.2]. Family cases are not on the list: family pages do not write "no win no fee" — this question can only be answered "family cases cannot be charged this way" [Statute text; see Appendix A.2]; writing "conditionally, yes" would be publicising an arrangement that can't actually be signed [Conservative line (not statute text)]. 5. Questions like "how many cases have you won" don't go into the FAQ: never write a success rate or win count, without exception (r 43(1)(b)(ii)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. 6. If a family FAQ wants to use a real case as an example, follow the decision figure in 5.15: it must first pass our own de-identification check, then be signed off case by case, in writing, by a partner or director; no answer may contain any detail that could identify a child involved in the proceedings (CYPA s 112) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4] — not even with a sign-off (see chapter 1, 1.7). > **Example** (family law) On a law firm's prenuptial-agreement page, the body-text H2's first sentence says "is a complicated matter" and was not copied; on the same page, an FAQ answer of about 40 words that gives the conclusion straight in the first sentence (a prenuptial agreement is not automatically binding, but the court will consider it under certain conditions) was copied by AI Mode (family R1, single case). See [[通用版 5.25 问题与规则类档 B（三）：日程、集合 FAQ、政策 hub、变更公告、误解纠正]] for the general-edition approach. ## 5.15 ㊱ Case summary page: the subject is the court, not the firm **What you'll do in this section**: the H1 gives the case name and citation, and right under the H1 comes one holding sentence, whose subject is the court; don't write the firm's track record or a win rate; writing "acted for" requires the client's written authorisation; family case law uses only anonymised judgments the court has already made public, with no added detail that could identify a party or a child. When you're done, you'll have a case-summary format, and a decision figure for whether to write "acted for." ```wireframe id=pt36 Figure: Case-law page, summary version; AI copies the ruling sentence under the H1; the full-text version separately has its sentence on whether the case is still good law copied H1 | case name + subject + year + court + case number | req Ruling sentence under H1 | a standalone sentence stating what the case decided | req,cite Decision date | one line | req Two H3s | Facts / Court's Decision | req Full-text Outcome block | lists the court's orders clause by clause | opt Full-text follow-up sentence | how many later judgments cite it, any negative treatment | opt,cite Full-text citation graph | Cited by / Authorities cited in two columns | opt Stable paragraph anchor | a #id per paragraph, the same mechanism as the legislation page | opt Full judgment text with no ruling sentence | just posts the full text with nothing stating the ruling | no ``` ```split Figure: a case summary writes what the court decided, not what the firm won Write || Don't write Case name + citation + court + judgment date || "Another win for the firm" One holding sentence under the H1, subject the court || A win rate, a track record, "never lost a case" What this holding means for this type of party || "Come to us and get the same result" Link back to the court's original judgment or case-summary page || Any case facts beyond the judgment's own text "Acted for": with the client's written authorisation || Any detail that could identify a party or a child ``` ```mermaid Figure: whether to write "acted for": family cases face two extra gates, and two situations can't be released even with a sign-off flowchart LR q{"Write 'acted for'?"} -->|No| ok0["Write only the court's holding"] q -->|Yes| c{"Client authorised in writing?"} c -->|No| no1["Don't write it"]:::warn c -->|Yes| f{"Is it a family case?"} f -->|No| s1["Publish after partner/director sign-off"] f -->|Yes| d{"Passed our de-identification check?"}:::hl d -->|Child identifiable, or publication restricted by order| no2["Don't write it — a sign-off can't release this"]:::warn d -->|Yes| s2["Partner/director signs each case, then publish"] ``` What the figure cannot show: why even a sign-off cannot release those two extra family-law gates. For family cases, whether to publish a case study, a republished review or a review reply is decided by the lawyer's own written sign-off, case by case (for how the two review cells are written, see chapter 1, 1.5 and chapter 6, 6.5) — but two provisions come straight from the legislation's own text, and no sign-off can release them: - Information that could identify a child or young person involved in the proceedings may not be published; the original text covers "particulars that are calculated to lead to the identification of any child or young person concerned in the proceedings" (CYPA s 112(1)(a)), and this still applies once the child turns 18 (s 112(1)(c)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]; - A Family Justice Court may make an order restricting publication (FJA s 10(4)(a)), and anyone who breaches it commits an offence (s 10(5)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]; where such an order exists, not a single word about that case gets published. So every family case summary, and every family case study or review, first goes through our own de-identification check (the family self-check sheet in Appendix B.4); any hit on any item means it does not go for sign-off. Once it passes, it goes to a partner or director for sign-off, case by case, in writing. The lawyer's signature does not cover our own responsibility as the publisher: CYPA s 112(5)(b) penalises "the person who publishes or distributes it", and FJA s 10(5) penalises "Any person who acts in contravention of any order under subsection (3) or (4)" — once content crosses the line and we are the ones who send it out, we are the person those words describe [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]. The rule that holds throughout the book holds here too: a written sign-off resolves only the stop-and-escalate situations; it never turns something banned as Statute text into something publishable. Law-firm-specific approach: 1. H1 = case name + subject + year + court + citation; the holding sentence is "In , the court held that ." The subject is the court, not the firm. 2. Don't write a win rate or a track record (r 43(1)(b)(ii)), and don't write "come to us and get the same result" (r 44(2)(d)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. 3. Writing "acted for" is conditional on mentioning the case not breaching the duty of confidentiality owed to the client (r 43(1)(b)(i)) — that is, the client has authorised this disclosure (r 6(3)(a)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; authorisation is always taken in writing, stating exactly how far the disclosure goes, and kept on file [Conservative line (not statute text)] (see chapter 1, 1.4); confirming that someone is a client of the firm is itself confidential information [Conservative line (not statute text)]. 4. Family case law uses only anonymised judgments the court has already made public (eLitigation and the court's own case-summary pages), linking back to the original judgment; the facts in the summary don't go beyond the judgment's own text, and no combination that could piece together an identity is added (things like age + school + parents' occupation). Family Justice Court matters are heard in private by default, in the rule's own words, "all matters and proceedings in a Family Justice Court must be heard in private." (FJA s 10(1)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]; the case-law commentary writes only the legal points and procedure, and never a hearing detail that could be matched to a specific party [Conservative line (not statute text)]. 5. Building a case summary page itself [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes, FJA s 10, CYPA s 112; check date: 2026-09-29). 6. Scheduling: build it as a trust asset, not a traffic page. Across the two family rounds (public dataset, 2026-09-23), 6 of ChatGPT's 119 citations were case-law pages (3 court case summaries, 1 court annual-report notable case, 1 eLitigation, 1 laws.sg), and AI Mode (measured on R1 only, 52 citations) had none at all; in L3 (2026-09-29), ChatGPT cited judgment-type pages (heuristically labelled) 6/146 on run 1 (6/161 on run 2), AI Mode 0/122, and 5 of those 6 citations on run 1 were on the minority-shareholder-oppression question. In both rounds, the case-law pages cited were always court and judgment-database pages; no case summary written by a law firm itself was seen being cited (the page type is heuristic and was not checked page by page). > **Example** (family law) On the court's family case-summary page, the holding sentence directly under the H1 — stating what rule this case established — was copied by ChatGPT (family R2 measured ChatGPT only, single case). The holding sentence does the summarising work for the AI; that's exactly the one sentence a law firm's own summary page needs to write, with the court as the subject just the same. See [[通用版 5.28 源头类档 B（一）：法条、监管指引、官方答复、器械文件、判例]] for the general-edition approach. ## 5.16 New rules and policy types: ⑩ ㉓ ㉖ ㉞ ㊵ ㊺ **What you'll do in this section**: question types such as "when does the new rule take effect", "what did the minister say" and "is this legal" each get routed to one page type; all six types do only downstream writing — a word-for-word quote, a link back to the original page, and the check date, plus one sentence on what it means for this kind of case; never write "so we understand the new rules better than other firms." When you're done, you'll have six blueprints, and one routing figure for which question type goes to which page type. ```mermaid Figure: six rules-type questions each route to one page type; all six are written the same way: word-for-word quote, link back, check date flowchart LR q1["When does the new rule start"] --> p34["㉞ Old-vs-new"] q2["What did the minister say"] --> p23["㉓ Reply restatement"] q3["Is this legal"] --> p40["㊵ Misconception correction"] q4["How does the new rule affect me"] --> p45["㊺ New-rule explainer"] q5["A cluster of related rules"] --> p26["㉖ Topic hub"] q6["Who has what statutory duty"] --> p10["⑩ Obligation summary"] p34 -->|All written as| d["Word-for-word quote + link back + check date"]:::hl p23 --> d p40 --> d p45 --> d p26 --> d p10 --> d ``` What the figure cannot show: why all six types do only downstream writing. The source for these question types is the statute, the courts and the ministries: in L3 (2026-09-29), across 5 rules questions, ChatGPT cited government and public-body pages 39/39 over both runs, law-firm websites 0/20 on run 1 (0/19 on run 2); AI Mode cited law-firm websites 4/16 in the same type. A law firm's own version can't substitute for the original: under this question type, everything ChatGPT cites is the original. New-rule explainers are a law firm's natural strength, but the strength lies in "explaining the original text to this kind of client", not in being the source itself. Statements like "so we understand the new rules better than other firms" compare the quality of other lawyers' services (r 43(1)(c)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1], and none of the six types may write them. ### Old-vs-new comparisons and new-rule explainers (㉞ ㊺) ```wireframe id=pt34 Figure: Change notice page; AI copies "from date X, the new practice replaces the old" Effective date fixed in the title | commercial version starts with "Important:" + effective date | req First-screen scope statement | which part changed this time | req Timetable | Date / What Happens, 3–8 rows | req,cite Old-vs-new sentence | the old practice and the new practice compressed into one sentence | req,cite Transition-period rules | its own H2, stating the number of days clearly | req ``` The old-vs-new page covers only your own changes or changes in your own jurisdiction; a page explaining what an external new rule means for a type of party belongs to the new-rules explainer page (㊺), whose blueprint is entirely unmeasured: ```wireframe id=pt45 Figure: block order for the news and policy explainer page (the whole diagram is not measured, spec taken from an external teardown, no block marked cite) title | An assertion-style title, with an event clause and a claim clause | req intro | No heading, 3–5 sentences, 80–120 words: date + event → the bet we're making → headline number → a lesson sentence that leads with a negative | req H2 Key findings | 4–5 items, one sentence each, 20–40 words, third-party findings first, the last item states our own limits | req H2 What happened | 120–200 words, past tense, zero adjectives | req H2 Why the mechanism matters | 150–220 words, one study per paragraph, each with its source | req H2 Our own evidence | 180–260 words, evidence table | req H2 What the reader should do | 5–6 bullets, noun-phrase labels, no product names, no using the topic for soliciting | req,law H2 Our own positioning | 80–130 words | opt H2 Method and limitations | 60–110 words, one paragraph | req FAQ | Exactly 3 items, questions phrased as objections, every answer opens with a negative sentence | req ``` Law-firm-specific approach: 1. Write the old-vs-new sentence in one go: "From , replaces (, , checked )." 2. The new-rules explainer page (pt45) is entirely unmeasured. The "What the reader should do" block marked `law` doesn't tout on the back of a new rule — don't write "the new rule is complicated, come to us fast" — the ban on touting, r 39(1) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1], applies to this kind of copy [Conservative line (not statute text)]; the "Our own positioning" block writes only whether the firm handles this kind of affected case, never a comparison with other firms. 3. A law firm's own new-rules explainer page does have a citation sample, but a thin one: in family R1, a law-firm page on the new divorce-by-mutual-agreement law was cited by AI Mode 1 time (single case). > **Example** (family law) On the court's "FJR 2024 Digest" page, the old-vs-new sentence — from 2024-10-15, which old documents the Originating Application replaced — was copied by ChatGPT (family R2 measured ChatGPT only, single case). "From what date, what replaced what" compressed into one sentence is what lets AI take the whole sentence without reasoning across sentences. ### Official reply restatements (㉓) ```wireframe id=pt23 Figure: Official replies and speech records page; each numbered passage carries its own subject title | title, name + occasion + year | req First-screen line | date + category | req Body, no H2s | major sections + paragraphs with Arabic numbers + sub-items | req Numbered paragraph stands alone | carries its own complete subject, so it can be cut out on its own | req,cite Self-contained sentence with the number | numerator, denominator, percentage and time window in the same sentence | req,cite Transcript-site variant | one block per question and answer, block header shows the number of exchanges | opt ``` Law-firm-specific approach: 1. Follow the General Edition's sentence pattern: "On , replied at : '' (). The effect on is ." 2. Don't write a minister's or a judge's words as an endorsement of the firm, and don't imply that an official body is backing the firm. 3. Move a self-contained numbers sentence over exactly as the original has it: keep the numerator, denominator, percentage and time window in the same sentence, without converting or rounding. > **Example** (family law) A sentence from a sub-item in the middle of the minister's reply in the Ministry of Law's 2024 Committee of Supply debate — of the 6,220 divorces in the past year, about 4,150, or 66%, went through the simplified procedure — was copied whole by ChatGPT (family R2 measured ChatGPT only, single case). The numerator, denominator, percentage and time window are packed into the same sentence, so AI doesn't need to reason across sentences. ### Misconception corrections (㊵) ```wireframe id=pt40 Figure: Misconception page; each entry carries its own context and does not follow the first-30% rule H1 opposing-pair phrase | one line | req Single H2 | the only H2 on the whole page | req N entries | collapsible, a fixed three-part structure | req Popular claim, verbatim | the buyer's own first-person words | req One-word verdict | "Incorrect!" on its own line, the key to copyability | req Fact sentence + footnote | with subject + amount + effective date | req,cite ``` Law-firm-specific approach: 1. "The popular saying, word for word" is written in the buyer's own first-person voice; the fact sentence carries the rule number and effective date; the one-word verdict stands on its own line. 2. One typical misconception in legal services is "you can hire a lawyer on a no win, no fee basis." Write the fact sentence only from the conditional-fee provisions (LPA s 107, s 115B, PCR r 18A, the list of proceedings in CFA Regulations 2022 reg 3) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1, A.2], and state that a contingency fee — a share of the amount awarded — is still banned (GN 5.6.1) [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]; when a family page does this item, the fact sentence writes only "family cases are not on the list and cannot be charged this way", never "conditionally, yes" (5.14, item 4). Illustrative wording: "'You can hire a lawyer on a no win, no fee basis' — not necessarily. From 2022-05-04, a conditional fee agreement only applies to the proceedings listed in CFA Regulations 2022 reg 3 (, checked ); family cases are not on the list." 3. Don't write the "misconception" as a veiled dig at other firms ("some law firms will tell you…"). > **Example** (choosing a lawyer and legal fees) L3 asked 'Is "no win no fee" allowed for lawyers in Singapore?' (L3-GEN-04, single case), and ChatGPT cited the Ministry of Law's 2022-04-29 conditional-fee press release and the CFA Regulations 2022 original text on both runs. Run 1's answer opened with the sentence "Short answer: sometimes, but not generally." — a one-word verdict up front, the fact sentence after: exactly the shape of a misconception page. ### Obligation summaries and topic hubs (⑩ ㉖) ```wireframe id=pt10 Figure: Regulatory obligations and penalties page; AI copies the obligation sentence right under H1 H1 | a noun phrase naming the obligation, or a judgement sentence, no year | req Date line | "Last updated" in the first-screen body text, not the footer | req First-screen obligation sentence | 35–90 words right under H1: from date X / who / what must be done | req,cite Numbered requirements table | Number / Item description, item by item | opt,cite Penalty rows, side by side | subject: jail term + maximum fine, one row per subject | req H2s split by reader identity | split by who the reader is, not by rule number | opt ``` The obligation summary page is one obligation per page; a page that gathers a string of provisions under the same topic is a Policy hub page (㉖): ```wireframe id=pt26 Figure: Policy hub page; AI copies rows from the phased timetable and definition rows from the glossary table First-screen question-style anchors | a string of in-page anchors, not a summary | req H2s map one-to-one to the anchors | section order follows the anchors | req Phased timetable | Implementation Date / Who it applies to | req,cite Subsidy or transaction table | 3–5 rows each | opt Glossary table | one term + one definition sentence per row | req,cite Update date + schema | Last updated + FAQPage | req ``` Law-firm-specific approach: 1. ⑩ does only a word-for-word quote + link back + check date: "Under section : '' (, )." The General Edition says the lightly regulated side may self-build a page judging "whether this rule applies to you"; law firms skip this step — judging whether a rule applies to a specific reader is legal advice for that individual's own case, and belongs in the consultation [Conservative line (not statute text)]. 2. ㉖ is one hub page per topic: open with question-style anchors, and in the glossary table, one term + one definition sentence + a section number per row, without splitting it into ten separate blog posts or running a side-by-side comparison with other firms. Under complete-guide questions, everything ChatGPT cites is official: on family R2's "Complete guide to child custody" question, all 12 citations were court pages, court FAQs, SSO provisions and ministry pages (family R2 measured ChatGPT only, single case). Across both family rounds, a law firm's hub had no citation sample at all (L3 did not measure complete-guide questions); build it after the fees page and the process page. The general-edition approach for each type: for ⑩, see [[通用版 5.23 问题与规则类档 B（一）：监管义务、定义词条]]; for ㉖ ㉞ ㊵, see [[通用版 5.25 问题与规则类档 B（三）：日程、集合 FAQ、政策 hub、变更公告、误解纠正]]; for ㉓, see [[通用版 5.28 源头类档 B（一）：法条、监管指引、官方答复、器械文件、判例]]; for ㊺, see [[通用版 5.30 档 C 四型：未验证页型]]. ## 5.17 Muslim marriages: a separate set of pages for Syariah Court cases **What you'll do in this section**: firms that handle Muslim divorces build a separate set of process and fees pages for Syariah Court cases, not the Family Justice Courts; write the procedure and fees from the Syariah Court's own original pages, and where something hasn't been checked, put in only a link. When you're done, you'll have two sets of pages that never mix together, so the reader knows from the moment they land which set to read. ```mermaid Figure: a divorce question first splits by which court it goes to; the two sets of pages stand apart, cross-linked only in their opening paragraph flowchart LR q{"Was the marriage solemnised under Muslim law?"} -->|Yes| s["Syariah Court set: process page + fees page"]:::hl q -->|No| f["Family Justice Courts set: process + fees page"] s -->|Cross-linked in the opening paragraph| f ``` What the figure cannot show: this figure splits pages, not jurisdiction. Which marriages and which proceedings belong to the Syariah Court is set by AMLA (the Administration of Muslim Law Act), and this round's rule text has not been checked [Original text not obtained], so the page doesn't state our own judgement — the opening paragraph links to the Syariah Court's own original page on the matter instead. Why a separate set is needed: across the two family rounds (public dataset, 2026-09-23), 2 of ChatGPT's 119 citations were Syariah Court pages (one fees page, one hearing-procedure page); 3 of the 22 ChatGPT answers proactively flagged, right at the start (only the first 600 characters of each answer were stored), that Muslim marriages go through the Syariah Court, not the Family Justice Courts; and on one question about a father's custody rights, ChatGPT even linked straight to a specific AMLA provision (SSO, single case). Law-firm-specific approach: 1. Each set of pages has its own process page, fees page and FAQ. The opening paragraph of the Family Justice Courts set's process page states, "This page covers the Family Justice Courts' procedure; for marriages solemnised under Muslim law, see "; the two sets cross-link, and their body text is never mixed together. 2. Write the Syariah Court's procedural steps and fees from its original page only after checking it, giving the page name and the date retrieved; neither the AMLA provisions nor the Syariah Court's procedural text has been checked this round [Original text not obtained], so until checked, put in only a link — no number of days, no amount. 3. The fees page follows chapter 1, 1.2: write the firm's own fees and the fees payable to the Syariah Court in separate columns, the same way as the court-fees column in chapter 1, 1.3. 4. Follow the rule that children may not be identified: CYPA s 112 covers "any proceedings in any court" [Statute text; see Appendix A.4], which this book applies to Syariah Court proceedings too [Conservative line (not statute text)]. FJA s 10 covers the Family Justice Courts; whether the Syariah Court's proceedings have their own rule on hearing matters in private or restricting publication has not been checked in the original text [Original text not obtained] — until checked, don't write hearing details, the same as for the Family Justice Courts [Conservative line (not statute text)]. # Chapter 5 · Writing pages (4): offices, credentials and trust pages, plus pre-publish checks ## 5.18 ⑪ Office page: name the MRT station, and put whether you handle family matters on the address line **What you'll do in this section**: build a facts page for every office — the approved firm name, the address on one line, the nearest MRT station and walking minutes, day-by-day opening hours, and the phone number — then put "which matters this office handles and which it doesn't" on that same address line, with an LSRA register lookup link at the foot of the page; on launch day, change the address and practice areas on the Law Society directory listing and the business profiles to match this page, word for word. ```wireframe id=pt11 Figure: Block order on the branch page; what AI copies is the whole address line and the day-by-day hours — it doesn't read the body text title | service word + place first, brand last | req H1 | service word + place, or Welcome to branch name | req Full address line | building name, street number, unit, postcode on one line; qualifying conditions on the same line | req,cite Day-by-day opening hours | four to seven plain-text lines, Sunday on its own line | req,cite Phone and messaging | one channel per line, may be grouped by business line | req H2 How to get here | MRT station name goes in the H2; walking minutes, shuttle, parking | req Nearby landmarks | one or two | opt Staff at this branch | one line per person: qualification, year started practising, branch, registration number | opt,law LocalBusiness schema | address and hours match the visible values word for word | opt Hours and address rendered by JS | invisible with JS turned off | no ``` The office page is the safest page type for a law firm: the whole page is nothing but the address, hours, phone number and practising facts — it never touches fees or results, and does not need a single adjective. Use the general blueprint as it is; a law firm only changes the cells below. ```split Figure: For a law firm, only these cells of the general store / branch page change General store / branch page || Law firm office page H1: service term + place name || practice-area term + MRT station or area; title carries the approved firm name Address on one line, with qualifiers on that same line || On that same line, state which matters this office handles and which it doesn't Day-by-day opening hours || By appointment only: still state the hours you see clients Staff at this branch + registration number || Lawyers at this office: name as on the practising certificate + LSRA register lookup link Registered name || Approved full name; a law corporation (LLC) carries "LLC" or "Law Corporation" Chinese version || Build only if you have Chinese-speaking clients, using only the approved Chinese firm name ``` Sample sentence (both the numbers and the names are placeholders): " ( office): # Singapore — this office handles divorce, custody and wills; it does not handle criminal or corporate matters; about minutes' walk from ; Monday to Friday 9am–6pm, by appointment only; phone ." The basis for these cells is not equally firm. An LLC's name must carry "LLC" or "Law Corporation" [Statute text; see Appendix A.2], and the suffix is never dropped on the office page, in structured fields or on business profiles; every page states the firm name [Conservative line (not statute text)] (85% confidence — the Law Society's original text on this covers only flyers), and writes it word for word as the approved full name [Conservative line (not statute text)] (75% confidence). A Chinese firm name needs written approval; without approval, use the English approved name and do not translate it yourself [Statute text; see Appendix A.2; applied to web pages: Conservative line (not statute text)]; build the Chinese version as in 5.3, and accept it against the AI Mode leg only. Put "which matters you handle" on the address line: one of the examples of misleading publicity given by the Council of the Law Society was a firm that only handled uncontested divorces and had no experience with contested ones, but did not say so [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]; the original example was about a TV advertisement, and applying it to the office page is [Conservative line (not statute text)] (85% confidence). For law firms there is no statutory field of the "every piece of publicity must carry a registration number" kind; what the LSRA calls the number field for individual practising details has not been checked [Original text not obtained], so until it is, write only the register lookup link and the check date, never a number. ```mermaid Figure: The answer to a near-me question is pieced together from four places; the two a law firm controls are the office page and the directory listing, and they must match flowchart LR q["Lawyers near a given MRT station"] -->|pulls the address| a["Law firm office page"] q -->|pulls address and practice area| b["Law Society directory listing"] q -->|lists free options| c["Community legal clinic directory"] q -->|doesn't verify the entity| x["Page of a non-law-firm business"]:::warn a -->|matches the directory| win["Gets into the answer table"]:::hl a -->|qualifier only in a footnote| wrong["Wrongly listed as another practice area"]:::warn ``` The sample for near-me questions is very thin; treat this figure as direction only. In the L3 run (2026-09-29) there were 2 near-me questions; ChatGPT asked each one twice and AI Mode once, for 21 citations in total; by URL heuristic, 7 were government and public-body pages (including Law Society directory listings), 4 were contact pages, and 3 were home pages. ChatGPT's run 1 cited law-firm websites in 3/8 (run 2: 0/8) — asking the same question twice already changed the list. Of the 8 citations in run 2, 2 came from businesses with no connection to law: one was an office-building's own website, cited as the source of a firm's address; the other was a business's contact page, listed as a lawyer near the MRT station (single case; entities were hand-labelled by domain and title, not confirmed by opening every page). For the question about conveyancing lawyers, both answers took a firm's branch address and practice areas from a Law Society directory listing (single case). The free-option cell: across 3 near-me questions (1 family, 2 L3) and 5 ChatGPT answers, 3 cited the government's published PDF list of community legal clinics — this cell is not reachable; do not treat it as a competitor to fight for. The family set (2026-09-23) had only 1 near-me question, asked once; of ChatGPT's 6 citations, 3 were law-firm pages, and one of them took the walking distance — about 5 minutes from a given MRT station — from a firm's contact page (single case). So once the office page is live, the directory listing has to change with it (the Law Society states that the listings in its "Find A Featured Lawyer/Law Firm" directory (the Featured directory) are paid by advertising [Statute text; see Appendix A.5]; whether the cited listing is a paid placement has not been checked; whether to buy one: see 6.2; how to fill in a listing: see 6.3), and the business profiles change the same way (see 3.4). What happens when a qualifier is buried in a footnote: an earlier draft recorded one case — one firm's office carried "*For Corporate matters only" solely as an asterisked footnote, and ChatGPT still listed it as the closest divorce lawyer to a given MRT station (single case, from an earlier draft's record; not something the dataset can re-verify). For the general-edition wording, see [[通用版 5.26 实体与产品事实类档 B（一）：门店、核验入口、目录收录]]. > **Example** (law firms) For the near-me question about conveyancing lawyers, ChatGPT laid out a four-column answer table on its own: firm, address, phone, notes. The "address" cell went down to the building name, street number, unit and postal code; the "notes" cell said how close to the MRT station and whether the firm did conveyancing; every row carried a URL for an office page, a contact page or a directory listing (L3, run 1, single case). Your page needs to fill all four of these cells. ## 5.19 ㉚ Official register lookup and ㊴ practising credentials wall **What you'll do in this section**: build an official register lookup page listing, for every lawyer at the firm, the name spelling used to find them on the LSRA register lookup page, the register lookup link and the check date, with a link to the SAL Directory of Specialists for anyone with an accreditation; the practising credentials wall carries only facts that can be checked against an official register — practising certificate status, year of admission, year of accreditation, the year of any personal award — and never the Law Society's armorial bearings (its crest). Both pages state facts only, never claims. ```split Figure: These two trust assets do different jobs; both link only to the official register ㉚ Official register lookup page || ㊴ Practising credentials wall Every lawyer: the name spelling used for the lookup || Practising certificate status, with a check date LSRA register lookup link + check date || Year of admission Anyone accredited: link to the SAL Directory of Specialists || Full SAL accreditation name + year of accreditation, attributed to that person alone Senior Counsel list: not posted until verified || Personal awards: full name + year + issuer + category Link only to the official register, never to a ranking guide || Never the Law Society's crest ``` ### ㉚ Official register lookup page (pt30) ```wireframe id=pt30 Figure: Verification and lookup page; its value is the citation slot at the end of the answer — for the register version, what's copied is the sentence on its statutory authority H1 | body's name, or Find a category role | req Statutory-authority sentence | which law set the body up, and whom it regulates | req,cite Two action buttons | check who's registered, practitioner log-in | req Search box | serves as the first H2 | req Four explainer H2s | apply for registration, who's registered, dated notices, FAQ | opt URL | carries a search-type parameter | opt ``` The blueprint above draws the register's own page; what a law firm builds is its downstream version: move the "go check practising status" step onto your own page, and leave the verifying to the official register. In the L3 run (2026-09-29), ChatGPT's run 1 cited the LSRA register lookup page directly in 3/146 citations (run 2: 4/161; across both runs it covers 4 questions), and AI Mode in 1/122. By answer count, of ChatGPT's 30 run-1 answers, 7 listed the LSRA register lookup as a place to verify a lawyer or find one (run 2: 6/30; across both runs 13/60, covering 7 questions), and 4 of those 13 restated the register lookup page's own scope sentence: it lists Singapore lawyers with a valid practising certificate and registered law firms. Where it lands in the answer splits two ways: in the 4 answers to "how do I find a lawyer" and "what should I ask before hiring a lawyer", it appeared as one of the first two steps on the list, in the first quarter of the answer; the other 9 appearances fell in the back part of the answer, as a check-it-yourself exit (roughly by character position). In the family set, it appeared only at the end of one answer (single case). For a law firm this is a citation slot, not a content slot: what gets restated is only the register lookup page's own self-description, and it has limited value for moving rankings on its own. Its real use lies elsewhere: AI tells readers to check practising status before hiring a lawyer, and if your page has every lawyer's lookup spelling ready, a reader who follows that advice will find them, instead of coming up empty because the name spelling doesn't match. The name spelling follows the practising certificate: a person's name in the firm name must match the practising certificate [Statute text; see Appendix A.2], and the names on the lawyer page and on this page are written as they appear on the practising certificate and the register lookup result [Conservative line (not statute text)]. The register lookup page is a search box; whether every lawyer has a fixed URL, and what the field for individual practising details is called, have not been checked [Original text not obtained]; until they are, write only the register lookup link, the name spelling used for the search, and the check date. The register lookup page carries its own disclaimer: the Ministry of Law gives no warranty as to the accuracy, completeness or reliability of the lookup results [Statute text; see Appendix A.5], so this page writes "can be checked on the LSRA register lookup", never "government-certified" [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Senior Counsel is limited to persons appointed under the Legal Profession Act [Statute text; see Appendix A.1, A.2]; the official source for the SC list was not obtained this round [Original text not obtained], so until it is, this page carries no link to a list. The SAL Directory of Specialists held 121 entries on 2026-09-29, 0 of them for family law [Statute text; see Appendix A.5]: today no family lawyer can claim a Family Law specialist accreditation (see 1.6), so leave the family-lawyer cell blank for now and check the directory again before every launch. This page links only to the official register; a link to a ranking guide goes on ㉙, not on the verification page [Conservative line (not statute text)]. > **Example** (law firms) When ChatGPT answered "what should I ask before hiring a lawyer", the first group of questions included this one: "Which law practice are you with, and can I verify you on the LSRA directory?" (L3, run 1, single case). The register lookup page answers exactly this question. ### ㊴ Practising credentials wall (pt39) ```wireframe id=pt39 Figure: Trust centre / compliance proof page; AI copies the certificate wall and the latest-report-date sentence title | separate subdomain optional, main domain also fine | opt H1 | brand Trust Center | req First-screen count strip | number of documents, FAQs and certificates in one line | req Certificate / licence wall | certificate or licence name + issuer + validity period, a machine-readable list | req,cite Latest check-date sentence | the specific date of the most recent report or check | req,cite Q&A directory | grouped by topic, each group labelled with its item count | req Report or file itself | may sit behind a log-in or NDA | opt Written as a marketing article | adjectives in place of a certificate wall | no ``` The blueprint's archetype is a software company's trust centre; a law firm swaps it for a practising credentials wall — same method: write the source and the check date beside every fact, as a list, never as an article. Write the first-screen count line as "N practising lawyers, N of them partners or directors (check date )". Two things must not be mixed up. Publicity may not use the Law Society's crest [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; the Law Society's Practice Excellence Award page, on the other hand, states that a winner receives "a special Practice Excellence emblem to showcase in marketing materials" [Statute text; see Appendix A.5]. This award goes to individual lawyers, and both the emblem and the award are attributed to the winning lawyer personally; write on the wall " of our firm received (, )", never that the firm itself won it [Conservative line (not statute text)]. The same applies to SAL specialist accreditation; SAL's own text: "Your accreditation is an individual attainment. It should not be used to promote your firm or organisation." [Statute text; see Appendix A.5] — attribute it to the person, together with the year of accreditation; an accreditation is valid for 3 years, and is taken down the day it expires or is revoked [Statute text; see Appendix A.5]. State the check date for practising certificate status, and check it again against the LSRA before every launch. For the general-edition wording, see [[通用版 5.27 实体与产品事实类档 B（二）：资质证明、条款、操作文档与对接]]; how to write a lawyer's profile page is in 3.2. ## 5.20 ㉛ Engagement process page, ㉟ pro bono and legal aid page, ㉑ confidentiality and privacy page **What you'll do in this section**: swap all three types for the law firm's equivalents — the engagement process page spells out how to book a first consultation, check conflicts of interest first, who handles the matter, what the letter of engagement says, and at what stage you're billed; the pro bono and legal aid page is optional and states only the programme name, how the firm takes part, and the official link; the confidentiality and privacy page states that it rests on the lawyer's duty of confidentiality and the *Personal Data Protection Act 2012* (PDPA), and only cites a provision number once it has been checked. ```split Figure: A law firm swaps all three general-edition types for its own equivalent, each with one extra rule General-edition archetype || Law firm equivalent, plus the extra rule Help centre / how-to page (pt31) || Engagement process page: state the process only; fees follow the letter of engagement Integration / marketplace listing (pt35) || Pro bono and legal aid page: state only the name and the official link, never as an endorsement Vendor legal terms page (pt21) || Confidentiality and privacy page: rests on the duty of confidentiality and the PDPA; cite a provision number only once it is checked ``` ### ㉛ Engagement process page (pt31) ```wireframe id=pt31 Figure: Help and how-to page; AI copies the object list and the negative list in the first paragraph Line above H1 | update date + scope condition | req H1 | verb-first task name | req First paragraph | the objects this task covers and the direction, no preamble | req,cite H2 step names | broken into steps, or Step 1…4 up front | req Limitations and considerations list | "doesn't support / doesn't sync" as its own paragraph | req,cite Original menu-path wording | the exact text on the button or menu | opt Hides what it doesn't support | not a word about what it can't do | no ``` ```steps Figure: Write the engagement process page in this order; each step matches something AI tells readers to ask 1 | Book a first consultation | Whether it's free, how long, whether it includes reviewing documents 2 | Check conflicts of interest | Check conflicts first, then hear the facts 3 | Who handles it | What the partner, lawyer and paralegal each do 4 | What the letter of engagement says | Scope, exclusions, billing method, termination clause 5 | Payment stages | When invoices are issued; court fees, disbursements and GST listed separately 6 | Where to go with a dispute | Link to the Law Society's fee-dispute page ``` Why this order: in the L3 run (2026-09-29), across the two questions "how do I find a lawyer" and "what should I ask before hiring a lawyer", all 4 of ChatGPT's answers (two questions, two runs each) told readers to get a written letter of engagement, and itemised what it should spell out or what they should get alongside it — scope and billing method appeared in all 4, termination conditions in 3; all 4 also told readers to ask who will actually handle the matter. Of the 4 answers to near-me questions, 3 appended a paragraph at the end listing questions to ask before engaging a firm; together the three paragraphs asked: the consultation fee, whether the firm handles this type of matter, how long it will take, and whether the total fee includes GST and disbursements (the conveyancing question also asked whether the firm is on the bank's panel). Answer these questions on the page first, and a reader who brings AI's checklist to compare will find an answer to every item on it. But don't expect ChatGPT to cite this page: for the first two questions, all 9 of ChatGPT's run-1 citations were government and public-body pages, law-firm pages 0/9 (run 2: 0/9); of AI Mode's 6 citations, 1 was a law-firm page. This page's value lies in AI Mode and in on-site follow-through (not measured). The letter-of-engagement step is the lawyer's duty to inform the client: the basis for fees, the method of payment, other fees that can be foreseen, and at what stage they are payable [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; the Law Society advises putting this information in the letter of engagement [Statute text (the Council's advisory wording); see Appendix A.3]. Where this lands is the letter of engagement, not the web page: the page states only which items the letter of engagement will cover; write the actual figures in the format from 1.2, and state "The final fee is set out in our letter of engagement." [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Can you write "free of charge" for a first consultation? [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes; check date: 2026-09-29), 60% confidence. If you write it, state the length and scope — for example, "First 30 minutes free of charge; document review not included" (example); omitting an important limit is publicity that omits to state a material fact [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; and it is not written as a promotional hook (see 1.2). This item governs only the law firm's own page: our own materials never say we offer free legal consultations (see 0.4). The "who handles it" step states clearly who is a lawyer and who isn't. For support staff's job titles, the Law Society requires that a business card not be worded in a way that could make someone think they are a lawyer [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]; applying this to the engagement process page and the team page is [Conservative line (not statute text)]; a lawyer's designation is chosen only from the approved list (see 1.6). For the fee-dispute exit, link to the Law Society's fee-dispute page (see 1.3). ### ㉟ Pro bono and legal aid page (pt35) ```wireframe id=pt35 Figure: Integration listing page; it gives the yes/no call, while the object list that gets copied sits on a plain-text page on the same site title / H1 | one integration per URL | req Logo wall | lists many integrations without spelling out the fields | no Certification badge | official certification badge, AI uses it to make a yes/no call | req Built by | built in-house or by a third party | opt Object list for the integration | names each integrated object, not "core data" | req Direction | one-way or two-way, in the same sentence | req Prerequisites | required credentials or subscription | req What's not supported | state clearly what it doesn't do | req Sync timing | how often, full or incremental (not measured) | opt Plain-text fallback page | the same set of fields repeated on a help page you can curl | req ``` Optional: only build this if lawyers at the firm actually take part in a pro bono programme, a community legal clinic rota or legal aid work. Write the four fields as in the general edition: programme name (object list), how the firm takes part (direction), who can apply (prerequisites, copied from the official original text, with a check date), and what the firm does not do within the programme (not-supported items). State only the other party's name and the official link; never write sentences such as "in partnership with " or "endorsed by " that could make readers think the official body is vouching for the firm [Conservative line (not statute text)]. The two extra rules here both have a source text. For a public acknowledgement of sponsorship or donation, a lawyer's duty is to "take reasonable steps to ensure" that the acknowledgement carries only the name, that the person is a lawyer, and the firm name (where the firm itself is the donor, only the firm name), with no description of the practice [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. When a lawyer gives free legal advice at a legal aid clinic, only the name, the fact that the person is a lawyer, and the firm name may be made public — no business cards or brochures are handed out, and the lawyer does not act for the person advised (except in a pro bono capacity) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] — so the page does not carry a lead-generating line such as "Met us at the clinic? You can bring your matter to our firm." [Conservative line (not statute text)]. This type serves only as a trust asset and for on-site follow-through: in the L3 run (2026-09-29), for the 2 legal aid questions, ChatGPT's run 1 cited government and public-body pages in 14/15, AI Mode in 8/9, and law-firm pages were 0 on both legs. The official version is not reachable; the firm only builds the downstream version. ### ㉑ Confidentiality and privacy page (pt21) ```wireframe id=pt21 Figure: Vendor legal terms page; AI copies the commitment sentence that names the country or jurisdiction title / H1 | terms' full name, no marketing language | req H2 contents, FAQ, date, author | this type needs none of these; skipping them costs nothing | opt Definitions clause | list the applicable countries or jurisdictions in the definitions section | req,cite Organised by jurisdiction | one section per jurisdiction, section name is the jurisdiction's name | req Commitment sentence | a compliance commitment naming the country or jurisdiction | req,cite Numbered clauses | body text numbered clause by clause | req Writes "applicable laws" without naming countries | vague wording only | no ``` A law firm has no vendor terms page; its equivalent is the confidentiality and personal data policy page. The commitment sentence states two grounds: the lawyer's duty of confidentiality over client information (PCR r 6) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1], and the PDPA. The Law Society's Practice Directions also specifically remind firms to comply with the PDPA [Statute text (the Council's advisory wording); see Appendix A.3], but the PDPA's own text was not checked this round [Original text not obtained]; until it is, write only the Act's name and which data this page covers, never a provision number, and never restate the PDPA's specific obligations. Law firms add one more rule: the page does not list client names and does not give examples such as "we've handled matters for such-and-such a company" — confirming that someone is or was a client can itself be confidential information [Conservative line (not statute text)] (80% confidence). ## 5.21 ㉙ Reputation and credentials page, ⑲ firm data page and ⑱ long-form PDF **What you'll do in this section**: the reputation and credentials page carries only four things that can be checked — each lawyer's years in practice and year of admission, a third-party ranking guide's "guide name · year · tier", one line of platform ratings, and a single review the client has authorised in writing; the firm data page carries only operating figures that have passed the six checks for numbers — never a win rate, never a case volume that reads as a track record; the fee section of the long-form PDF follows 1.2. Family clients' reviews are decided one at a time: first pass our own de-identification check, then get a partner's or director's written sign-off. ```split Figure: What the reputation and credentials page writes and doesn't write Write || Don't write Each lawyer's years in practice and year of admission || Success rate, win count, "never lost a case" Guide name · year · tier, with a link || Calling yourself No. 1, or inferring you beat another firm from a ranking One line: platform · number of reviews · rating · check date || Star-rating widgets, clipping only the good reviews A single review the client has authorised in writing || A family-law review that hasn't passed the de-identification check Personal awards attributed to the winning lawyer || Awards and ranking spots that come simply from paying ``` ### ㉙ Reputation and credentials page (pt29) ```wireframe id=pt29 Figure: Self-built reputation and credentials page; AI copies the rating sentence with its denominator and the string of award years Third-party media quote | one sentence + attributed source | opt Rating H2 | rating + denominator, its own H2 | req,cite Award row | one row per award, stating consecutive years and each individual year | req,cite Per-person H3 | Individual Recognition | opt Quantified statement with a denominator | one sentence in the first screen | req ``` The sample for "is this firm good" is very thin for law firms: in the L3 run (2026-09-29) there were 2 questions, ChatGPT asked each one twice, for 4 answers in total; the family set (2026-09-23) had 1 question, asked once. What can be seen is which block AI pulls from where in answers like these: - **Positive facts are mostly taken from directory listings and the firm's own pages**: all 4 of the L3 answers wrote a lawyer's years in practice or decade of admission, sourced from a Law Society directory listing, the firm's lawyer page, or a case-law lookup site; 2 cited a Law Society directory listing, and 2 cited a ranking guide's year and tier (both from the two answers to the conveyancing question). - **Ratings are taken from third parties**: all 4 answers cited a rating on a third-party page, 3 of them with a review count, and none from the firm's own page; in one case it noticed two ratings that didn't match and said outright that the rating should only be a rough reference (single case). The family question went the other way: ChatGPT trusted the rating with a denominator on the very firm's own page (see 1.5, single case). - **Results-based claims get called out**: for the question about whether a firm's criminal practice is good, one answer warned readers to discount phrases like "charges dropped" or "best possible outcome" on law-firm websites; another said that "best" list articles cannot be taken as proof of outcomes (single case). So what this page should write is exactly what AI treats as positive facts, and two of them sit right inside the seven factors for expertise: years in practice counts as experience, and a third-party ranking guide counts as assessment by peers [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. "Level of success achieved" is also one of the seven, but it only stays on file as evidence — no success rate appears on the page [Statute text; see Appendix A.1; how the two apply together: Conservative line (not statute text)] — the source text carries no exception at all for the success rate itself [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. How to write each cell: - **Ranking guides**: write only your own entry, " · · " plus a link [Conservative line (not statute text)]; the regulator has no document specifically on ranking guides such as Chambers or Legal 500 [Original text not obtained]. Never infer from a ranking that you beat a named firm, call yourself "the only firm listed", or call yourself No. 1, top or best [Conservative line (not statute text)] (80% confidence; the basis is r 43(1)(c), which bans any comparison of the quality of other lawyers' services; see Appendix A.1); write "leading" only when a third-party guide's own tier of that name backs it [Conservative line (not statute text)] (70% confidence). - **Awards**: a personal award is attributed to the winning lawyer (see 5.19); "N years running" is followed by a string of individual years, each one checkable on the issuer's own page; an award that simply comes with payment is not written [Conservative line (not statute text)] (70% confidence). - **Ratings**: whether the firm's own page carries a platform rating [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes; check date: 2026-09-29). If you carry one, use only one line of visible text: " · reviews · · check date ", never a star-rating widget, and never bury it only in structured data [Conservative line (not statute text)]; the basis is that publicity must be verifiable [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. - **A single review**: with the client's written authorisation, containing no result and no success rate [Statute text; see Appendix A.1], and its meaning not altered [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Whether a family client's review or case study is republished is not a one-size-fits-all rule in this book: it is decided one item at a time, with a partner's or director's written sign-off; before that sign-off, we run the de-identification check first on our own side (Appendix B.4), and if any item hits, it does not go for sign-off. Two items come straight from the legislation, and a sign-off cannot release them: never publish anything that could identify a child involved in the proceedings — and this holds even after the child turns 18 (CYPA s 112); never publish a single word of family proceedings content a court has restricted from publication (FJA s 10) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]. Both provisions penalise the person who publishes: the CYPA says "the person who publishes or distributes it", and the FJA says "Any person" — it is we who put the review on the page, and the lawyer's signature does not take on that responsibility for us. A written sign-off resolves only the stop-and-escalate situations; it never turns something banned as Statute text into something publishable (the reasoning is in 1.5, 1.7). Among the more than 100 pieces of written ethics guidance in the Law Society's members' area, there may be case-specific rulings on client reviews that this book has not read (see 0.2); if the documents a firm exports with its members' account at the start of the work carry a stricter position, this page follows the stricter one. For the general-edition wording, see [[通用版 5.22 选择与口碑类档 B：第三方测评、舆情论坛、评价聚合、自建口碑、结论先行]]. > **Example** (law firms) When asked whether a firm's conveyancing practice is good, both of ChatGPT's answers built their "strengths" on the same three things: the practice areas on a directory listing, the years in practice of two individual lawyers, and a ranking guide's year and tier (run 2 also added the address and conversion date from the firm's website); the ratings paragraph came entirely from third-party pages (L3, single case). ### ⑲ Firm data page (pt19) ```wireframe id=pt19 Figure: Statistics source page; AI copies the paired restatement sentence in the conclusion and the chart caption that carries the basis Methodology section | sampling method + sample size + basis + what changed from the last version | req Structural labels | academic version's four-part labels such as OBJECTIVES, report version's numbered charts | req Percentage qualifier | every percentage immediately followed by its population | req Restatement sentence in the conclusion | key numbers said again, paired, in the conclusion | req,cite Charts and data labels | chart caption carries year and basis, numbers labelled beside the bars | req,cite Caption sentence for the table | states the table's numbers in one sentence | req Scope-exclusion sentence | this figure excludes A, doesn't cover B, statistics year C | req Named author and department | one line | opt Gives a number without its basis | no survey name + year + sample size | no ``` The firm's own data page has not been seen cited across the 22 family questions or the 30 L3 questions (n = 0; for the family set, R1 was taken apart page by page and R2 was sampled by page type; L3 was checked by heuristic page type); schedule it as a trust asset, not a traffic page. The only thing you can write is an operating figure with a clearly stated basis, for example "for simplified-procedure divorces this firm closed in , the median time from filing to the uncontested hearing was weeks (n = ; counts only ; excludes )" (example), which first passes the six checks for numbers (see [[通用版 5.10 页型共用件：数字六项检查、无公开价、计价单位、日期与 schema]]) before going onto the sign-off sheet. Law firms add three more rules: - Success rates and win rates are never written; the source text carries no exception [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. Case volumes such as "handled N cases" are written only as an operating figure with a clear basis: state the basis, the period and the denominator, never alongside a result, and never as a track record [Conservative line (not statute text)] (75% confidence). - Beside a duration figure, write "individual cases depend on the court's own schedule": a figure could make a reader expect their own case to be just as fast, and creating an unjustified expectation is misleading [Statute text; see Appendix A.1; applied to duration figures: Conservative line (not statute text)]. - Family-law figures are used only in aggregate, never broken down to a cell fine enough to match a specific case (for example, a district with only one or two cases in a given month) [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Never move an official figure onto the firm data page and pass it off as your own data. The sentence in the Ministry of Law's 2024 parliamentary reply stating that about 4,150 of 6,220 divorces, or 66%, went through the simplified procedure was copied by ChatGPT (family R2, 2026-09-23, single case) because the numerator, denominator, percentage and time window all sat in one sentence; sentences like this belong on the downstream official reply restatement page (see 5.16), and the firm data page writes its own numbers in the same sentence shape. ### ⑱ Long-form PDF (pt18) ```wireframe id=pt18 Figure: Regulator guidance PDF; a Chinese-language question hits the matching question on the contents page Cover | guidance's full name + version + revision date | req Question-style contents page | every line a question in the buyer's own words + page number | req,cite Numbered body paragraphs | every paragraph numbered, so it can be cited precisely | req Definitions and commencement date in the first 3% | said in one sentence | req,cite Contents written as noun phrases | not questions in the buyer's own words | no ``` A PDF is publicity too: the rules' definition of "publicity" covers an advertisement printed or carried in any information medium [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. So the fees section of a PDF follows 1.2, not a single peer price range is written (see 1.3), and family case studies follow 1.7; compliance follows the content, not the document's format. Schedule it further back: across the two family rounds (2026-09-23), only 3 of 171 citations were PDFs, all of them government documents cited by ChatGPT — the courts' divorce guide and divorce-process explainer, 1 each, and 1 list of community legal clinics. In the L3 run, judged as PDFs by URL heuristic, ChatGPT cited 8/146 in run 1 (run 2: 9/161), AI Mode 5/122; of the 70 citations of law-firm websites (across the three calls, heuristic), only 3 were PDFs. Build the office page, the fees page and explainer pages first, and put the PDF later. Write the table of contents as in the general edition — a question in the buyer's own words plus a page number, for example "How long does a divorce take? … page 3" (example). Do not build a market-observation long-form piece (see 0.3). For the general-edition wording, see [[通用版 5.28 源头类档 B（一）：法条、监管指引、官方答复、器械文件、判例]], [[通用版 5.29 源头类档 B（二）：统计源头页、名录页]]. ## 5.22 Handing over: the three law-firm checks and common mistakes **What you'll do in this section**: every page first goes through the general edition's five steps and self-check list; a law firm adds three more — the family de-identification check, an evidence number attached to every "expertise" sentence, and sign-off by a partner or director; before launch, search the whole page for market-type words and delete any hit; finally check it item by item against the table below. ```steps Figure: After the general five steps, three more; failing any one sends the page back 1 | Family self-check | Children, orders restricting publication, hearing details — done on our own side 2 | Expertise evidence | Every "specialise in" sentence carries one of the seven factors and an evidence number 3 | Partner sign-off | The sign-off sheet is filed together with this batch's materials ``` The first check is our own gate, ahead of sign-off: family-law materials (case studies, case commentary, republished reviews, review replies) each go through the family self-check sheet in Appendix B.4, item by item, and if any item hits, it does not go for sign-off. The reasoning is in 1.7: the two family-law provisions penalise the person who publishes, and a lawyer's signature cannot shield us from that. The second check: every sentence using "specialise in" or "expertise in" (or "擅长" on a Chinese page) must be able to produce evidence against one of the seven factors [Statute text; see Appendix A.1], with the evidence number entered on the sign-off sheet. The third check: the signatory is a partner or director — the duty to rectify publicity already issued falls only on the lawyer personally and on the firm's partners and directors, never on an employed lawyer [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; the sign-off sheet is our own control gate, not a legal formality [Conservative line (not statute text)]. A sign-off does not transfer the lawyer's responsibility: something someone else publishes on a lawyer's behalf still counts as the lawyer's own publication [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. That we can write and publish on a firm's behalf likewise rests only on the absence of a prohibition [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full; check date: 2026-09-29), 85% confidence. A written sign-off resolves only the stop-and-escalate situations; it never turns something banned as Statute text into something publishable. If the written ethics guidance a firm exports with its members' account at the start of the work (see 0.2) contains a stricter position than this book, that firm adds it to this list. Before launch, search the whole page for `market`, `generally costs`, `ranges from`, `average`, `typical fee`, `市场`, `行情`, `一般在`, across the body text, FAQ, figure captions, table headers, title, meta and JSON-LD alike (the full scope is in Appendix B.3). Wherever these words turn up, they are mostly writing a peer's or the market's price: a price comparison that names, or that lets readers identify, a specific firm is a comparison banned as Statute text [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; an unnamed market range follows the conservative line and is equally not written [Conservative line (not statute text)] (85% confidence). Delete a hit sentence entirely rather than rewrite it in place; if that spot needs content, write a new sentence about a different subject — the firm itself, a court or a piece of legislation (the reasoning is in 1.8). Scan the remaining banned words one by one against Appendix B.3's Chinese–English word list. ```split Figure: The most common mistakes when a law firm hands over a page, and how to fix them Mistake || Fix Writing a market range before the firm's own price under the same H2 || Delete the market range; keep only the firm's own price and conditions Writing "leading" with no matching tier from a third-party guide || Delete it, or add the guide name, year and tier Putting a single review on the website with no written authorisation || Take it down; republish once authorised A family case study naming a child's school || Delete it, and log it internally as an incident An office qualifier buried in a footnote marked with an asterisk || Put it on the address line A keyword microsite with no approved firm name || Add the name to every page, linking back to the main site SAL accreditation displayed on the firm's home page || Move it to the accredited lawyer's own page, with the year of accreditation The Law Society's crest on the page || Delete it; an individual award emblem goes only under the winning lawyer's name Writing "first consultation free" with no scope || State the length and what's not included ``` Four rows in the table cannot be released even with a partner's sign-off: a child's school (information that could identify a child involved in the proceedings) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4], a review put on the website without client authorisation (only the client can give that authorisation) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1], the Law Society's crest [Statute text; see Appendix A.1], and attributing SAL accreditation to the firm [Statute text; see Appendix A.5]. The market-range row is handled by the two-tier treatment in the paragraph above (the basis is in 1.3). For the five steps per page, the red line on lying and the general self-check list, see [[通用版 5.31 交稿：每页五步、撒谎红线与自检]]; for the general table of common mistakes, see [[通用版 5.32 常见错总表]]. # Chapter 6 · Beyond your website: the Law Society directory, rankings, reviews and articles bylined by lawyers ## 6.1 Before you send any letter: sign-off sheet, fixed service fee, banned-word list **What you'll do in this section**: when you sign the service contract, fix it in writing that we take only a fixed service fee; after that, every batch of outreach material passes three checks before it goes out — family-law material first passes our own de-identification check before it is sent for sign-off, written authority and this batch's sign-off sheet are on file (signed by a partner or director), and the material clears the banned-word list with zero hits; miss any one of these and nothing goes out. Outreach goes only to editors, directory operators and the media; we never send messages to potential clients on the firm's behalf. ```mermaid Figure: Three checks before any letter goes out, all three required; for family-law materials, the de-identification check comes before sign-off flowchart LR m["a batch of outreach material"] --> b{"Is it family-law material?"} b -->|Yes| c{"Passed the de-identification check?"} c -->|No| x2["Send back for edits, not for sign-off"]:::warn c -->|Yes| a{"Authority and sign-off sheet on file?"} b -->|No| a a -->|No| x1["Do not send"]:::warn a -->|Yes| d{"Zero hits on the banned-word list?"} d -->|No| x3["Send back for edits, resend for sign-off"]:::warn d -->|Yes| send["Send the letter"]:::hl ``` Law firms have nothing like the statutory letter of appointment that dental clinics use to authorise publishing on their behalf. PCR r 42(1) reads: "A legal practitioner must ensure that any publicity relating to the legal practitioner’s practice complies with these Rules, whether that publicity is by the legal practitioner or by any other person on the legal practitioner’s behalf." [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]: every word we write and send on a firm's behalf counts as the lawyer's own publicity, and the responsibility rests with the lawyer alone; it does not pass to us. What lets us publish on a firm's behalf is that this rule itself provides for someone else publishing on the lawyer's behalf [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: the PCR in full; check date: 2026-09-29), 85% confidence. So the written authority and sign-off sheet in the figure are not a legal formality; they are our own control gate [Conservative line (not statute text)]. The signatory is fixed as a partner or director (in a sole proprietorship, the sole proprietor signs): under r 42(2), the duty to correct publicity that is wrong falls only on the lawyer personally and on the firm's directors and partners, not on employed lawyers [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; the person who bears the duty to correct is the one who signs, and if something goes wrong, the correction letter goes out under their name too (6.4). Whoever on the firm's side liaises with us is fine; that staff member remains under the lawyer's supervision — r 32 reads: "A legal practitioner must, regardless of the legal practitioner’s designation in a law practice, exercise proper supervision over the staff working under the legal practitioner in the law practice." [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. One sign-off sheet per batch, with its fields fixed in Appendix B.4; three of them are directly relevant to this section: the family self-check sheet number (family-law material with no number is not sent for sign-off), how we charge (a fixed service fee, with the contract number written in), and the fixed statement above the signature line: "It does not transfer the lawyer's responsibility for the publicity, and it does not take on the publishing party's own legal liability." **A written sign-off resolves only the stop-and-escalate situations in 1.1; it never turns something banned as Statute text into something publishable**; nor can it shield us from the four offences that fall on us (1.1). Two of these come up most often in family cases (FJA s 10 governs only proceedings in the Family Justice Courts; CYPA s 112 covers children and young persons in any court proceedings, see 1.1): publishing information that could identify a child involved in the proceedings makes "the person who publishes or distributes it" the offender (CYPA s 112(5)(b)), and s 112(9) counts both websites and messaging systems as publishing; breaching a Family Justice Court order restricting publication is an offence for "Any person" (FJA s 10(5)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]. So before family-law material is sent for sign-off, someone we designate first runs it through the de-identification check (Appendix B.4); any single hit means it is not sent for sign-off; even once a lawyer has signed, our own responsibility as the publisher still stands. ```split Figure: We take only a fixed service fee, and never describe ourselves as lawyers What we take, what we write || What we don't take, don't write A fixed service fee, written into the contract || Paid per lead, enquiry or consultation booked Unrelated to how many clients the firm signs || Paid per signed client or completed case Unrelated to how much legal fee the firm collects || A share of legal fees or damages Describe ourselves only as a content and website service provider || "our legal team", "free legal consultation" ``` The other two offences sit on fees and wording. If we take money per lead, per signed client or as a share of legal fees, we may be committing the offence under LPA s 33(3) (placing a lawyer's services at someone's disposal for a fee): a company's first offence draws a fine of up to S$25,000, a repeat offence up to S$50,000, with directors and staff separately liable (s 33(6), (7)); if we operate as a partnership or a limited liability partnership (LLP), the partners are personally liable too (s 33(7A), (8)); the firm's side breaches the rules as well: paying us as a percentage of legal fees or a share per case breaches r 19 (not sharing legal fees with a non-lawyer), and paying per lead or per signed client falls into the "commission or other form of consideration" that r 39(2)(b) bans [Statute text; see Appendix A.1, A.2]. A fixed service fee itself [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: all of LPA s 33; check date: 2026-09-29), 70% confidence — have legal review the quote and the contract. If a firm wants to pay per case that comes in, there is no scaled-back version we can offer: we do not take the work (the third start gate in 0.2). The last row on the right of the figure: we never write, in sales material, proposals or on our own website, anything that could make people think we are qualified to practise — the offence under LPA s 33(1)(b) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2], and which wording falls into that is our own judgement [Conservative line (not statute text)], 75% confidence. Outreach goes to only two kinds of people: editors and directory operators of third-party pages, and the media. We never send cold messages to potential clients on a firm's behalf — no "we welcome enquiries" by mass email, DM or WhatsApp. r 39(1) reads: "A legal practitioner or law practice must not tout for business or do anything which is likely to lead to a reasonable inference that the thing was done for the purpose of touting." [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; the Council of the Law Society of Singapore (the Law Society) states in PD 6.2.2 that handing out flyers in a public place can be treated as touting, and distributing publicity letters and business cards to HDB households breaches r 44(1)(a), (c) [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]; applying this to cold emails and DMs is our own reading [Conservative line (not statute text)], 75% confidence. When someone publicly asks online for a lawyer to take their case, the lawyer replies personally: give only general information in the public area, and send any quote or offer of engagement privately — this comes from 2012 guidance by the Law Society's Ethics Committee, from the old-rules era, and the current Practice Directions do not carry it [Conservative line (not statute text)]. There is one more step on the start checklist that the firm does itself: use a members' account to export the written ethics guidance in the Law Society's members' area and the 2019 and 2020 Ethics Digests. The Law Society's own note says: "From 2015 to date, the Advisory Committee has issued more than 100 written guidances to members." [Statute text; see Appendix A.5]; we cannot get hold of this material [Original text not obtained]; where it contains case-specific rulings on directories, paid placements or reviews that take a stricter position, that firm follows the stricter position; if a ruling like "lawyers may not ask clients for reviews" or "fee ranges or price lists on a website are unbefitting the dignity of the profession" turns up, the whole book moves law firms to the strictly regulated side in that quarter (0.2). Two common mistakes: mass-mailing "we welcome enquiries" to potential clients on the firm's behalf; billing the firm "per signed client" or "per case that comes in". The general spec for the outreach gate is in [[通用版 6.2 发信闸门、付费收录与夺取表]]; law firms sit on the branch where switch A is on, except that here the "written publishing authorisation" is replaced by our own written authority and sign-off sheet. ## 6.2 Paid placements: the Law Society directory is worth considering; referral platforms get nothing **What you'll do in this section**: for a paid placement, ask what the platform does before asking how it charges — platforms that refer, assign or match cases for law firms get nothing, whether they charge per lead, per completed engagement, a commission or a fixed entry fee; only a display-only slot, where the reader chooses and the platform does not refer or assign cases, is worth considering against a fixed rate card, and in this class the book recommends only the Law Society's own "Find A Featured Lawyer/Law Firm" directory (the Featured directory); if one is bought, the work order, monthly report and website all record it, truthfully, as a paid listing. ```mermaid Figure: Ask what a paid platform does first, then how it charges; pay nothing to platforms that refer work flowchart LR p{"Platform refers, assigns or matches cases?"} -->|Yes| no1["Pay nothing, not even a fixed entry fee"]:::warn p -->|Unclear| no2["Do not do it"]:::warn p -->|No, reader chooses| q{"Charges by a fixed rate card?"} q -->|Per lead or commission| no3["Pay nothing"]:::warn q -->|Yes| l{"Page claims best or a self-awarded ranking?"} l -->|Yes| no4["Do not buy this placement"]:::warn l -->|No| ok["Worth considering; mark it paid, line by line"]:::hl ``` The first question comes before the billing method because the dividing line is drawn by what the platform does. GN 6.1.1 para 35 reads: "There are prohibitions against a law practice rewarding any person for referring work to them. The participation in any Internet referral schemes which requires the law practice to pay a fee or share fees paid for legal services referred would be a breach of the LPA." Para 36 goes on: "Even if no fees are paid or shared, any participation in an online introduction service or referral service carried out in such a way as to ‘unfairly attract work’ to the law practice would be improper given the terms of section 83(2)(b) and/or section 83(2)(h) of the LPA." [Statute text; see Appendix A.3] — on the wording alone, "pay a fee" is enough to catch a referral platform, and even an introduction platform that charges nothing may be improper; what counts as "unfairly" is our own judgement [Conservative line (not statute text)], 60% confidence. For paying per lead, per completed engagement or by commission, the ban in r 39(2)(b) reads: "must not reward the referror by the payment of any commission or other form of consideration;" [Statute text; see Appendix A.1], with r 19 and LPA s 83(2)(d)(e) alongside it [Statute text; see Appendix A.1, A.2]; paying a fixed entry fee to a referral or matching platform also counts as "other form of consideration", in our reading [Conservative line (not statute text)], 80% confidence. LPA s 83(7) lets the Minister make rules exempting s 83(2)(d)(e); on 2026-09-29 we checked the full table of the LPA's current subsidiary legislation on SSO, and none of it is an exemption rule made under it [Statute text; see Appendix A.2] — there is no exemption available for consideration paid for a referral. Conveyancing, and motor-accident and personal-injury work, have their own referral rules (r 40(1)(c), PD 7.4.3 D.2) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1, A.3], and between lawyers, no referral fee may be taken for a referral alone either (PD 5.5.1) [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]; negotiating any referral arrangement on a firm's behalf is not part of our service. ```split Figure: Off-site placements: what a law firm can enter, and what gets nothing paid to it Can enter || Don't enter, and pay nothing The Law Society's Featured directory, fixed rate card || Platforms that refer, match or charge per enquiry Ranking guides, through their own review process || Membership networks with a membership fee plus case assignment Free directories that already list the firm: check and correct || Awards or "best" rankings that can be bought Reciprocal links with business partners, no financial arrangement || Reciprocal links carrying a referral fee or revenue share ``` The reciprocal-link row: PD 6.1.2 addresses a property agent's website linking to a law firm, and it is allowed only if there is "no form of financial arrangement" between the two; the link text also must not imply that the other party can give legal advice — the sentence that follows, "Otherwise, this may constitute an offence under section 33(1)(b) of the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 2009 Rev Ed).", governs that implication [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]. Applying this to other business partners' websites is our own reading [Conservative line (not statute text)]. A reciprocal link that carries a referral fee, is paid per click or shares revenue is a paid placement, not a reciprocal link; under the figure above, judge it as "pay nothing". A display-only slot that the reader chooses, with no referral or case assignment, can be bought against a fixed rate card [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR r 39, GN 6.1.1 paras 33–37, PD 6.1.2, the Law Society's Featured directory page; check date: 2026-09-29), 70% confidence. In this class the book recommends considering only the Law Society's own "Find A Featured Lawyer/Law Firm" [Conservative line (not statute text)], 70% confidence, for three reasons: - **The regulator sells it itself, and states plainly that it is advertising.** The Law Society's page reads: "You can find a lawyer or law practice by area. Please note this is not a complete list as the listings are paid by advertising." [Statute text; see Appendix A.5]: on the page it looks like a plain listing by practice area with the reader choosing, with no sign of referral or case assignment; we never got the rate-card terms, so ask in writing before buying (see below). - **AI reads it in recommendation-type questions.** In L3 (2026-09-29), across the 7 recommendation questions (near me ×2, is this firm good ×2, who's best ×3), individual firms' listing pages in the directory were cited by ChatGPT — combining both runs — in 3 of the questions, and by AI Mode in 2 questions; the directory's index page was separately cited by ChatGPT in 2 questions and by AI Mode in 1. How the wording on a listing gets read is covered in 6.3. - **AI sometimes notes on its own that it is a paid listing.** In 5 answers across 3 questions (L3, 60 answers in total), ChatGPT told the user this directory is not a complete list, and in 2 of those it said outright that the firms in it chose to advertise there. But the reverse also happened: for "is this firm good", ChatGPT twice treated the firm's listing in the directory for conveyancing work as one reason to trust it (L3, single case). We cannot control how AI reads it; what we control is never writing it up ourselves as a recommendation. We never got the rate-card terms: the old advertising page now returns 404, and the current Advertise page lists the law-firm directory as a bookable advertising slot with enquiries routed to the Publications department, but no rate card or terms are posted [Original text not obtained] (see Appendix B.1). Before buying, ask in writing about three things — the billing period, how much it costs, and whether there is any referral or case assignment; if even one cannot be answered, do not buy. The URLs of cited entries carry a year (for example "2026-2027"), which looks like the listing runs by year, but this is only how the URL looks, and it was not checked (family R2, single case). In the AI Mode round's record, the directory index page's Google summary showed only a small number of firms per practice area, from single figures up to the teens (for example, 11 in family law, 4 in criminal, 4 in personal injury) — this is the number in the summary, not checked by opening the page (L3, 2026-09-29, single case). Once we buy one, three disciplines apply: paid entries are marked "paid listing" line by line in the work order and monthly report, with the cost listed separately, spec in [[通用版 6.2 发信闸门、付费收录与夺取表]]; we never write "Law Society recommended", in English or in Chinese, on the website, in proposals or in monthly reports — the Law Society's own wording says it is paid advertising, so calling it a recommendation is a claim that cannot be checked [Conservative line (not statute text)]; we also never put the Law Society's armorial bearings (its crest) on the website (r 42(4)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. If a client insists on buying another provider's display-only slot, the signatory gives written reasons and it is judged item by item against the figure above (the conservative line can be relaxed on written reasons, see 1.1). Paid placements already sit last in off-site effort, for the reasons in [[通用版 6.1 火力方向与两个不能并排的数]]: finish the four free steps in 6.3 first. ## 6.3 Directories and ranking guides: fill in your own entry completely **What you'll do in this section**: work through the four free steps in the figure below, in order, before touching the paid placements in 6.2; for every directory listing that already includes the firm, fill in the fields completely from the website — approved full name, every office and which practice areas each one handles, every practice area, and one sentence on the fee basis; take part in ranking guides through their normal review process, never self-nominate where the guide does not allow it, and judge anything that charges under 6.2. ```steps Figure: Four free off-site steps, in a fixed order; the paid Law Society directory is not one of them 1 | Business profiles | Claim the five, fill in facts only, point the URL to the landing page 2 | Official register lookups | Check LSRA and SAL listings only; fix the website the same day if they don't match 3 | Entries already there | Check and correct the firm's entries on directories and review sites, one by one 4 | Ranking guides | Take part through their own review process, listed under the lawyer's own name ``` First, how big this cell is: for law firms, directories and rankings matter only for "which firm to pick". Across L3's 30 questions, the Law Society directory page and peer-reviewed ranking guides together were cited by ChatGPT run 1: 6/146 (run 2: 7/161), AI Mode: 4/122, all of it falling inside the 7 recommendation questions (2026-09-29); in the public dataset's 22 family-law questions, rankings, review platforms and the Law Society directory together account for 10/171, and again they are the main source only in the two "which firm to pick" questions (2026-09-23). For the rest of the question types, ChatGPT cites the courts and government, and AI Mode cites law firms' own pages. So this section is not a lot of work, but it carries real weight within the recommendation questions: across the 31 citations in ChatGPT run 1 for those 7 questions, the Law Society directory, ranking guides and legal directories together account for 9 citations — as many as government pages (9) and more than law-firm websites (7) (L3, 2026-09-29). Step 1 comes first because, in recommendation-type questions, AI Mode cites Google's own card pages directly: of the 24 AI Mode citations across these 7 questions in L3, 3 had a card title that was simply the firm's name (some with the branch name), which look like location cards, not checked page by page (2026-09-29). How to fill in the five business profiles is covered in [[通用版 3.4 第三方资质分级、Wikidata 与五处商家档案]]; law firms add only one rule: the name on the profile uses the approved full name [Conservative line (not statute text)], with the "LLC" or "Law Corporation" suffix for a law corporation (LLC) (LPA s 154(3)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2]. Step 2's registers are checked only, never submitted to: the LSRA's lawyer and law-practice lookup, the SAL Directory of Specialists (121 entries as of 2026-09-29, 0 in family law), and the list of touts published by the Family Justice Courts (check whether any business partner you work with is on it, Appendix B.4 item 7). In answers, these serve as the exit where users go and check for themselves, not content that gets copied: across the 14 ChatGPT answers to L3's 7 recommendation questions, 9 sent the user to check the LSRA (2026-09-29). So the work is making sure the firm name and lawyer names on directories, the website and lawyer pages match the register lookup word for word; write "LSRA register lookup link + check date" on lawyer pages and directory listings, and do not write any number until the register's own field name is confirmed. The Law Society's own Legal Costs / Disputes page is likewise not reachable — in L3, ChatGPT cited it in the same 5 questions in both runs (price 3, rules 1, checklist 1) — link the fees page to it as the official channel for fee disputes (1.3). ```mermaid Figure: How to judge any one site: the compliance verdict comes before priority flowchart LR st["A site"] --> g{"Government or a statutory register?"} g -->|Yes| v["Not reachable; check only"] g -->|No| r{"Does it refer, assign or match cases?"} r -->|Yes| no["Do not do it"]:::warn r -->|No| p{"A peer-reviewed ranking guide?"} p -->|Yes| rv["Follow its review process; paid → 6.2"]:::hl p -->|No| b{"Title self-awards best or top?"} b -->|Yes| c["Supply checkable facts only; send corrections"] b -->|No| f{"Does it charge?"} f -->|No| ok["Can do: fill in entry from website"]:::hl f -->|Yes| pay["Judge under 6.2"] ``` Appearing in a third-party directory has an explicit rule of its own: r 46 permits a law firm "to be publicised in, or in conjunction with, the publicity of any third party", provided this is "Subject to the Act and these Rules" [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] — once on a third-party page, r 43 and r 44 still apply. We write the entry on the firm's behalf, and under r 42(1) it is the lawyer's own publicity: pick a designation only from the approved list (r 33, PD 3.5.2), back the expertise sentence with r 43(2) evidence, and never let the entry make any peer price comparison (r 43(1)(c)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1, A.3]; write the name character for character from the approved full name [Conservative line (not statute text)], 75% confidence. The blurb the firm writes for itself in the directory is the proper route for getting the firm's own sentences onto an authoritative domain (r 46, see the paragraph above), and AI reads it accordingly: in family R2, ChatGPT cited a sentence the firm wrote for its own Law Society directory listing, "We offer fixed fees for uncontested divorces, agreed upfront" (public dataset, 2026-09-23, single case); in one L3 "who's best" question, ChatGPT directly paraphrased the practice areas and years of experience written in an entry's blurb (single case); in another question about conveyancing lawyers near a particular MRT station, ChatGPT both times read the office address near that station and the "conveyancing and real estate" practice area out of a firm's entry filed under a different practice area (2026-09-29, single case, consistent across both answers). So fill in four things for every entry, from the website: 1. **Approved full name**: the approved English name; use the Chinese name only if the Director of Legal Services has approved it in writing (LPE Rules r 7) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2] — where there is no approved Chinese name, write the approved English name and do not translate it yourself; applied to directory listings [Conservative line (not statute text)], 85% confidence. 2. **Every office**: on the same line as each address, state which practice areas that office handles; no asterisk footnotes — AI reads the address out of an entry filed under any practice area. 3. **Every practice area**: list everything the firm handles, whichever practice area the entry sits under. 4. **One sentence on the fee basis**: billing method + fixed fee or range + what is included and what is not + a statement that the final fee is set out in the letter of engagement, written the same way as 1.2. Never write laudatory openers like "one of the leading firms locally" or "the best" in the blurb: one cited entry opened its blurb with exactly this kind of sentence, and AI Mode's citation card displayed it verbatim as its summary (L3, single case); by default, we do not write self-descriptions as best, No. 1 or top [Conservative line (not statute text)], 80% confidence, on the basis of the service-quality comparison implicit in r 43(1)(c), plus the fact that such a claim cannot be verified (r 44(2)(c)). Do Chinese-language entries only where the firm has Chinese-speaking clients, and accept them on the AI Mode leg only: across L3's 4 Chinese questions, ChatGPT cited a Chinese-language page 0/47 across both runs, AI Mode 5/22 (Chinese pages labelled heuristically by title and URL, 2026-09-29). Step 4, ranking guides. Asked "who's best", ChatGPT sometimes reads out a peer-reviewed ranking's tier and lawyer name directly (across L3's 3 such questions, the Ministry of Law (MinLaw) and the Law Society are still cited most, see chapter 0, 0.1): for the family-law question, 4 of 6 citations were Doyle's (×2), Legal 500 and Chambers, with Doyle's tier name placed first in the recommendation table as a reason (public dataset, 2026-09-23, n=1); for L3's criminal-law question, run 1 had 1 of 2 citations from Doyle's (run 2 had 3 of 4 from Doyle's, Legal 500 and Best Lawyers) (2026-09-29, n=1). A ranking is listed under the individual lawyer's own name, so this step is the same task as chapter 3: the spelling of the lawyer's name in a ranking guide must match the practising certificate, the LSRA register lookup and the firm's own lawyer page, character for character. Take part only through the guide's normal review process: Doyle's page states it is peer-reviewed and "cannot be purchased"; the submission pages for Chambers, Legal 500 and Best Lawyers all state that being listed is free, with separate paid products of their own (checked 2026-09-29, each one in Appendix B.1); Benchmark Litigation's process and charges were not checked. Do not buy the paid products; judge anything that charges under 6.2. Being listed in a peer-reviewed ranking can serve as evidence for the "assessment by peers" factor among the seven in r 43(2) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; on the firm's own pages, write only the firm's own entry [Conservative line (not statute text)], with the wording covered in 6.6. Editorial listicles that self-award titles like best or top (legal-news sites, lifestyle blogs' "N top law firms" pieces; labelled heuristically by title in L3: ChatGPT run 1: 3/146, run 2: 3/161, AI Mode: 5/122): supply only checkable facts that match the website and contain no comparison whatsoever, and send a correction letter under a partner's or director's name if they get something wrong; do not pay, do not buy a placement [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Once we have supplied facts, this is no longer zero participation (1.5, cell 8): review whatever the other page says about the firm as the firm's own publicity, and clear it against the banned-word list; we do not get to change their title or their rankings, and we do not requote them on the firm's own pages. Each site's type, contact details, billing method and compliance verdict are in Appendix B.1; that table is the source of truth site by site, and the judgment diagram above only teaches the method. Off-site assets decay, so run the monthly review per [[通用版 6.4 三档信源与 B 档动作]] and [[通用版 6.6 年度榜单与站外资产腐烂]]. ## 6.4 Articles bylined by lawyers, outreach letters and supplying fee material directly **What you'll do in this section**: bylined articles carry the lawyer's own name; the byline states only their name, their status as a lawyer, the firm name and any credential directly relevant to the topic. Give only facts that are unique to the firm and checkable. Outreach letters open with a statement: for verified bans, say "the practice rules do not allow it"; for everything else, say only "we do not provide that". Supply the firm's fee table directly to third-party fee columns, matching the website line for line, and send an update letter the same day any price changes. ```split Figure: Bylined articles and outreach material: what to give, and what never to give What to give || What to never give The firm's own fee table, matching the website line for line || Success rates, win numbers, track record Procedure steps, time needed, court fees with a source || Client identity or case details without written authorisation Byline: name, lawyer status, firm name, relevant credentials || Contact details in the byline, "we welcome enquiries" Rule numbers and official sources || Comparing fees or service quality with other firms Family law: legal points and procedure || Details that could identify a child, hearing details ``` Priority first: bylined articles are not the first thing to do off-site. In L3, news media are barely cited at all (ChatGPT run 1: 0/146, run 2: 1/161; AI Mode: 1/122), and articles on legal-information and find-a-lawyer platforms are not common either (entities labelled by hand, by domain, page type by heuristic, ranking guides excluded: ChatGPT run 1: 1/146, run 2: 3/161; AI Mode: 7/122) (2026-09-29); in the family-law round, newspapers appeared only in Google's top 10, lifestyle and finance media were cited by AI Mode 2/52, and ChatGPT was 0 across both runs (public dataset, 2026-09-23). So finish the four free steps in 6.3 before touching bylined articles; place articles on legal-information sites first, since they mainly feed the AI Mode leg; check the billing method first, and do not do it if payment is per lead or commission (6.2). Only place Chinese-language sub-site articles where the firm has Chinese-speaking clients, and accept them on the AI Mode leg only (6.3). Byline format follows PD 6.2.4 A: name, status as a lawyer, firm name, and any specialised credential directly relevant to the topic [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]; add no contact details and no "we welcome enquiries" in the byline — the PD is a positive list and does not expressly ban other items, and this is our own reading [Conservative line (not statute text)], 70% confidence. When answering a reader's letter in a non-legal publication, one line may be added, "Please seek independent legal advice on your own situation."; this is the Council's advice, not an obligation (PD 6.2.4 C) [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]. When a lawyer appears on someone else's programme, the firm's name stays off camera, though an acknowledgement in the end credits is fine (PD 6.2.1 C, whose text targets television) [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]; applying this to podcasts and online interviews is our own reading [Conservative line (not statute text)]. A family lawyer's byline covers only legal points and procedure (applying FJA s 10(1)'s private-hearing rule to bylined articles) [Conservative line (not statute text)]; before writing about any individual case, run the de-identification check first (6.1), and never write a single word about a case under a Family Justice Court order restricting publication [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]. Send outreach letters using the main template in [[通用版 B.3 外联邮件与评价回复]]; law firms add three things, with the full Chinese and English text and where to insert them in Appendix B.2: 1. **A self-declared identity line**: a Singapore law practice + approved full name (with the LLC or LLP suffix) + LSRA register lookup link and check date; do not write a number until the register's own field name is confirmed. 2. **A statement paragraph at the front of the letter, written in two halves.** The first half lists verified bans — success rates and win numbers (r 43(1)(b)(ii)), cases that would leak confidential information (r 43(1)(b)(i), r 6), and comparing fees or service quality with other firms (r 43(1)(c)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]: for these, we may write "the practice rules do not allow it"; family-law firms add one more line on information that could identify a child involved in the proceedings (CYPA s 112(1)(a)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]. The second half — self-awarded titles like best or top, client testimonials — says only "we do not provide that", never "the rules do not allow it": no rule expressly bans either of these. By default we do not write self-descriptions as best or top [Conservative line (not statute text)], 80% confidence; client testimonials [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: the current PCR in full, the revoked Publicity Rules (in full); check date: 2026-09-29) — not giving them in outreach material is our own working rule [Conservative line (not statute text)]. 3. **A letter sent in the name of a limited liability law partnership (LLP) or an LLC carries a limited-liability statement** (correction letters, update letters, article pitches): s 139(2) reads: "The partners of a limited liability law partnership must ensure that every invoice or official correspondence of the limited liability law partnership bears the statement that it is incorporated with limited liability.", and s 154(4) says the same for an LLC [Statute text; see Appendix A.2]; whether an outreach letter counts as "official correspondence" is not defined in the rule text, so to be safe we include it [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Correction letters go out under the name of a partner or director (the sole proprietor personally, in a sole proprietorship): the duty to correct under r 42(2) rests with them [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; applying this to entries a third party wrote itself is our own reading [Conservative line (not statute text)], 65% confidence. Supplying fee material directly: the day the firm's fee page goes live, push the same table's public version straight to the fee column of every directory listing that already includes the firm, to the blurb of the Law Society Featured listing (if we bought one), and to any fee entry on a legal-information site that names its source and lists the firm separately. The table we supply matches the website line for line, written the same way as 1.2: service tier + defining conditions + billing method + fixed fee or range + what's included and charged separately + "The final fee is set out in our letter of engagement."; send an update letter to every place carrying that table the same day a price changes. Old numbers still get cited: in the family-law round, a third-party fee guide last updated 2022-04-13 had the range in the first sentence under its first H2 cited by both legs; on both questions about legal fees, ChatGPT built its own market-rate table in the answer, drawing on several firms' self-reported prices plus this guide (public dataset, 2026-09-23). We cannot control whether AI assembles a table; what we can control is whether the firm's own price appears in its raw material with its conditions attached. Where a third-party page ranks firms' prices from low to high, writes "cheapest", or concludes on the firm's behalf that it is "lower than the others", we do not supply it and do not pay for it; if it gets something wrong, we only send a correction letter. Once on a third-party page, r 43(1)(c) still applies, and it reads: "(c) the publicity does not make any comparison or criticism in relation to the fees charged, or the quality of the services provided, by any other legal practitioner or law practice." [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; handing our fee table to a page that does side-by-side price comparisons also counts as the firm taking part in that comparison, in our own reading [Conservative line (not statute text)]. The six dispositions and the steps for bylined articles are in [[通用版 6.3 六种处置、具名供稿与外联信]]. ## 6.5 Reviews: you can ask, but offer nothing and do not pick who you ask; family reviews are de-identified first and signed off one by one **What you'll do in this section**: you may ask clients to leave reviews, keeping to four conditions — offer no incentive, do not write the review for them, do not ask only satisfied clients, do not dictate the content — send the request to every client with the same type of case, and count only the number of requests sent as the metric. Reply to every review within 72 hours using the template, never confirming that the reviewer is a client of the firm, never discussing the case, never commenting on the opposing party. For family-law clients, republishing a review and replying to it are both run through the de-identification check first, then signed off item by item, in writing, by a partner or director. ```mermaid id=review-sides Figure: What each side can do with reviews; on every side, a reply never confirms whether the reviewer is a client flowchart LR s{"Which side"} -->|strict| a["Never request, display or repost"]:::warn s -->|light| b["May request; no benefits, no drafting for them"] s -->|unregulated| c["May request & display; genuine & provable"] a --> reply["Reply: never confirm whether they are a client"]:::hl b --> reply c --> reply ``` Law firms fall on the lightly regulated branch. Asking clients to leave reviews [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: the current PCR in full, the revoked Publicity Rules (in full), the full category 6 list on the Law Society's ethics page; check date: 2026-09-29), 70% confidence. To the client, say only "we found no rule that prohibits it", never "the rules allow it". The four conditions come from the misleading-publicity ban in r 44(1)(b), and this is our own reading [Conservative line (not statute text)]. How each variant of a review is judged is covered in 1.5's nine cells; this section covers the actions only. The written ethics guidance in the members' area may contain case-specific rulings on reviews (6.1): where an exported ruling sets a stricter basis, that firm follows the stricter one; if a ruling that "lawyers may not ask clients for reviews" turns up, the whole book moves law firms to the strictly regulated side in that quarter, and this whole section changes to not asking (0.2). ```steps Figure: How a law firm handles reviews; count only requests sent 1 | Send requests | Send to every client in the same case type; offer nothing, dictate nothing 2 | Count requests sent only | Star ratings and review counts are observed only, never part of acceptance 3 | Reply within 72 hours | Don't confirm identity, don't discuss the case, don't comment on the opposing party 4 | Put on the firm's own page | With written authority; family reviews are de-identified first, then signed off one by one ``` Step 1 is sending requests in batches by case type, which is itself the "same case type, sent to everyone" condition; only this way can the reviews that accumulate plausibly match the firm's actual work. For L3's two "is this firm good" questions, all 4 of ChatGPT's answers read out third-party ratings, and every one of them also pointed out that these reviews did not match the practice area asked about — mostly written by clients in other practice areas, or even staff reviews (2026-09-29, n=2 questions). Never prompt a client in the request letter to write about a particular practice area for this reason: that would be dictating the content. Requests are sent by the firm from its own inbox to its own clients; we never handle the client list (a client's identity is itself confidential information, r 6) [Conservative line (not statute text)]. The request template is in Appendix B.2; the template goes into the compliance memo word for word, and is used only once a partner or director has signed it. Step 2's fixed monthly-report sentence, unchanged word for word (Appendix B.3): "The review metric counts only requests sent; star ratings and review counts are observation records, not an acceptance measure." Table headers are in [[通用版 B.4 工单、台账与月报表头]]. Step 3: reply to every review within 72 hours, negative ones included, using the Appendix B.2 template, with three things fixed: 1. **Neither confirm nor deny that the reviewer is a client of the firm, and do not discuss the case** — confirming that someone is a client is itself confidential information (r 6(2)) [Conservative line (not statute text)], 80% confidence. 2. **Never comment on the opposing party** — PD 6.1.1 item (g) reads: "to avoid adverse remarks on the conduct or character of the opposing party.", the Council's own advisory wording [Statute text; see Appendix A.3], applied to review replies [Conservative line (not statute text)], 85% confidence. 3. **Use the same template for every negative review**, with no defence and no retelling of what happened. No personal data appears in any reply: PD 6.1.1 specifically flags compliance with the PDPA; the PDPA's own text was not checked this round [Original text not obtained]. Removing a negative review can only be done by asking the platform to handle offensive content under its own rules; we never edit the wording of a review [Conservative line (not statute text)]. ```split Figure: Family reviews and replies: what a lawyer's sign-off can decide, and what it cannot release A sign-off can decide || A sign-off cannot release Whether this review goes on the website || A child's name, school or address that could identify them Which reply template to use, and when to send it || A combination of details that together identify the child Which sentences of the review to quote || Family proceedings content the court has restricted from publication Whether to write up a family case (see 1.7) || Our own criminal liability as the publisher ``` Whether to republish a family-law client's review, reply to one, or write up a case study, and how — all of it is decided by a partner or director signing off in writing, item by item — this falls under the stop-and-escalate situations in 1.1, which a sign-off can decide. A sign-off cannot release a single one of the four rows on the right of the figure: information that could identify a child or young person involved in the proceedings must not be published, and this stays true even after the child turns 18 (CYPA s 112(1)(a), (1)(c)); not a word may be published of anything under a Family Justice Court order restricting publication (FJA s 10(4)(a), (5)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]. Custody and access proceedings in a divorce fall within s 112, in our own reading [Conservative line (not statute text)], 80% confidence; family hearings are held in private without exception (FJA s 10(1)), so hearing details are treated as not for publication [Conservative line (not statute text)], 85% confidence. The offence falls on the person who publishes or distributes (s 112(5)(b)), and s 112(9) counts both websites and messaging systems as publishing: when a review goes onto the firm's page through our hands, and a reply goes out through our hands, we are the publisher. So for every family-law review and reply, someone we designate runs the de-identification check first (Appendix B.4); a hit means it is not sent for sign-off; even once a lawyer has signed, that does not cover our own responsibility as the publisher. **A written sign-off resolves only the stop-and-escalate situations; it never turns something banned as Statute text into something publishable.** Family-law clients can still be asked. Add one extra line to the request letter: "Please do not include your children's names, schools, or any detail that could identify them." — this restricts identifying information, not the reviewer's opinion, and on this book's reading it does not count as dictating the content [Conservative line (not statute text)]. If a client writes it anyway: do not republish it, and do not repeat a single word of it in the reply; whether to ask the platform to handle it is left to the lawyer. Replies to family-law reviews are sent for sign-off one by one, and the 72-hour deadline still counts; if the sign-off has not come back, reply late rather than send the reply before it is signed. How to sample requests, and the general wording for reply templates, are in [[通用版 6.5 评价：请求怎么发、回复怎么写、空出来的格怎么补]]. ## 6.6 Annual rankings, individual awards and long videos narrated by the lawyer **What you'll do in this section**: for the annual law-firm rankings run jointly by a newspaper and a statistics firm, keep a calendar, ask about the next entry window, send only the participation link, never fill it in on anyone's behalf, and offer no reward; if the firm is listed, write only one sentence of fact plus a link to the original ranking. The Law Society's Practice Excellence Award is given to individual lawyers; nomination is free, and a win is written up on the lawyer's own page. Within 14 days of a thick page going live, pair it with one long video narrated by the lawyer, covering only procedure, the fee structure, and what the firm does and does not take on. The Straits Times × Statista runs an annual "Singapore's Best Law Firms" ranking. Its 2027 edition's survey window, 2026-05-11 to 07-06, has already closed; the page reads "Self-recommendations will not be considered.", with no mention of any fee (checked 2026-09-29, see Appendix B.1). Pass on the participation link once the next survey window opens. Follow the five steps in [[通用版 6.6 年度榜单与站外资产腐烂]]; law firms add only the wording: once listed, the firm's page writes "listed in " plus a link to the original ranking, copying the ranking's name from its own text, stating only the firm's own entry, adding no word like "the best", and never inferring from the ranking that the firm is stronger than another [Conservative line (not statute text)], 80% confidence, on the basis of the service-quality comparison implicit in r 43(1)(c). By default, do not write up an award or ranking placement that can simply be bought [Conservative line (not statute text)], 70% confidence. This ranking has not a single citation across L3's 30 questions (2026-09-29), nor across the 22 family-law questions (2026-09-23): it is worth doing because the page mentions no fee, runs once a year, and sits on an authoritative domain — not because it is already being cited; who gets listed is decided by the organiser and its voters, and all we guarantee is preparing material on time, sending the participation link, and keeping a record. The Law Society's Practice Excellence Award is given to individual lawyers (first awarded in 2025, with a Family category). The Law Society's own text, in four sentences [Statute text; see Appendix A.5]: "Award recipients will receive a commemorative plaque and a special Practice Excellence emblem to showcase in marketing materials." "Nominations for the Practice Excellence Awards are reviewed by an independent selection committee appointed by the Society." "no fees are chargeable for this year’s nomination process." "The Nominator, or the number of nominations received, has no effect on a lawyer’s recognition for the purposes of the award(s)." Three things follow from this: the number of nominations does not affect the outcome, so we do not organise clients or colleagues into mass-nominating [Conservative line (not statute text)]; a win is written up on the winning lawyer's own page — year, the award's full name, who gave it, and the category, with the emblem used in marketing material exactly as the Law Society describes it; the firm's page writes only " of our firm received …", never writing it up as the firm winning [Conservative line (not statute text)]. ```wireframe id=longform-video Figure: the blocks of a video page — every one is text for retrieval to read; no gimmicks of any kind Title | Main question + location + year, in the buyer's own words that match the page's H1 | req On camera | The thick page's named expert, in person, narrating throughout | req Length | 8–15 minutes; under 8 minutes does not count | req Description · line 1 | The full URL of that thick page | req Description · body | The complete transcript, in full | req Description · end | The named expert's person-page URL | req Timestamps | One per H2 of that page, in order, text matching the H2 word for word | req Byline | The one authoritative legal-name spelling, linking back to the person page | req AI voiceover or a slide deck instead of a real person | do not do | no Buying views, boosting, chasing plays | do not do | no Jump cuts, background music, effects, a hook-first opening, cutting into Shorts | do not do | no ``` ```split Figure: What the lawyer's narrated video covers, and what it doesn't Cover || Don't cover Procedure steps, time needed, how many visits || Success rates, promised outcomes Fee structure: billing method, what's included, confirmed in the letter of engagement || Reading out the price list on camera, or showing it on screen Which cases the firm does not take || Comparisons with other firms Rule numbers and court sources || Clients on camera, client reviews Family law: legal points and procedure || Any detail about the child or the hearing ``` The video's spec, acceptance criteria and the correlation it rests on follow [[通用版 6.7 本人口述长视频]]; the person on camera is the same lawyer whose byline is on the thick page. Law firms add only two extra gates. First, the transcript is public-facing publicity — PCR r 2(1) treats any advertisement retrievable from the Internet as "publicity" [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] — so it goes through the same signatory and the same banned-word list as the thick page, with family-law videos additionally passing the de-identification check (6.1), and nothing is published before sign-off. Second, on fees, cover only the structure: the Council has ruled that listing a price list in a TV advertisement is unbefitting the dignity of the profession (PD 6.2.1 D) [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]; applying this to online video is our own reading [Conservative line (not statute text)], so the camera never reads out the price list, and exact figures stay on the page. Do not cut the section on "which cases the firm does not take": PD 6.2.1 D(b)'s example of misleading publicity is exactly this — no experience of contested divorces, handling only uncontested ones, without saying so [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]; applying this to video is our own reading [Conservative line (not statute text)]. As with the annual ranking above, this item has no measured law-firm evidence behind it either: across the two law-firm measurement rounds, not a single YouTube citation turned up (public dataset, family law: 0/171, 2026-09-23; L3, across all three calls: 0/429, 2026-09-29). The only reason left to do it is the General Edition's cross-industry correlation, and that figure measures Google's AI Overviews, not these two legs. So when time is tight, it sits last in this chapter; if we do it, run the 14-day quote-back test anyway, and write the result into the monthly report exactly as it comes out. # Chapter 7 · Monthly retests: how to tell whether it is working Read the General Edition's chapter 7 first; this chapter only covers the cells where law firms read the numbers, fall back and settle differently. This chapter's numbers use two source labels. "L3" = the 30 questions collected on 2026-09-29 (8 practice areas besides family law, plus 5 questions on choosing a lawyer and legal fees that apply across every practice area; 26 English, 4 Chinese): ChatGPT was asked each question independently twice, with run 1 in the main text and run 2 in brackets; AI Mode was asked each question once. "The family set" = the 22 family-law questions from the public dataset's R1/R2 (collected 2026-09-23, each question asked once; AI Mode was only run on R1's 12 questions). Wherever a page type is mentioned, it is labelled heuristically by URL and title, not taken apart page by page by hand. ## 7.1 Monthly retests: how law firms read the numbers **What you'll do in this section**: monthly retests follow the General Edition's three rulers and page-level signals; law firms only change how a few cells are read: record the ChatGPT leg and the AI Mode leg separately, and for each page type read only its own leg's column; seats also count the names of the firm's own lawyers; the firm-website cell is read as the three rounds combined; reviews count only requests sent; list share is not read; the Law Society of Singapore directory listing gets a row of its own. When you're done, you'll have a monthly report reading laid out in two columns, a hit list of page-level signals, and one row of directory-listing readings. ```split Figure: The three rulers stay the same; what law firms change is how the two legs are read, plus reviews, directory listings and list share Reading || How law firms read it Seat count || The two legs recorded separately; a rise counts only beyond the noise band Names in the seats || Both the approved firm name and the firm's own lawyers' names count, fixed when the baseline is frozen On the list and cited X/20 || Unchanged; cited is marked separately for the two legs Factual errors (count) || Unchanged; the baseline uses the 36 runs from 2.3 Reviews || Count only requests sent; star ratings and review counts are observation only Directory-listing citations || A row of their own Page-level signals || Register 2–3 unique fact strings per page List share || Not read ``` ### Record the two legs separately; read each page type in its own column only The Law Firms Edition reads two legs every month. The **ChatGPT leg** is the General Edition's OpenAI API leg; in reports, write it as the General Edition does, "Model-API visibility baseline · OpenAI leg". The **AI Mode leg** is the Google AI Mode answers and citations retrieved through a third-party SERP API, set to the Singapore region only; in reports write "AI Mode leg · third-party API sample", never "what users see on Google". This cell differs between law firms and the General Edition. The General Edition treats the AI Mode leg only as a measured page-type test, not as a monthly ruler ([[通用版 1.2 两条腿：ChatGPT 找源头，AI Mode 找二手]]); for law firms, explainer pages and Chinese pages barely appear on the ChatGPT leg (table below) — without reading the AI Mode leg, chapter 5's explainer pages and Chinese pages would have no monthly reading at all. The General Edition's Gemini model leg and Search Console generative AI report impressions still run and still get read, but neither can substitute for this leg: the Gemini API ≠ AI Mode, and Search Console only shows this site's own impressions — no names, and no visibility into who else the answer cited. | Page | Which column to read | Why (L3, 2026-09-29) | |---|---|---| | Fee guide page, single-matter fee page | Both columns; ChatGPT is the main column | All 12 of ChatGPT's run-1 citations of law-firm websites fall into four question types: price, near me, "is this firm good" and "who's best" (numbers in 4.2) | | Office page | Both columns | The 2 "near me" questions: ChatGPT run 1 cites law-firm websites 3/8 (run 2: 0/8), AI Mode 2/5 | | Explainer pages (process, rules, definitions, checklists, calculations) | AI Mode column only | Across these five types, ChatGPT run 1 cites law-firm websites 0/92 (run 2: 1/103), AI Mode 28/76 | | Chinese pages | AI Mode column only | The 4 Chinese questions: ChatGPT cites Chinese pages 0/47 across both runs, AI Mode 5/22 (Chinese pages judged heuristically by title and URL) | The family set points the same way: of the 13 questions on process, requirements, definitions and rules, ChatGPT cited a law firm in 0 of them (the family set). So for explainer pages and Chinese pages the ChatGPT reading is close to 0 to begin with: that does not count as the work having no effect, and we never tell a client "Write explainer pages and ChatGPT will cite you". The two columns have different denominators: for law-firm websites the ChatGPT column is 12/146 (run 2: 11/161) and the AI Mode column is 47/122 (L3). Read only "who cited which of the firm's pages"; never compare which column is bigger, never merge them into a single "visibility" number, and never plot them on the same bar chart. If this quarter covers two practice areas, each practice area gets its own pair of columns (2.3). The AI Mode leg's number of passes and region parameter are fixed in the week the baseline is frozen, just as the ChatGPT leg's are, and do not change for the rest of the quarter — changing them is changing the ruler ([[通用版 7.5 量具纪律：换尺子就不可比]]). Its variation was not measured this round — L3 asked each question only once — so in the first quarter we measure it ourselves with a same-week retest of 3 extra runs, as the General Edition does, and for the first two months its readings are only listed side by side. Machine run time is measured in minutes (running L3's 30 questions through AI Mode once takes about 3 minutes); the extra time is a person reading the two columns, which goes into step 4 of the ten monthly steps. The AI Mode leg must save the answer text together with its citations to disk: if you only store the citation list, there is nowhere to search for page-level signals. ### Seats: the firm name and lawyer names both count, one seat per firm The definition of a seat is unchanged, word for word, from the General Edition; law firms only need to decide what counts as "your name": the common forms of the approved firm name (the full name with the LLC / LLP suffix, and the short form without it), plus the name of every one of the firm's lawyers as it appears on their practising certificate. The list is fixed in the week the baseline is frozen; a lawyer who joins mid-quarter is only added to the list next quarter — adding a name mid-quarter is changing the ruler. When a lawyer's name and the firm name appear together in the same answer, that counts as the same firm, one seat; naming only the lawyer, with no firm name, still counts as one seat. Total names in this answer follows the same rule: sort every lawyer's name to their own firm before counting. If a keyword microsite gets named, it is counted back to the firm per 2.3. Why lawyer names count: when asked "who's best", ChatGPT often names the lawyers themselves. L3's one "who's best" question about criminal lawyers (single case) listed lawyer names one by one, following one ranking guide's tiers, both times, with the firm name trailing behind, and in a few places only the person's name was given. Counting only firm names would systematically under-count this cell. ### The firm-website cell: read the three rounds together For the 3 rounds of the monthly same-week retest, the firm-website cell reads only the total citations across the three rounds and the number of questions cited in "at least one of the three rounds"; never draw a conclusion from a single round (numbers and reasons: 2.3). The office-page row in the table above is a ready-made example: same day, same two questions, same ruler, only a few minutes apart, and ChatGPT run 1 cited law-firm websites 3/8, run 2 0/8. How to measure the noise band and judge whether a change exceeds it: see [[通用版 7.2 噪声带、页级信号与每月十步]]. ### Reviews: count only requests sent Asking clients to leave reviews [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: the current PCR in full, the revoked Publicity Rules (in full), the full category 6 list on the Law Society's ethics page; check date: 2026-09-29), 70% confidence; when asking, keep to the four conditions — offer no incentive, don't write the review for them, don't ask only satisfied clients, don't dictate the content [Conservative line (not statute text)] (1.5, 6.5). So the only task metric is requests sent: switch the metric to star ratings or review counts, and the only way left to chase the number is picking clients and offering incentives — exactly what the four conditions ban. Next to the number sent, write the number of similar cases closed in the same period, for cross-checking only: if the two numbers are far apart, check first whether clients are being cherry-picked. Star ratings, review counts, reply rate and reply time are logged per [[通用版 B.4 工单、台账与月报表头]], as observation only. The reviews section of the monthly report always adds this sentence, word for word (Appendix B.3): > "The review metric counts only requests sent; star ratings and review counts are observation records, not an acceptance measure." For family clients there are two more rules. First, the monthly report writes numbers only and never quotes review text [Conservative line (not statute text)]: if a review names a child, their school, or a detail that could piece together their identity, and we extract and forward it, we could become "the person who publishes or distributes it" — CYPA s 112(9) defines "publish" to cover even "any messaging system" [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]; the text does not go far enough to say whether a monthly report sent to the firm counts, so we never quote any review at all. Second, before every family-law review reply we draft on the firm's behalf goes for sign-off, it first goes through our de-identification check (Appendix B.4); any hit means it does not go for sign-off. The lawyer's written sign-off decides whether that reply gets published, but it cannot shield us from the publisher's own criminal liability (CYPA s 112(5)(b), FJA s 10(5)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4] (1.7). **A written sign-off resolves only the stop-and-escalate situations; it never turns something banned as Statute text into something publishable.** ### Law Society directory listings: a row of their own This row logs three things every month: how many citations the firm's listing page gets on each leg, and how many questions it covers (ChatGPT combined across the three rounds); whether the 2–3 unique fact strings registered in the listing's blurb have been restated; and whether the firm name, practice areas and contact details on the listing match the firm's website. It gets a row of its own because it is one of the few places that get into ChatGPT's answers to recommendation questions. Of the 7 recommendation questions in L3 (near me 2, is this firm good 2, who's best 3), ChatGPT cited a law firm's listing page in 3 questions (run 1: 2 questions; run 2: 3 questions), and AI Mode in 2. It is also because it is a paid placement: the directory's own page states "the listings are paid by advertising" [Statute text; see Appendix A.5]; whether every cited listing is a paid placement we judged this round only by URL and page title, without checking them one by one. It is the only paid placement worth considering for law firms [Conservative line (not statute text)] (70% confidence); we did not get the rate-card terms [Original text not obtained; see Appendix A.6] — whether to buy it, see 6.2. For firms that already bought it, whether to renew is decided by this row's quarterly numbers, not by the enquiry count. > **Example** (single case) For L3's "who's best" question about personal-injury lawyers, ChatGPT's run-2 answer wrote "its profile says the firm handles …", then paraphrased what one firm had written about itself in that directory listing, its practice areas and years in practice, with the citation attached to that listing page. Sentences a firm writes itself in its listing blurb do get paraphrased, so register page-level signals for it just as you would for the firm's own website. ### List share is not read There are two reasons, and each is enough on its own. First, the share is small: citations that L3 labelled heuristically as list pages are 3/146 for ChatGPT run 1 (run 2: 3/161) and 5/122 for AI Mode; of the family set's 171 citations, 2 were "best"-type articles (the family set, roughly labelled). Second, only one action is left to take: law firms do not build their own list pages [Conservative line (not statute text)] — ranking peers against each other is comparing the quality of services, which hits r 43(1)(c) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; for third-party editorial "best" lists, we only supply checkable facts and send correction letters, we never pay [Conservative line (not statute text)] (0.3, 6.3). Movement in this share does not correspond to any task, so this cell is simply skipped. Ranking guides (peer-reviewed rankings such as Doyle's, Legal 500 and Chambers) do not count as list pages. They were ChatGPT's main source in two "who's best" questions (1 in the family set; 1 in L3's question about criminal lawyers; each a single case — L3's other two "who's best" questions did not cite a ranking guide), and are logged under on the list X/20 as usual; for how to take part, see 3.3. ### Page-level signals: search the two columns separately The registration rule is unchanged from the General Edition: when a page launches, register 2–3 checkable strings that only this page has, then search for them every month in the answer text already saved to disk; if one gets restated, that page was read and its content was trusted. Law firms add only one extra rule: for fee pages, office pages and directory listings, search the strings in both legs' answers; for explainer pages and Chinese pages, search only the AI Mode leg (Chinese pages register Chinese-language strings). > **Example**: when a single-matter fee page launches, register three strings: `` · `S$` · ``. Adjectives, or sentences that appear on other pages too (for example "The final fee is set out in our letter of engagement"), don't count — finding them tells you nothing about which page was actually read. Page 2 of the monthly report names peers on the competitor board; it is for the firm's internal use only and never goes into any publicity [Conservative line (not statute text)]: making a point about a peer's ranking in publicity reads as the comparison of service quality that r 43(1)(c) bans [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. How to order the ten monthly steps, how to judge the noise band and how page-level signals work: see [[通用版 7.1 复测的产出与量具]], [[通用版 7.2 噪声带、页级信号与每月十步]]. The web control leg's 40 minutes are not part of the ten monthly steps; schedule them on their own day at the start of each month. Full spec: see [[通用版 4.4 网页对照腿与冻结基线（全书唯一完整规格）]]. ## 7.2 When next month cannot fill three tasks: thicken explainer pages first; admission and settlement **What you'll do in this section**: in months when points 1 to 3 cannot fill three tasks, first assign fallback A's task of thickening explainer pages, and accept it by reading only the AI Mode column; if that still doesn't fill the quota, move to fallback C (fee-page expansion), then fallback D (a Chinese page, or a long video narrated by a lawyer); referral platforms and paid placements billed per lead are never assigned at any step. Admission depends on whether the firm is willing to publish its fee basis; at week 13, pull an honest before-and-after comparison using the split days logged under 2.4 (one per domain); renewals are quoted on a fixed service fee only. ```mermaid Figure: When three tasks can't be filled, law firms go to fallback A first; referral or per-lead paid placements are never assigned at any step flowchart LR t["Triage → points 1 to 3"] --> q{"Three tasks filled?"} q -->|Yes| done["Assign tasks by the three points"] q -->|No| a["Fallback A: thicken explainers, AI Mode only"]:::hl a -->|Still short| c["Fallback C: fee-page expansion"] c -->|Still short| d["Fallback D: Chinese page or long video"] a -->|Never assigned| x["Referral platforms or per-lead pay"]:::warn ``` Law firms fall under the professional content form (0.1), so when the quota can't be filled, fallback A comes first: fold the landing page for the billable intent with the lowest seat count into its intent cluster and thicken it; the task spec follows the General Edition. Splitting fallbacks by content form rests on a cross-industry query sample that does not include Singapore, at about 75% confidence. For law firms, fallback A comes with one thing to keep in mind: in this profession, explainer pages feed only the AI Mode leg (numbers: the 7.1 table). So fallback A's tasks are accepted by reading only the AI Mode column; the ChatGPT column not moving is not a fallback-A failure. When a family law firm thickens its explainer pages, every newly written paragraph must pass the three family-law rules in 1.7: write mediation and divorce by mutual agreement as the preferred option — family lawyers have a professional duty to advise clients to consider amicable resolution (PCR r 15A(2)(b)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1], and copy that plays up conflict, such as "fight it all the way", is not written [Conservative line (not statute text)]; to add a case study, it must first pass the de-identification check (Appendix B.4), then be signed off in writing by a partner or director; anything that could identify a child involved in the proceedings (CYPA s 112), or anything covered by a court order restricting publication (FJA s 10), is not written even with a sign-off [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]. Fallback C is fee-page expansion: add to the same table any services the firm handles that the fee guide page does not yet cover; on the same day, re-copy the court-fees column from the court's page and update the date retrieved; write every row in full per 1.2 — service tier, defining conditions, billing method, fixed fee or range, what's included and charged separately, payment stages, "The final fee is set out in our letter of engagement"; never write a comparison of fees against peers (r 43(1)(c)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. Asking about price is the question type for which ChatGPT cites law-firm websites most often (L3 run 1: 5 of the 12 citations; see 4.2); of the three fallbacks, this is the only step aimed at the question type for which ChatGPT has actually cited law-firm websites. Fallback D is a Chinese page, or pairing an existing thick page with a long video narrated by a lawyer. Chinese pages are only built when the firm has Chinese-speaking clients, and are accepted by reading only the AI Mode leg (5.3). Writing the firm's name in Chinese requires written approval (LPE Rules r 7) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2]; applied to a Chinese page, only use the approved Chinese name — where there is none, write the approved English name and never translate it yourself [Conservative line (not statute text)] (85% confidence). The video only covers procedure, how fees are made up, and what the firm does and does not handle; it never covers success rates, and clients never appear on camera (6.6). The "never assigned" branch in the figure is fixed: for platforms that refer, assign or match cases for law firms, and placements that charge per lead, per completed engagement or by commission, the firm paying for them breaches r 39(2)(b) and r 19 [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; the firm does not pay a referral platform a fixed entry fee either [Conservative line (not statute text)] (80% confidence). Not being able to fill three tasks is a reason to switch to a different content action, not a reason to go and buy leads. Reddit's share is read monthly as in the General Edition; for law firms it's very low: across ChatGPT's two runs, L3 cites forums and social media a combined 1/307 (and that one isn't Reddit), AI Mode 2/122 (of which 1 is Reddit). If it ever does cross 2% and a Reddit task needs scheduling, that post is still the firm's publicity: write it per chapter 1 and put it through sign-off, and the post contains no touting (r 39(1)) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. ### Admission: will the firm publish its fee basis? Admission for law firms asks "is the firm willing to publish its fee basis": billing method, plus a fixed fee or range, plus what's included and what isn't. This is not the General Edition's "definite, checkable price", nor the dental edition's itemised fixed price. You can write a range [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: the PCR in full [including Part 5 (r 37–49), r 17, r 18 and r 18A], all category 6 PDs and GNs on the Law Society's ethics page, the revoked Publicity Rules (in full); check date: 2026-09-29), 75% confidence; for the wording, see 1.2. Using "does it write a definite price" to judge admission would wrongly knock out a compliant firm that simply prices in ranges. Firms that failed the second start gate at kickoff have already been downgraded (0.2): no fee pages are scheduled, the work feeds AI Mode only, and acceptance reads only the AI Mode leg. Firms still unwilling to publish their fee basis by week 13 do nothing but hold position next quarter — fee pages are one of the few cells on a firm's website that can get into a ChatGPT answer, and withholding the fee basis is giving up that column. ### Settlement: split days by domain, renewals on fixed service fees only How points 1 to 3 are picked, the five-layer triage with no skipping layers, the eight-step settlement order at week 13 (D90), and the five holding checks: see [[通用版 7.3 没动分诊与下月三个点]], [[通用版 7.4 守位与九十天结账]]; law firms don't rewrite these, they only change four things: 1. **Split days are counted by domain**: the main site and every keyword microsite each have their own split day, and merging a microsite into the main site gets its own extra date logged (2.4). Before-and-after comparisons are cut at each one's own split day; never cut every domain at the same date. 2. **Settle the two legs separately**: at the three points — the start, day 60 and day 90 — the ChatGPT column and the AI Mode column are each compared against themselves, each with its own noise band; "seats beyond the band, or cited pages +3" is also judged column by column, never adding the two columns together to make the number. Explainer pages and Chinese pages settle in the AI Mode column only. 3. **Renewals are quoted on a fixed service fee only**: the enquiry-source count in the settlement report (the "How did you find us?" field required on forms, calls and WhatsApp) goes into a reference column only — never into acceptance, and never into next quarter's quote. If we charge per lead, per case, per signed client or as a percentage of legal fees, we may commit the offence in LPA s 33(3); the firm paying a percentage of its legal fees, or a share per case, breaches r 19, and paying per lead or per signed client falls within r 39(2)(b) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1, A.2]. Working on a fixed service fee [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: all of LPA s 33; check date: 2026-09-29), 70% confidence. 4. **In the settlement week, also recheck the reclassification triggers**: whether the PCR's timeline on SSO shows a new amendment, whether the Law Society's ethics page has a new Practice Direction on publicity, and whether the written guidance the client exports from their members' account, or the Ethics Digests, contain a ruling like "fee ranges or price lists on a website are unbefitting the dignity of the profession" or "lawyers may not ask clients for reviews". If any of these hits, the whole book moves law firms to the strictly regulated side in that quarter, per 0.2; if a client firm sets out a stricter position in writing, the whole book is not changed — only that firm follows the stricter position. To the outside world, we only state the cells that can be verified: the deliverables list, pages on the list, and factual errors (count), each with a screenshot of the original attached. Seat counts are only listed side by side; we never promise a number, and we never promise which page ChatGPT will cite. # Appendix A · The rules word for word, with sources Every time the main text says "see Appendix A" for a rule, you can find the rule number, the original sentence, the link and the label here. The label column copies the judgement the main text has already made; nothing is re-judged here — this appendix only gives the source line behind that judgement, so you can check it and show the original wording to the firm's partner or compliance officer. What the three labels mean: see [[通用版 0.4 合规句的三档标签与停笔规则]]. The Law Firms Edition adds two rules on how the labels are applied: **Practice Directions (PD) and Guidance Notes (GN) issued by the Council of the Law Society of Singapore are the regulator's own words in black and white, so they count as Statute text — but where the original wording uses "should", "advisable" or "good practice", we quote it as written and say plainly that it is advice; where the current rules do not prohibit something and we go ahead on that basis, we label it Original text not obtained, always followed by the fixed sentence "no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: …; check date: 2026-09-29)"** — to the client, say only "we found no rule that prohibits it", never "the rules allow it". **What we read and what we did not read** (check date 2026-09-29): - **What we read**: SSO's provision-by-provision pages for the PCR, the Legal Profession Act, its three subsidiary rules, the FJA and the CYPA. A direct command-line connection to SSO was blocked every time by the site's firewall and redirected to a verification page; this round we cleared the check with a real browser and then pulled the text provision by provision, taking the version from each instrument's timeline, and every page showed "Current version as at 29 Sep 2026". The 12 PDs and 2 GNs on the Law Society's ethics page were redownloaded from the original links, compared word for word, with the date on each one checked. The current Specialist Accreditation page of the Singapore Academy of Law (SAL), SAL's *Marketing Your Accreditation* guide and its Family Law accreditation documents: SAL's website has a human-verification check, and this round we used a real browser to get the current versions; the archived copies are used only to compare against earlier editions. The Law Society's "Find A Featured Lawyer/Law Firm" directory page, its Practice Excellence Awards page and the "Search for a Lawyer or Law Practice" page of the Legal Services Regulatory Authority (LSRA) were read on 2026-09-29 itself. We also read the revoked Publicity Rules in full, the *Law Gazette* article on online publicity from August 2012, and the Law Society's Ethics Resources Factsheet page. - **What we did not read**: the more than 100 pieces of written ethics guidance the Advisory Committee has issued since 2015, and the 2019 and 2020 Ethics Digests, in the Law Society's members' area — the download links returned a login page; the rate-card terms for the Law Society's paid directory — the original page returns 404; and the remaining items in the "Original texts we could not get" table at the end of A.6. This batch of members'-area documents may contain case-specific rulings on website fee pages or client reviews, and is the main margin behind the 75% confidence in the side decision: **before the first law-firm client's work starts, ask that firm to export them using a members' account** — this is one step in the pre-work checklist. ```mermaid Figure: which layer of the original text we got, for each of five kinds of document — the members'-area kind is what we didn't get, and it's the main margin behind the side-decision confidence flowchart LR sso["SSO provision pages: PCR, LPA, 7 in all"] -->|checked word for word| t1["A.1, A.2, A.4: Statute text"]:::hl pd["Law Society's 12 PDs, 2 GNs"] -->|redownloaded, compared word for word| t3["A.3: Statute text, advice noted"] sal["SAL's current pages and guides"] -->|browser: got the current version| t5["A.5: regulators and SAL's own practice"] mem["Members'-area guidance and Ethics Digest"] -->|returned a login page| miss["Not obtained; client exports before work starts"]:::warn old["The revoked Publicity Rules"] -->|comparison only| hist["A.6: history"] ``` Source links (the URL column in the table below gives only the short name plus the provision-page suffix `?ProvIds=prN-`; append it to the matching address below to get the link): the PCR is the *Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules 2015* (S 706/2015), `sso.agc.gov.sg/SL/LPA1966-S706-2015`, current version 04 May 2022 (Amended by S 334/2022); the LPA is the *Legal Profession Act 1966* `sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/LPA1966`, current version 17 Apr 2025 (Amended by Act 37 of 2023); the LPE Rules is the *Legal Profession (Law Practice Entities) Rules 2015* (S 699/2015) `sso.agc.gov.sg/SL/LPA1966-S699-2015`, current version 11 Oct 2024 (Amended by S 776/2024); the RI Rules is the *Legal Profession (Regulated Individuals) Rules 2015* (S 701/2015) `sso.agc.gov.sg/SL/LPA1966-S701-2015`, current version 11 Oct 2024 (Amended by S 777/2024); the CFA Regulations is the *Legal Profession (Conditional Fee Agreement) Regulations 2022* (S 333/2022) `sso.agc.gov.sg/SL/LPA1966-S333-2022`, 04 May 2022, not amended; the FJA is the *Family Justice Act 2014* `sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/FJA2014`, current version 15 Oct 2024; the CYPA is the *Children and Young Persons Act 1993* `sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/CYPA1993`, as at 29 Sep 2026 (s 112's note to (1A) wef 15/10/2024). The Law Society's PDs and GNs are listed at the start of A.3; the revoked *Legal Profession (Publicity) Rules* (R 13, 2010 RevEd) `sso.agc.gov.sg/SL-Rev/161-R13/Published/20100531?DocDate=20100531` was revoked by PCR r 51(b) and is used only to trace the history. ## A.1 PCR 2015: publicity, confidentiality, fees, titles **What you'll do in this section**: when the main text cites a PCR rule number, come to this table by that number to check the original sentence, the link and the label; once checked, use it as is — do not re-judge here whether the ban holds. Where the label says Original text not obtained plus the fixed sentence, that is something the current rules do not prohibit and we go ahead on that basis; never describe it to the client as "the rules allow it". The PCR are the professional conduct rules that the Professional Conduct Council made under LPA s 71(2). The publicity rules sit mainly in Part 5 (r 37–49); alongside them are r 6 on confidentiality, r 17–19 on fees and r 33 on titles. Part 5 governs lawyers and law firms, not us: for every piece we write or publish for a firm, the lawyer is responsible as for their own publicity (r 42(1)); the criminal liability we carry ourselves sits in the LPA and the family-law provisions — see A.2, A.4. | Rule number | Original sentence | URL | Label | Used in | |---|---|---|---|---| | r 2(1), "publicity" | "“publicity” means any form of advertisement, and includes any advertisement that —(a) is printed or contained in any medium for the communication of information; or (b) appears in, or is communicated through or retrievable from, any mass medium (electronic or otherwise) or the Internet, and “publicise”, “publicised” and “publicising” are to be construed accordingly;" GN 6.1.1 para 30 states the same: "Publicity conducted through the Internet is subject to Part 5 of the PCR 2015" | PCR `?ProvIds=pr2-` | Statute text | 0.2, 2.4, 3.4 | | r 3(7) who Part 5 governs | "Part 5 applies —(a) to the following legal practitioners: (i) every solicitor who has in force a practising certificate or is registered under section 36F of the Act; (ii) every person admitted under section 15 of the Act; (iii) every foreign lawyer who is registered under section 36B of the Act; (b) to every Singapore law practice; and (c) to the following law practices, in connection with the practice of Singapore law: (i) every Joint Law Venture; (ii) every Formal Law Alliance; (iii) every Qualifying Foreign Law Practice; (iv) every licensed foreign law practice." Note: the second half of (a)(i) quotes LPA s 36F, which has been repealed (SSO: "36F. [Repealed by Act 22 of 2018]"), so the "registered under section 36F" half is now empty; the first half still covers a lawyer holding a valid practising certificate | PCR `?ProvIds=pr3-` | Statute text | 0.2 | | r 6(2), 6(3)(a) confidentiality and client authorisation | "(2) … a legal practitioner must not knowingly disclose any information which —(a) is confidential to his or her client; and (b) is acquired by the legal practitioner … in the course of the legal practitioner’s engagement. (3) A legal practitioner may disclose any information referred to in paragraph (2), if —(a) the client referred to in paragraph (2) authorises the disclosure;" | PCR `?ProvIds=pr6-` | Statute text; confirming that someone is or was the firm's client is itself confidential information: Conservative line (not statute text) (80% confidence) | 1.4, 1.5, 5.15, 6.5, B.2 | | r 15A(2)(b) duty to encourage amicable resolution | "from the time those proceedings are contemplated, and whenever it is reasonably possible, advise the client to consider resolving those proceedings amicably; and" | PCR `?ProvIds=pr15A-` | Statute text (a practising duty to the client, not a publicity provision); in family-law content, do not write copy that plays up conflict, such as "fight it all the way" or "make the other side pay": Conservative line (not statute text) (65% confidence) | 1.7, 5.7 | | r 17(3), r 18, r 18A fee disclosure, contingency fees and the CFA exception | r 17(3): "A legal practitioner must —(a) inform his or her client of the basis on which fees for professional services will be charged, and of the manner in which those fees and disbursements (if any) are to be paid by the client; (b) inform the client of any other reasonably foreseeable payments that the client may have to make, either to the legal practitioner or to any other party, and of the stages at which those payments are likely to be required; …" ((c)(d) separately require an estimate on request and say the final bill must not depart materially from it). r 18: "A legal practitioner or law practice must not enter into any negotiations with a client …—(a) for an interest in the subject matter of litigation or of any other contentious proceedings; or (b) except to the extent permitted by any applicable scale of costs, for remuneration proportionate to the amount which may be recovered by the client in the proceedings." r 18A (S 334/2022, wef 04/05/2022): "(1) Rules 17 and 18 do not prevent a legal practitioner or law practice from doing either or both of the following: (a) entering into negotiations for, or entering into, a conditional fee agreement that complies with Part 8A of the Act; …" | PCR `?ProvIds=pr17-`, `pr18-`, `pr18A-` | Statute text (r 17(3) is a duty to inform the client at the time of engagement; it belongs in the letter of engagement and is not a publicity provision, so it shows only that publishing "a range plus billing method" points the same way as the lawyer's own duty) | 1.2, 5.20 | | r 19 no fee-sharing with non-lawyers | "(1) A legal practitioner must not share the legal practitioner’s fees with, or pay a commission to, any unauthorised person for any legal work performed by the legal practitioner. (2) A law practice must not share its fees with, or pay a commission to, any unauthorised person for any legal work performed by the law practice." Note: we are an unauthorised person within the meaning of r 2(1); any marketing fee charged as a percentage of legal fees or a share of the case puts the firm itself in breach | PCR `?ProvIds=pr19-` | Statute text | 0.2, 6.1, 6.2 | | r 32 supervising staff | "A legal practitioner must, regardless of the legal practitioner’s designation in a law practice, exercise proper supervision over the staff working under the legal practitioner in the law practice." | PCR `?ProvIds=pr32-` | Statute text | 6.1 | | r 33(1)–(4) the approved list of titles | r 33(1): "A legal practitioner who is an advocate and solicitor must not describe himself or herself in connection with his or her profession as anything other than —(a) an advocate and solicitor; (b) a lawyer; (c) a legal consultant (if qualified to be one); (d) a Commissioner for Oaths (if appointed as one); (e) a Notary Public (if appointed as one); or (f) such other description as may be approved by the Council from time to time." r 33(2)–(4): a foreign lawyer may only be called "a foreign lawyer", "a legal consultant (if qualified to be one)" or a description the Council has approved; "Paragraph (1) does not prevent a Senior Counsel appointed under section 30 of the Act from describing himself or herself … as a Senior Counsel." | PCR `?ProvIds=pr33-` | Statute text; "Divorce Specialist" or "Family Law Expert" used as a title (under the name, on a business card, in a directory's title field): Conservative line (not statute text) (75% confidence) | 1.6, 3.2 | | r 37 dignity | "A legal practitioner must not engage in publicity, or procure any work or engagement for himself or herself, the law practice in which he or she practises or any other person, in circumstances which affect the dignity and standing of the legal profession." | PCR `?ProvIds=pr37-` | Statute text | 1.1 | | r 39(1), 39(2)(b) touting and consideration for a referral | r 39(1): "A legal practitioner or law practice must not tout for business or do anything which is likely to lead to a reasonable inference that the thing was done for the purpose of touting." ("tout" is not defined in the PCR). r 39(2): "Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph (1), where there is reason to believe that a client is referred to a legal practitioner or law practice by any other person, the legal practitioner or law practice — … (b) must not reward the referror by the payment of any commission or other form of consideration;" (the same paragraph also has (a), (c)–(g): stay independent, do not let the referral affect the advice, confirm instructions directly with the client, and so on) | PCR `?ProvIds=pr39-` | Statute text (the ban covers more than commission; any form of consideration counts); paying a fixed fee to join a referral or matching platform also counts as "other form of consideration": Conservative line (not statute text) (80% confidence) | 5.6, 6.1, 6.2 | | r 40(1)(c) conveyancing-referral agreements | "any publicity of the referror (whether written or otherwise), which refers to any service that may be provided by the legal practitioner or law practice, must not suggest any of the following: (i) that the conveyancing service is free; (ii) that different charges are payable for the conveyancing service, depending on whether the client instructs the legal practitioner or law practice; (iii) …" This governs conveyancing referrals only; PD 7.4.3 D.2 extends the same requirements to motor-accident and personal-injury referrals (see A.3) | PCR `?ProvIds=pr40-` | Statute text | 6.2 | | r 41 publicising the firm | "Subject to these Rules, a legal practitioner may —(a) publicise the legal practitioner’s practice, or the practice of a law practice of which the legal practitioner is a director, a partner or an employee; or (b) allow the employees of the law practice to do so." Note: (b) only lets the firm's own employees publicise for the firm; it is not the basis for an outside agency publishing on its behalf | PCR `?ProvIds=pr41-` | Statute text | 0.2, 6.1 | | r 42(1)–(4) publicity done for you still counts as yours; correction; take-down; the Law Society's armorial bearings | r 42(1): "A legal practitioner must ensure that any publicity relating to the legal practitioner’s practice complies with these Rules, whether that publicity is by the legal practitioner or by any other person on the legal practitioner’s behalf." r 42(2): "Where a legal practitioner becomes aware of any impropriety in any publicity relating to the legal practitioner’s practice …, the legal practitioner must use the legal practitioner’s best endeavours to procure the rectification or withdrawal of the publicity, and to prevent the recurrence of the impropriety." (with the ellipsis filled in, the subject reads "the legal practitioner’s practice or the practice of a law practice of which the legal practitioner is a director or a partner": the duty to procure rectification or withdrawal falls only on the practitioner personally and on the firm's directors and partners, not on employed lawyers). r 42(3): "Where the Council determines that any publicity relating to the practice of a legal practitioner or law practice is contrary to any provision of these Rules, the Council may order the legal practitioner or law practice to alter, withdraw, remove or discontinue the publicity or cause the publicity to be altered, withdrawn, removed or discontinued." r 42(4): "A legal practitioner or law practice must ensure that any publicity relating to the practice of the legal practitioner or law practice does not make use of the armorial bearings of the Society." | PCR `?ProvIds=pr42-` | Statute text; publishing on a firm's behalf: Original text not obtained: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: the PCR in full; check date: 2026-09-29), 85% confidence, on the basis that the wording of r 42(1) already assumes a case of publication by "any other person on the legal practitioner’s behalf"; applying r 42(2) to an entry a third party posts on its own initiative in a directory or a best-of list: Conservative line (not statute text) (65% confidence) | 0.2, 1.1, 3.4, 6.1 | | r 43(1)(a), 43(2) expertise must be justified; the seven factors | r 43(1)(a): "When a legal practitioner publicises the legal practitioner’s practice or the practice of a law practice of which the legal practitioner is a director, a partner or an employee, the legal practitioner must ensure that —(a) any claim to expertise or specialisation can be justified;" r 43(2): "For the purposes of paragraph (1)(a), the following factors may be taken into account in justifying any claim to expertise or specialisation: (a) academic qualifications; (b) experience; (c) proportion of working time involved; (d) level of success achieved; (e) complexity of law and practice; (f) significance of the matters involving the legal practitioner or the law practice …; (g) assessment by peers." | PCR `?ProvIds=pr43-` | Statute text | 1.6, 3.2, 3.3, 5.22, B.4 | | r 43(1)(b)(i)(ii) past cases, success rate | "(b) the publicity does not make any direct or indirect mention of —(i) any past case in which, or any client for whom, the legal practitioner, the law practice or any member of the law practice had acted, if the provision of any such information will result in a breach of any duty of confidentiality owed to a client or former client of the legal practitioner or law practice; or (ii) the success rate of the legal practitioner, the law practice or any member of the law practice;" | PCR `?ProvIds=pr43-` | Statute text (the success-rate item has no exception at all in the original wording) | 1.4, 5.8, 5.15, 5.21, 6.4 | | r 43(1)(c) no comparing fees or quality with peers | "(c) the publicity does not make any comparison or criticism in relation to the fees charged, or the quality of the services provided, by any other legal practitioner or law practice." | PCR `?ProvIds=pr43-` | Statute text (comparing fees or service quality with a peer: whether the peer is named, can be identified, or appears in the same table or passage as the firm's own price, it falls under this sentence, and so do "cheapest", "lower than other firms" and "market rate is X, ours is Y"); an unnamed market range in a sentence of its own, with no firm price beside it, is not written either: Conservative line (not statute text) (85% confidence; the original "any other" does not require naming); calling yourself No. 1, top or best: Conservative line (not statute text) (80% confidence, on the basis of this rule's implied quality comparison plus r 44(2)(c), information that cannot be verified) | 0.2, 1.3, 1.6, 5.4, 5.5, 5.7, 5.8, 5.11 | | r 43(3) a former lawyer appointed to the judiciary | "any publicity relating to the law practice must not refer to the legal practitioner’s appointment to the judiciary during the tenure of the legal practitioner’s judicial office;" (the name appearing as part of the firm's name is not restricted) | PCR `?ProvIds=pr43-` | Statute text | 1.4 | | r 43(4) touting is never permitted | "These Rules do not permit the doing of anything which may reasonably be regarded as touting by —(a) a legal practitioner; (b) a law practice; or (c) a director, a partner or an employee of a law practice." | PCR `?ProvIds=pr43-` | Statute text | 6.4 | | r 44(1)(a)(b)(c) misleading, dignity, an undesirable manner the Council determines | "A legal practitioner must not publicise … in a manner which —(a) is likely to diminish public confidence in the legal profession or to otherwise bring the legal profession into disrepute; (b) may reasonably be regarded as being misleading, deceptive, inaccurate, false or unbefitting the dignity of the legal profession; or (c) the Council may determine to be an undesirable manner of publicising the practice of a legal practitioner or law practice." | PCR `?ProvIds=pr44-` | Statute text; discounts, limited-time framing, a promotional tone and an eye-catching price poster: Conservative line (not statute text) (60% confidence) | 1.1, 1.2 | | r 44(2)(a)–(d) what counts as misleading | "For the purpose of these Rules, publicity is misleading, deceptive, inaccurate or false if —(a) it contains a material misrepresentation; (b) it omits to state a material fact; (c) it contains any information which cannot be verified; or (d) it is likely to create an unjustified expectation about the results that can be achieved by the legal practitioner or the law practice …" | PCR `?ProvIds=pr44-` | Statute text | 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 5.7 | | r 45(1)(2) sponsorship acknowledgements: names only | A lawyer may donate, sponsor or give free services, and the recipient may acknowledge them publicly; the lawyer "must take reasonable steps to ensure" that the acknowledgement "does not state any information pertaining to the legal practitioner or law practice except —(a) in the case of a contribution made by a legal practitioner, the legal practitioner’s name, the fact that the legal practitioner is a legal practitioner, and the name of the law practice …; and (b) in the case of a contribution made by a law practice, the name of the law practice." | PCR `?ProvIds=pr45-` | Statute text (the duty is to take reasonable steps to ensure this, not a guaranteed outcome) | 5.20 | | r 46 bringing the firm into a third party's own publicity | "Subject to the Act and these Rules —(a) a legal practitioner may allow the legal practitioner’s practice or the practice of the law practice of which the legal practitioner is a director, a partner or an employee; and (b) a law practice may allow its practice, to be publicised in, or in conjunction with, the publicity of any third party, whether or not the party is a client of the legal practitioner or law practice." Note: this rule governs a third party bringing the firm into its own publicity; it is not the basis for "an agency publishing under the firm's name" | PCR `?ProvIds=pr46-` | Statute text | 6.3 | | r 47(2)(3) free legal advice | When giving free legal advice at a legal aid clinic, only the lawyer's name, the fact that they are a lawyer and the firm's name may be made public; the lawyer must not "(a) distribute any of the legal practitioner’s business cards or any brochure, leaflet or pamphlet …; or (b) act for any person to whom the legal practitioner has given such free legal advice, unless the legal practitioner acts for that person in a pro bono capacity." | PCR `?ProvIds=pr47-` | Statute text | 5.20 | | r 48, r 49 where publicity counts as taking place | r 48: "(1) A legal practitioner may publicise … in a country other than Singapore, and where the legal practitioner does so, rules 43 to 47 do not apply. (2) … the legal practitioner must ensure that the publicity is not conducted in a manner that is contrary to the laws of that country." r 49: "(a) publicity is conducted in a jurisdiction in which the publicity is reasonably expected to be received or accessible in the normal course of events; and (b) publicity is not conducted in a jurisdiction if the receipt of the publicity in the jurisdiction is incidental." | PCR `?ProvIds=pr48-`, `pr49-` | Statute text; a Chinese-language page that is ordinarily accessible in Singapore is still Singapore publicity, and r 43–47 still apply: Conservative line (not statute text) (85% confidence) | 5.3 | ## A.2 The Legal Profession Act (LPA 1966) and subsidiary rules: practising, names, intermediary offences, penalties, contingency fees **What you'll do in this section**: when you check practising eligibility, a firm's name and suffix, the intermediary offences we ourselves can commit, disciplinary penalties, and "no win no fee", come to this table to check the original sentence and the link. The three s 33 rows govern us, not lawyers: before drafting a price quotation, a contract or our own marketing material, check it against them. There are two offences in the LPA that we ourselves can commit: s 33(3), placing a lawyer's services at someone's disposal for a fee, and s 33(1)(b), implying we are qualified to practise (the table below); the family-law provisions add CYPA s 112(5)(b) and FJA s 10(5) (A.4). Of these, s 33(3) governs directly how we may charge: for law-firm clients we **charge only a fixed service fee, never per lead, per case, per signed client, or as a percentage of legal fees** — charging in any of those ways, we may commit the offence under s 33(3); on the firm's side, paying as a percentage of legal fees or a share of the case breaches PCR r 19, and paying per lead or per signed client falls under r 39(2)(b); in our own sales and marketing material, **we never write "our legal team", and we never say we offer "free legal consultation"**. | Rule number | Original sentence | URL | Label | Used in | |---|---|---|---|---| | s 30(1), (6) Senior Counsel | "A Selection Committee comprising the Chief Justice, the Attorney‑General and the Justices of the Court of Appeal may appoint an advocate and solicitor … as Senior Counsel if the Selection Committee is of the opinion that, by virtue of the person’s ability, standing at the Bar or special knowledge or experience in law, he or she is deserving of such distinction." s 30(6): must have accumulated at least 10 years in total (paraphrased; which qualifications count towards those 10 years was not extracted word for word this round) | LPA `?ProvIds=pr30-` | Statute text | 1.6, 3.2 | | s 32(1) practising eligibility | "a person must not practise as an advocate and solicitor or do any act as an advocate and solicitor unless —(a) his or her name is on the roll of advocates and solicitors; and (b) he or she has in force a practising certificate." (the original opens with "Subject to this Part and Part 4A,") | LPA `?ProvIds=pr32-` | Statute text | 0.2 | | s 33(1)(b) a non-lawyer implying they may practise | "wilfully or falsely pretends to be, or takes or uses any name, title, addition or description implying that he or she is duly qualified or authorised to act as an advocate or a solicitor, or that he or she is recognised by law as so qualified or authorised," penalty: "a fine not exceeding $25,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or to both"; for a repeat offence, a fine of up to S$50,000 or up to 12 months' imprisonment | LPA `?ProvIds=pr33-` | Statute text (the offence itself and the penalty); wording such as "our legal team" or "free legal consultation by us" falls under this section: Conservative line (not statute text) (75% confidence) | 0.4, 6.1 | | s 33(3)(4)(5) placing a lawyer's services at someone's disposal for a fee | "(3) Any unauthorised person who, for or in expectation of any fee, gain or reward, offers or agrees to place at the disposal of any other person the services of an advocate and solicitor shall be guilty of an offence." (4): "Subsection (3) does not apply to any person who offers or agrees to place at the disposal of any other person the services of an advocate and solicitor pursuant to a lawful contract of indemnity or insurance." "(5) Every person who is convicted of an offence under subsection (2) or (3) shall be liable for a first offence to a fine not exceeding $10,000 or in default of payment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 months and for a second or subsequent offence to a fine not exceeding $25,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or to both." | LPA `?ProvIds=pr33-` | Statute text; running a firm's marketing for a fixed monthly fee does not amount to "place at the disposal": Original text not obtained: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: all of LPA s 33; check date: 2026-09-29), 70% confidence; we found no case law or guidance confirming it | 0.2, 6.1 | | s 33(6)(7)(7A)(8) separate penalties for the corporation, its directors, employees and partners | "(6) Any act done by a body corporate which in the case of a person would be an offence under subsection (1), (2) or (3) … shall be an offence and the body corporate shall be liable on conviction for a first offence to a fine not exceeding $25,000 and for a second or subsequent offence to a fine not exceeding $50,000. (7) Where an act mentioned in subsection (6) is done by a director, an officer or an employee of the body corporate, the director, officer or employee shall (without affecting the liability of the body corporate) be liable to the punishments provided in subsection (5)." (7A): an LLP's partners, officers and employees are separately liable in the same way (paraphrased). (8): "Where any firm does an act which in the case of a person would be an offence under subsection (1), (2) or (3), every member of the firm is deemed to have committed that offence unless he or she proves that he or she was unaware of the commission of the act." | LPA `?ProvIds=pr33-` | Statute text | 6.1 | | s 71(7)(9) the legal force of PDs | s 71(7): the PCR prevails over "any practice directions, guidance notes and rulings (relating to professional practice, etiquette, conduct and discipline) issued by the Council or the Society"; s 71(9): these documents "continue in force until they are revoked". Separately: PCR r 44(1)(c) bans the manner of publicising that "the Council may determine to be an undesirable manner of publicising", and PD 6.2.2 B is a determination made under that limb (original wording: see A.1, A.3) | LPA `?ProvIds=pr71-` | Statute text | 0.2, 1.1 | | s 75D "Consultant" requires 10 years | "a solicitor must not take or use the title of consultant unless he or she has, for a period of not less than 10 years in the aggregate, been —(a) a solicitor in practice; …" "(2) Any solicitor who contravenes subsection (1) shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $10,000." | LPA `?ProvIds=pr75D-` | Statute text | 1.6 | | s 78(1)(e) must not employ anyone on the touts list | A lawyer must not employ anyone on the Family Justice Courts' touts list (FJA s 39, see A.4), nor pay them — paraphrased: the provision has been checked against SSO, but the original sentence was not extracted word for word this round | LPA `?ProvIds=pr78-` | Statute text (original sentence to be extracted before it is quoted) | 1.7 | | s 83(1), (2)(b)(d)(e)(f), (7) disciplinary penalties and exemptions | s 83(1): "All advocates and solicitors are subject to the control of the Supreme Court and shall be liable on due cause shown —(a) to be struck off the roll of advocates and solicitors; (b) to be suspended from practice for a period not exceeding 5 years; (c) to pay a penalty of not more than $100,000; (d) to be censured; or (e) to suffer the punishment referred to in paragraph (c) in addition to the punishment referred to in paragraph (b) or (d)." Grounds include s 83(2)(b)(i): breaching a rule made under s 71, amounting to improper conduct (paraphrased). s 83(2): "(d) has tendered or given or consented to retention, out of any fee payable to him or her for his or her services, of any gratification for having procured the employment in any legal business of himself or herself, of any other advocate and solicitor …; (e) has, directly or indirectly, procured or attempted to procure the employment of himself or herself, of any advocate and solicitor … through or by the instruction of any person to whom any remuneration for obtaining such employment has been given by him or her or agreed or promised to be so given; (f) has accepted employment in any legal business through a person who has been proclaimed a tout under any written law relating thereto;" s 83(7): "The Minister may make rules for the exemption from subsection (2)(d) or (e) …" | LPA `?ProvIds=pr83-` | Statute text (checking the full table of the LPA's current subsidiary legislation on SSO on 2026-09-29 found no exemption rules made under s 83(7): there is no exception available for consideration paid for a referral) | 0.2, 6.2 | | s 85(1) complaints | "Any complaint of the conduct of a regulated legal practitioner —(a) must be made to the Society in writing; …" (1)(b)(c) separately require the complainant to state whether a complaint on the same facts already exists, and to attach the statutory declaration the Council requires (paraphrased) | LPA `?ProvIds=pr85-` | Statute text (the threshold is a written complaint plus a statutory declaration; a peer may complain) | 0.4 | | s 88(1)(4)(5) Council penalties and Gazette notices | The Council may "give him or her a warning, reprimand him or her or order him or her to pay a penalty of not more than $10,000"; a penalty or a reprimand triggers the duty to "publish in the Gazette a notice", and the notice "must contain the name of the regulated legal practitioner, the nature of the misconduct committed by him or her and the penalty" | LPA `?ProvIds=pr88-` | Statute text (only a penalty order and a reprimand go in the Gazette; a warning does not) | 0.2 | | s 107(1)(b), (3AA); s 115B(1), (4)(b) payment only on success, and CFAs | s 107(1)(b): "A solicitor must not — … (b) enter into any agreement by which he or she is retained or employed to prosecute any suit or action or other contentious proceeding which stipulates for or contemplates payment only in the event of success in that suit, action or proceeding." s 107(3AA): "This section does not prevent a solicitor from entering into a conditional fee agreement that complies with Part 8A." s 115B(1): "A solicitor, a foreign lawyer or a law practice entity may make with a client a conditional fee agreement in relation to remuneration or costs in prescribed proceedings." s 115B(4)(b): "the conditional fee agreement must not provide for the remuneration or costs to be payable as a percentage or proportion of the amount of damages or other amounts awarded to or recovered by the client in any contentious proceedings;" | LPA `?ProvIds=pr107-`, `pr115B-` | Statute text | 1.2 | | s 131(1), s 138, s 153 firm licensing and name approval | "A solicitor who wishes to practise on his or her own account, or to have a partnership (not being a limited liability partnership) licensed as a law firm, must apply to the Director of Legal Services for —(a) the issue of a law firm licence to his or her practice or the partnership (as the case may be); and (b) the approval of the name or proposed name of his or her practice or the partnership (as the case may be)." (s 138 mirrors this for an LLP, s 153 for an LLC, both in Part 9A of the LPA) | LPA `?ProvIds=pr131-`, `pr138-`, `pr153-` | Statute text | 0.2, 3.1 | | s 132(2) a name change needs approval | "No name of a law firm may be changed without the prior written approval of the Director of Legal Services." | LPA `?ProvIds=pr132-` | Statute text | 3.1 | | s 139(2), s 154(4) the limited-liability statement | s 139(2): "The partners of a limited liability law partnership must ensure that every invoice or official correspondence of the limited liability law partnership bears the statement that it is incorporated with limited liability." s 154(4) carries the same wording for a law corporation | LPA `?ProvIds=pr139-`, `pr154-` | Statute text (invoices and official correspondence); extending it to a website footer: Conservative line (not statute text) (50% confidence, since the original does not mention publicity) | 3.1, B.2 | | s 154(3) the LLC suffix | "Every law corporation must have either the words “Law Corporation” or the acronym “LLC” as part of its name; and no person, firm or group practice other than a law corporation may have those words or that acronym as part of the name of the person, firm or group practice." | LPA `?ProvIds=pr154-` | Statute text | 1.6, 2.4, 3.1, 5.4 | | LPE Rules r 6(1), r 9, r 10 the firm's name | r 6(1): a name must not "(a) is misleading or detracts from the dignity of the legal profession; (b) is so similar to the name of another law practice entity … as to be likely to be confused …" r 9: "the name of a law firm must not consist of any acronym or solely of initials" (an acronym may be used in a logo). r 10: "(1) Subject to paragraph (2), the name of a law firm must not contain any words which are descriptive of the services provided by, or the areas of practice of, the law firm. (2) The words “A Law Firm” or “Advocates and Solicitors” may appear immediately after the name of a law firm." (r 10 governs only "law firm"; LLP's r 15 and LLC's r 29 have no such ban on descriptive wording) | LPE `?ProvIds=pr6-`, `pr9-`, `pr10-` | Statute text | 3.1 | | LPE Rules r 7, r 15(1), r 29(1) English registration; a Chinese name needs approval | r 7: "The name of a law firm must be stated in the English language; but the name may, with the approval in writing of the Director of Legal Services, also be stated in any of the other official languages." (r 15(1) carries the same wording for an LLP, r 29(1) for an LLC) | LPE `?ProvIds=pr7-` | Statute text; on a Chinese-language page, a Chinese business profile or a Chinese directory listing, use only the approved Chinese firm name, and the approved English name where none has been approved: Conservative line (not statute text) (85% confidence) | 1.6, 3.1, 5.3 | | LPE Rules r 8(2) a name in the firm's name must match the practising certificate | "The name or part of the name of any existing sole proprietor or existing partner of a law firm which is to constitute the name of the law firm must be in accordance with the name of that sole proprietor or partner that appears in the practising certificate of that sole proprietor or partner at the time of the application under section 131(1) of the Act." | LPE `?ProvIds=pr8-` | Statute text | 3.2 | | LPE Rules r 43(3), r 50(1), r 57(1), r 59(1) group-practice wording and foreign law practices | r 43(3): "A Singapore law practice which is not a member of a Singapore group practice must not describe itself as a Singapore group practice." r 50(1): excluded from "permitted areas of legal practice" are "(a) constitutional and administrative law; (b) conveyancing; (c) criminal law; (d) family law; (e) succession law …; (f) trust law, in any case where the settlor is an individual; (g) appearing or pleading in any court in Singapore …" r 57(1): "A Qualifying Foreign Law Practice must not practise Singapore law except —(a) in the permitted areas of legal practice; and (b) through a solicitor registered under section 36E of the Act, or a foreign lawyer registered under section 36B of the Act …" r 59(1): "(a) may practise Singapore law only in relation to a relevant agreement; and (b) must not practise Singapore law except through a solicitor registered under section 36E of the Act, or a foreign lawyer registered under section 36B …" ("relevant agreement" means an arbitration agreement or an agreement containing one, r 59(14)) | LPE `?ProvIds=pr43-`, `pr50-`, `pr57-`, `pr59-` | Statute text; a foreign-law-practice page must not imply it can handle Singapore family, succession or criminal matters: Conservative line (not statute text) (85% confidence) | 0.1 (scope), 1.7 | | RI Rules r 11(1)(2) Foreign Law Consultant | r 11(1): "a foreign lawyer who is a consultant of a Singapore law practice —(a) may take or use the title of foreign law consultant; but (b) must not take or use the title of consultant." r 11(2): a foreign lawyer must have accumulated at least 10 years to be a foreign law consultant (paraphrased) | RI Rules `?ProvIds=pr11-` | Statute text | 1.6 | | CFA Regulations 2022 reg 3 proceedings a CFA may cover | Limited to: "(a) arbitration proceedings …; (b) proceedings before a court … arising from or out of or in any way connected with any arbitration proceedings …; (c) application for a stay of proceedings …; (d) proceedings for or in connection with the enforcement of an award …; (e) … similar or equivalent … outside Singapore; (f) mediation proceedings arising out of … (a), (b), (d) or (e) …; (g) proceedings commenced in the Singapore International Commercial Court …; (h) appeal proceedings arising from … the Singapore International Commercial Court …; (i) mediation proceedings arising out of the proceedings mentioned in paragraph (g) or (h)." | CFA Regulations `?ProvIds=pr3-` | Statute text (family law is not on the list) | 1.2 | ## A.3 Law Society Council Practice Directions (PD) and Guidance Notes (GN) **What you'll do in this section**: when the main text cites a PD or GN number, use this table to check the original sentence and the issue date; where the original is advisory wording (should, advisable, good practice), say "this is the Council's advice" when the main text quotes it; do not present it as a ban. The original sentence for the PD 3.11.2 row was not extracted this round; until it is obtained, the main text cites only the document name. All 12 PDs and 2 GNs were downloaded afresh, one by one, from their original links on the Law Society's ethics page `lawsociety.org.sg/ethics-professional-conduct/` on 2026-09-29, and every issue date was checked. The PDs and GNs in category 6 of the ethics page (Publicity and Media Related Matters) are exactly the eight documents numbered 6.x in the table below, and there are no others; **and none of them deals specifically with client reviews, Google reviews, third-party rankings or paid awards.** Why a PD is binding: LPA s 71(7)–(9) plus PCR r 44(1)(c) (see A.2), not r 38(c)(iv) or r 34(1)(f)(iv) — those two only cover a lawyer's other business activities and holding executive office. PDF addresses (prefix `lawsociety.org.sg/wp-content/uploads/`; wherever the URL column below gives a PD or GN number, it points here): PD 6.1.1 `2020/03/26.-Media-Comments-and-Internet_Social-Media-Posts-PD-6.1.1.pdf` (31 January 2019); PD 6.1.2 `2020/03/60.-Referrals_Hyperlinking-of-Websites-PD-6.1.2.pdf` (1 June 2018); GN 6.1.1 `2020/03/121.-Ethics-and-Information-Technology-GN-6.1.1.pdf` (1 June 2018); PD 6.2.1 `2020/03/66.-Advertisement-and-Media-Publicity-PD-6.2.1.pdf` (1 June 2018); PD 6.2.2 `2020/03/74.-Distribution-of-Flyers-or-Leaflets-PD-6.2.2.pdf` (1 June 2018); PD 6.2.3 `2020/03/76.-Identification-of-Legal-Practitioners-or-Law-Practices-PD-6.2.3.pdf` (1 June 2018); PD 6.2.4 `2020/03/67.-Publicity-by-Legal-Practitioners-Through-Public-Appearances-and-Contributions-to-Publications-PD-6.2.4.pdf` (1 June 2018); PD 6.2.5 `2020/03/110.-Visiting-Cards-Legal-Practitioners-PD-6.2.5.pdf` (1 June 2018); PD 3.5.2 `2021/05/69.-Rule-33-of-the-Legal-Profession-Professional-Conduct-Rules-2015-.pdf` (02 June 2020); PD 3.11.2 `2020/03/24.-Work-Done-by-an-Unauthorised-Person-PD-3.11.2-1.pdf` (1 June 2018); PD 5.2.1 `2020/03/19.-Fee-Arrangements-with-Clients-PD-5.2.1.pdf` (31 January 2019); PD 5.5.1 `2020/03/25.-Sharing-of-Fees-Between-Legal-Practitioners-PD-5.5.1.pdf` (31 January 2019); PD 7.4.3 `2020/03/35.-Warrant-To-Act-Letter-of-Engagement-and-Referrals-from-Third-Parties-PD-7.4.3.pdf` (31 January 2019); GN 5.6.1 `2022/08/Guidance-Note-5.6.1-Conditional-Fee-Agreements.pdf` (effective 1 August 2022). | Document and paragraph | Original sentence | URL | Label | Used in | |---|---|---|---|---| | PD 6.1.1 (31 Jan 2019) social media and online remarks | Lawyers should observe "(c) to maintain confidentiality between legal practitioner and client; (d) to comply with the rules of professional conduct and publicity;" and (g) "to avoid adverse remarks on the conduct or character of the opposing party." Examples of improper remarks include "posts and/or comments: (a) in relation to on-going proceedings; (b) about clients, judges, opposing party and/or opposing counsel; (c) which disclose confidential information/personal data …"; the final paragraph: "Law practices are also reminded to adhere to standards imposed by the Personal Data Protection Act 2012 …" Throughout, the wording is "should observe", "good practice" | PD 6.1.1 | Statute text (the Council's advisory wording); applied to review replies (do not discuss the client, do not discuss the case, do not comment on the opposing party): Conservative line (not statute text) (85% confidence); the original text of the PDPA was not checked this round: Original text not obtained | 1.5, 6.5 | | PD 6.1.2 (1 Jun 2018) hyperlinking between websites | Hyperlinks between websites "are not prohibited, provided there is no form of financial arrangement between the property agent and the law practice. However, the description of the hyperlink must not mislead viewers by suggesting that the property agent is in a position to give legal advice … or that the viewer has to exclusively use the services of the law practice." The final sentence: "Otherwise, this may constitute an offence under section 33(1)(b) of the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 2009 Rev Ed)." | PD 6.1.2 | Statute text | 6.2 | | GN 6.1.1 (1 Jun 2018) paras 11, 30, 31, 33–37 | Para 11 applies r 32's supervisory duty to a law firm's email policy (paraphrased). Para 30: "Publicity conducted through the Internet is subject to Part 5 of the PCR 2015". Para 31: "A law practice’s website can be used as an advertising tool or to provide generic legal information that can be accessed by the general public or clients of the law practice. If legal advice is given, a law practice must realise that it could give rise to attendant obligations and risks in law. A law practice may wish to, therefore, consider appropriate disclaimers." Para 35: "There are prohibitions against a law practice rewarding any person for referring work to them. The participation in any Internet referral schemes which requires the law practice to pay a fee or share fees paid for legal services referred would be a breach of the LPA." Para 36: "Even if no fees are paid or shared, any participation in an online introduction service or referral service carried out in such a way as to ‘unfairly attract work’ to the law practice would be improper given the terms of section 83(2)(b) and/or section 83(2)(h) of the LPA." Para 37: one law firm demanding a referral fee from another merely for referring a client counts as "brokering" | GN 6.1.1 | Statute text; what counts as "unfairly attract work": Conservative line (not statute text) (60% confidence); a pure advertising slot (listed by practice area, chosen by the reader, with no referral, no case assignment and no fee tied to outcome) paid for on a fixed rate card is not covered by para 35: Original text not obtained: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: GN 6.1.1 paras 33–37, PCR r 39, PD 6.1.2; check date: 2026-09-29), 70% confidence | 0.2, 5.9, 6.2 | | PD 6.2.1 (1 Jun 2018) B, C press and TV advertisements and filmed footage | B: "Advertisements through the press or TV, unlike advertisements via the distribution of flyers in public places, would not be touting or be reasonably regarded as touting." C: under r 43(4), the law firm's name should not appear in footage it takes part in filming, though an acknowledgement in the end credits is fine (paraphrased) | PD 6.2.1 | Statute text; extending para B so that search ads and websites are not touting either: Original text not obtained: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR r 39, r 43(4), PD 6.2.1, PD 6.2.2; check date: 2026-09-29), 80% confidence | 6.4 | | PD 6.2.1 D four misleading examples | Lead-in sentence: "A TV commercial may be reasonably regarded as misleading if:" The four examples: "(a) it contains a material misrepresentation (eg, representation that the practice is a leading family law practice when it does not have expertise or experience in family law); (b) it omits to state a material fact (eg, failure to state that the law practice only acts in uncontested divorce matters if the practice has no expertise or experience in contested divorce matters); (c) it contains any information which cannot be verified (eg, only a contact number is given without stating the name of the law practice); or (d) it is likely to create an unjustified expectation … (eg, stating that the law practice will be able to recover party and party costs in a civil matter)." Note: in (a), what is misleading is calling yourself leading when you have no family-law expertise; the word "leading" itself is not banned | PD 6.2.1 | Statute text (TV advertisements); applying the same standard to websites: Conservative line (not statute text) (85% confidence); by default, do not write "leading"; write it only when a tier of that same name in a third-party ranking backs it up: Conservative line (not statute text) (70% confidence) | 1.6, 3.1 | | PD 6.2.1 D price lists and fee details | "A TV commercial is reasonably regarded as unbefitting the dignity of the legal profession under rule 44(1)(b) of the PCR 2015 if it suggests that other law practices overcharge their fees or sets out price lists. However, it is not improper for the commercial to refer generally to fixed fee arrangements to provide peace of mind and meet budgetary concerns." The third sentence, which follows immediately: "It is nevertheless advisable that, for proper compliance with rule 17 of the PCR 2015, a legal practitioner’s duty to disclose detailed information relating to fees would be best discharged by personally explaining it to the client as opposed to highlighting it in a brief TV advertisement." | PD 6.2.1 | Statute text (the dignity test for TV advertisements); the third sentence is the Council's advice (advisable), not a ban; applied to a firm's own fees page (no eye-catching price poster; state that the final fee is set out in the letter of engagement): Conservative line (not statute text) (60% confidence) | 1.2 | | PD 6.2.1 E free advertising slots | Accepting a free newspaper advertisement "is not improper … so long as the law practice ensures that the advertising complies with rules 43 and 44 … In particular, the description of the specialisation of the law practice in the advertisement must be in accordance with rules 43(1)(a) and 43(2)" | PD 6.2.1 | Statute text | 6.4 | | PD 6.2.2 (1 Jun 2018) A, B, C flyers, letterbox drops and a phone number only | A: distributing flyers in public places "can be an act which may be reasonably regard as touting under rule 43(4) …" (sic); "Direct, in-person solicitation would also be a breach of rule 39(1) of the PCR 2015." The same paragraph: "It is also permissible for the law practice to display the flyer and/or its contents on the law practice’s website." B: distributing promotional letters and business cards to HDB households "would be a breach of rules 44(1)(a) and 44(1)(c)". C: "Such publicity is reasonably regarded as being misleading (under rule 44(1)(b) of the PCR 2015 read with rule 44(2)(c) of the PCR 2015) as it contains information that cannot be verified … At the very least, the name of the law practice should be stated in the flyer." | PD 6.2.2 | Statute text (offline distribution, letterbox drops; para C concerns only a flyer that gives just "Legal Services" plus a phone number, and is worded with *should*); extending this to mass cold emails and private messages to prospective clients: Conservative line (not statute text) (75% confidence); extending it so that every piece of publicity carries the firm's name: Conservative line (not statute text) (85% confidence); "it must be the approved name, word for word": Conservative line (not statute text) (75% confidence, drawn from the name controls in s 132 and LPE Rules r 6–10, not this PD) | 0.2, 3.1, 3.4, 6.1 | | PD 6.2.3 (1 Jun 2018) A, B the letterhead list and identifying foreign lawyers | A: letterhead may list only "(a) partners or directors of the law practice; and (b) consultants, foreign lawyers or legal associates employed by the law practice in accordance with Singapore’s legislative and regulatory requirements." (legal associates are employed lawyers, not paralegals). B: when a website, brochure or similar material lists a foreign lawyer not registered in Singapore, "The following wording would be the minimum necessary": “XYZ, qualified in [name of foreign jurisdiction] to practise [foreign law], not registered as a foreign lawyer practising in Singapore, not regulated by the Law Society of Singapore and not a member of the firm.” The final sentence: "Contravention of this illustration may reasonably be regarded as being misleading, deceptive, inaccurate or false publicity under rule 44(1) … read with rule 44(2)" | PD 6.2.3 | Statute text | 1.6, 3.2 | | PD 6.2.4 (1 Jun 2018) A, B, C public appearances, talks and contributed articles | A: a lawyer "may be identified by name, the fact that he/she is a legal practitioner, and the name of the law practice … and particulars may be given of any special qualifications or specialised knowledge directly relevant to the subject-matter of the publication or appearance." B: a law firm holding a public talk at its own premises, advertising it and charging an entrance fee "is not improper … However, the law practice must ensure compliance with the PCR 2015 at all times." C: when a lawyer answers readers' questions in a non-legal publication, r 47 does not apply, the lawyer may be named, and "may therefore wish to include an appropriately worded disclaimer for the enquirer to seek independent legal advice before acting on any advice" | PD 6.2.4 | Statute text (para A is a positive list of which identity details may be shown); a byline on a contributed article with no contact details and no "enquiries welcome": Conservative line (not statute text) (70% confidence); the disclaimer in para C is advice, not an obligation | 6.4 | | PD 6.2.5 (1 Jun 2018) business cards | A business card may list "(a) name; (b) name of the law practice; (c) address of the law practice; (d) telephone number(s) of the law practice; (e) telephone number(s) of the residence; and (f) academic qualifications."; "although the name of the law practice may be included on a visiting card, the description of the law practice may not be so included." | PD 6.2.5 | Statute text (business cards); extending this to the blurb field of a directory listing: Conservative line (not statute text) (50% confidence) | 3.2 | | PD 3.5.2 (02 Jun 2020) r 33 designations | The Council has approved twenty designations in total: Sole Proprietor, Partner, Senior Partner, Managing Partner, Founding Partner, Legal Assistant, Associate, Senior Associate, Consultant, Senior Consultant, Counsel, Director, Managing Director, Senior Executive Director, Executive Director, Senior Associate Director, Associate Director, Chairman, Adviser, Senior Adviser; a director of a law corporation must add "advocate and solicitor" after the designation on their business card (a Council ruling in force since 12 January 2001); the designation on the business card of an executive support staff member "shall be stated in a manner as not to give the impression that he is a legal practitioner." | PD 3.5.2 | Statute text | 1.6, 3.2 | | PD 3.11.2 (1 Jun 2018) work done by an unauthorised person | This round we checked only the document and its issue date; the original sentence was not extracted | PD 3.11.2 | Original text not obtained (original sentence still to be obtained; until then, 6.1 cites only the document name, not its content) | — (not cited in the main text; kept for reference only) | | PD 5.2.1 (31 Jan 2019) C legal fees contingent on recovering costs | An arrangement of this kind "would render a solicitor in breach of section 107 of the LPA and rule 18 of the Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules 2015 … because the solicitor would have an interest in the subject matter of the litigation"; a footnote cites a 2013 High Court decision ([2013] SGHC 135): acting for a client in financial hardship, knowing that the fees can be collected only if the case is won, is not itself a breach (paraphrased) | PD 5.2.1 | Statute text | 1.2 | | PD 5.5.1 (31 Jan 2019) no referral fee for referrals between lawyers | "A mere referral should not result in any costs being demanded or expected by the legal practitioner referring the client to another legal practitioner. This would be tantamount to ‘brokering’ and should not be permitted or condoned." | PD 5.5.1 | Statute text | 6.2 | | PD 7.4.3 (31 Jan 2019) D.2, E third-party referrals and the letter of engagement | D.2 extends r 40(1)(c)'s referral requirements to motor-accident and personal-injury referrals, and bars a lawyer from accepting money from the referror; D.2(b)(i): "accept from the referror the payment of commission, referral fee or any other form of consideration"; D.2(d)(i) mirrors r 40(1)(c)(i): it covers a referror's publicity suggesting that the service is free (paraphrased). E: recommends writing the fee disclosure required by r 17 into the letter of engagement (paraphrased; the original sentence was not extracted this round) | PD 7.4.3 | Statute text (the original sentence of D.2(b)(i)); para E is only paraphrased: obtain the original sentence before quoting it | 5.20, 6.2 | | GN 5.6.1 (1 Aug 2022) paras 6 and 11–12, CFAs | "CFAs are not Contingency Fee Agreements, which are agreements where practitioners agree to accept an agreed percentage of the sum or damages recovered by a client. … Contingency Fee Agreements continue to be prohibited under Singapore law and should not be entered into." Forms of a CFA include "(i) “No win, no fee”; and (ii) “No win, less fee.”" | GN 5.6.1 | Statute text; writing "no win no fee" on a family-law page is itself misleading (it advertises an arrangement that cannot be entered into): Conservative line (not statute text) (85% confidence) | 1.2, 5.16 | ## A.4 Family law only: private hearings, children's identity, amicable resolution, the touts list **What you'll do in this section**: before writing any case study, case-law commentary, republished review, review reply or bylined submission for a family law firm, come to this table and check FJA s 10 and CYPA s 112. These two are statutory provisions: a partner's sign-off cannot release them, and they punish whoever publishes — including us. ```split Figure: In family-law content, what a partner's sign-off decides case by case, and what no sign-off can release Decided case by case, by sign-off || No sign-off releases these, or shields us from them (statutory provisions) Whether to write up a family case || Anything that could identify a child involved in the proceedings Whether to republish a family client's review || Still not publishable once the child turns 18 How far a review reply can go || Anything covered by a court's order restricting publication How far client authorisation goes, and how confidentiality is judged || If we publish it, the offence is ours, whether or not a lawyer signed it ``` Whether to write up a family case, whether to republish a client's review, and how far a review reply can go — this book decides these case by case, and each one needs a partner's or director's written sign-off. But **a written sign-off resolves only the stop-and-escalate situations; it never turns something banned as Statute text into something publishable**: anything that could identify a child involved in the proceedings is not published (CYPA s 112), and family-proceedings content a court has restricted from publication is not published (FJA s 10) — no sign-off releases either one. So before any family case study, republished review or review reply goes for sign-off, it first goes through our own mandatory de-identification check (Appendix B.4's family self-check sheet): this is the step that strips hearing details down to legal points and procedure only, so nothing is left for a sign-off to release; any hit sends it back for rewriting, not to sign-off. A lawyer's signature does not take on our liability either: CYPA s 112(5)(b) punishes "the person who publishes or distributes it", and FJA s 10(5) punishes "Any person" — when we publish or repost, the one punished is us. | Rule number | Original sentence | URL | Label | Used in | |---|---|---|---|---| | FJA 2014 s 10(1), heard in private | "Subject to subsection (2), all matters and proceedings in a Family Justice Court must be heard in private." | FJA `?ProvIds=pr10-` | Statute text; applied to case-study pages and case-law commentary (writing only legal points and procedure, never hearing details that could be matched to a specific party): Conservative line (not statute text) (85% confidence) | 1.7, 5.5, 5.15 | | FJA s 10(4)(a), (5), the order restricting publication and its penalty | (4): "A Family Justice Court may at any time order that no person is to —(a) publish the name, address or photograph of any witness in any matter or proceeding … or any evidence or any other thing likely to lead to the identification of any such witness;" (5): "Any person who acts in contravention of any order under subsection (3) or (4) shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $5,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years or to both." | FJA `?ProvIds=pr10-` | Statute text ("Any person" includes us when publishing on the firm's behalf; no sign-off releases it) | 1.7, 5.5, 5.15 | | FJA s 39(1), (6), the touts list and Gazette publication | (1): "The registrar of the Family Justice Courts may publish a list of persons proved to his or her satisfaction, by evidence of general repute or otherwise, to act as touts or unauthorised advisers to suitors or other persons, and may alter and amend the list." (6): "A copy of the list must be kept hung up in the Registry of the Family Justice Courts and must be published in the Gazette." A lawyer must not employ anyone on the list, or pay them (LPA s 78(1)(e), see A.2); taking on a matter through such a person is a ground for disciplinary action (LPA s 83(2)(f)) | FJA `?ProvIds=pr39-` | Statute text | 1.7 | | CYPA 1993 s 112(1)(a), (1)(c), the ban on publishing anything that could identify a child involved in the proceedings | (1)(a): "a person must not —(a) publish or broadcast any information relating to any proceedings in any court or on appeal from any court that reveals the name, address or school or that includes any particulars that are calculated to lead to the identification of any child or young person concerned in the proceedings, either as being the person against or in respect of whom the proceedings are taken or as being a witness therein;" (1)(c): publication is still not permitted once the child turns 18 (paraphrased; the original sentence was not extracted this round). The age definitions of "child" and "young person" are in CYPA s 2; not obtained this round | CYPA `?ProvIds=pr112-` | Statute text (the rule itself; no sign-off releases it); that it covers custody and access proceedings in divorce cases: Conservative line (not statute text) (80% confidence, based on the original wording "any proceedings in any court" plus "in respect of whom the proceedings are taken"); the age definitions: Original text not obtained, read on the stricter side | 1.5, 1.7, 5.5, 5.15, B.4 | | CYPA s 112(5)(b), (9), the publisher commits the offence; websites and messaging systems both count | (5): "If any information or picture is published or broadcast in contravention of subsection (1) — … (b) in the case of the publication of any information or picture otherwise than as part of a newspaper or periodical publication, the person who publishes or distributes it; … shall jointly be guilty of an offence and shall each be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $5,000 and, in the case of a second or subsequent conviction, to a fine not exceeding $10,000." (9) defines "publish" to include "(a) the Internet or any website, web service or Internet application; or (b) any messaging system." | CYPA `?ProvIds=pr112-` | Statute text (the party publishing on the firm's behalf is itself named as an offender: when we publish or repost, we are "the person who publishes or distributes it"; a lawyer's signature cannot shield us) | 0.2, 1.1, 1.7, 5.5, 6.1 | | PCR r 15A(2)(b), the duty to encourage amicable resolution | Original sentence: see A.1 | PCR `?ProvIds=pr15A-` | See A.1 | 1.7 | ## A.5 What the regulators and SAL do themselves: directory, awards, specialist accreditation, register lookup **What you'll do in this section**: before writing a directory listing, an award, specialist accreditation or a register lookup anchor, come here and check the regulators' and SAL's own original wording — how they themselves sell a placement, give an award or write an accreditation sets the boundary for how each of these cells is written. The Law Society's "Find A Featured Lawyer/Law Firm" directory (the Featured directory) is the only paid placement this book suggests considering, but its rate-card terms have not been obtained: get them before you buy. | Source | Original sentence | URL | Label | Used in | |---|---|---|---|---| | The Law Society's "Find A Featured Lawyer/Law Firm" directory | "You can find a lawyer or law practice by area. Please note this is not a complete list as the listings are paid by advertising." The page also directs the public to the LSRA for the complete list | `lawsociety.org.sg/find-a-featured-lawyer-law-firm/` | Statute text (the regulator's own practice: a paid placement listed by practice area, with "paid by advertising" stated on the page); buying, on a fixed rate card, a pure advertising slot that is display-only, with no referral or case assignment: Original text not obtained: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR r 39, GN 6.1.1 paras 33–37, PD 6.1.2, the Law Society's Featured directory page; check date: 2026-09-29), 70% confidence; this book suggests considering only this one paid placement: Conservative line (not statute text) (70% confidence); whether this placement includes referral or case assignment depends on the rate-card terms, which have not been obtained: Original text not obtained (the original `/advertise-with-us/` page now 404s); get them before you buy | 6.2 | | The Law Society's Practice Excellence Awards | "Award recipients will receive a commemorative plaque and a special Practice Excellence emblem to showcase in marketing materials." "Nominations for the Practice Excellence Awards are reviewed by an independent selection committee appointed by the Society." "no fees are chargeable for this year’s nomination process." "The Nominator, or the number of nominations received, has no effect on a lawyer’s recognition for the purposes of the award(s)." | `lawsociety.org.sg/recognising-our-awardees/` (the old address `/the-law-society/lawsocietyawards/` now redirects here) | Statute text (the regulator permits using the emblem in marketing materials); this is an award given to individual lawyers (first given in 2025, with a Family category); write it on the winning lawyer's own page — the firm's page only says " of our firm received …": Conservative line (not statute text) (wording) | 3.2, 3.3, 6.6 | | The LSRA "Search for a Lawyer or Law Practice" page | This search "lists all Singapore solicitors with a current practising certificate from the Supreme Court of Singapore, as well as all foreign lawyers, individuals and law practice entities registered with the LSRA"; "the Ministry of Law does not make any warranty or representation as to their accuracy, completeness or reliability." | `eservices.mlaw.gov.sg/lsra/search-lawyer-or-law-firm/` | Statute text (the entry point and the disclaimer); the field names for individual practising details: Original text not obtained (until verified, a lawyer's page states only the register lookup link and the check date — no number, and never write it as "government-certified") | 3.2, 5.19 | | SAL Specialist Accreditation, current page | "An Accredited Specialist is a legal practitioner with at least five years’ PQE who has been deemed by SAL to possess the necessary knowledge and skills to handle front-end and/or litigation work of some complexity in a specialised area of law." "Your accreditation is an individual attainment. It should not be used to promote your firm or organisation." "If your accreditation is suspended, revoked or cancelled, you cannot hold yourself out as an accredited specialist." Four accreditation fields are listed: "BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION LAW" "MARITIME AND SHIPPING LAW" "DATA AND DIGITAL ECONOMY LAW" "FAMILY LAW"; the field open for applications: "Senior Accredited Specialist in Family Law", application period "1 July 2026 - 31 August 2026"; "Accreditation is valid for three years after which all specialists must apply for reaccreditation." | `sal.org.sg/learn/specialist-accreditation/` (current version, read 2026-09-29) | Statute text (SAL scheme rules) | 1.6, 3.2 | | SAL's Family Law accreditation documents | v1.00 (*Information for Specialists – Family Law*, effective 1 April 2026) 3.1: "Both the Accredited Specialist and Senior Accredited Specialist accreditations in Family Law are valid for 3 years as of the date on which the accreditation is conferred." v1.01, the information guide (2026-05-19), the timetable in section 5: the first round, "OLY 2027 Results released" | `sal.org.sg/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Specialist-Accreditation-Scheme-FAM-Law-Specialists-2026.pdf` (v1.00); `sal.org.sg/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Specialist-Accreditation-Scheme-FAM-Law-Info-Guide-2026-v2.pdf` (v1.01) | Statute text | 1.6, 3.2, 5.8 | | SAL's *Marketing Your Accreditation* guide (v7.01, effective 2025-03-21) | 3.1: "Specialists must adhere to the obligations in the relevant legal profession legislation when publicising their practice including, but not limited to, the Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules 2015 rr 43 and 44". 4.1: "Because specialist accreditation is an individual attainment, such accreditation must be identified with the specialist only and not with his or her law firm." 4.2: "the specialist should not authorise, and his or her law firm should refrain from, using phrases such as: “We are an accredited specialist law firm” or a derivative of the same." 4.4: "Specialists must be reaccredited to promote themselves as such and to use the specialist accreditation post-nominals." 4.8: "In communications such as biographies on a specialist’s law firm’s website or events publicity, the words “Accredited Specialist” or “Senior Accredited Specialist” should appear together and in title case … but as “an Accredited Specialist in Building and Construction Law”." Paragraphs 4.5 and 4.6 give only the English post-nominals; the official Chinese translation appears only in para 4.7, and lists only three fields: building and construction, maritime and shipping, and data and digital economy | `sal.org.sg/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Information-Guide-for-Marketing-Accreditation-2025.pdf` (the current link's download is byte-for-byte identical to the 2025-10-29 archived copy) | Statute text; the post-nominals and Chinese translation for family law: Original text not obtained (not yet covered by the guide; until SAL publishes them, write the title in full — never invent an abbreviation or translate it into Chinese ourselves) | 1.6, 3.2, 5.3 | | The SAL Directory of Specialists | The "Directory of Specialists" tab on the current page: 121 entries as of 2026-09-29, 0 for family law (the separate address seen in the archive, `…/specialist-accreditation/directory/`, now 404s; the in-page tab is authoritative) | `sal.org.sg/learn/specialist-accreditation/` (in-page tab) | Statute text (fact: as of 2026-09-29, no family lawyer can describe themselves as an Accredited Specialist in Family Law) | 1.6, 3.2, 5.8, 5.19 | | The Law Society's Ethics Resources Factsheet (2024-07-26 edition), paras 15–17 | "From 2015 to date, the Advisory Committee has issued more than 100 written guidances to members." The 2019 and 2020 Professional Ethics Digests "are available in the Members’ Library" | `lawsociety.org.sg/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Law-Society-Ethics-Resources-Factsheet-26-July-2024.pdf` | Statute text (statement of fact) | 0.2, A.6 | | Chambers, Legal 500, Doyle's, Benchmark, The Straits Times × Statista "Best Law Firms" and other third-party ranking guides | No regulator document specifically mentions these ranking guides, paid awards or self-nominated selections (the full category 6 list on the Law Society's ethics page has been checked) | — | Original text not obtained (no dedicated regulator document); can be cited as evidence of expertise under r 43(2)(g)'s "assessment by peers": Statute text; write only your own entry (publisher, year, category, tier): Conservative line (not statute text); do not infer "ranked above ", "ranked number one" or "the only firm listed" from a ranking: Conservative line (not statute text) (80% confidence); an award obtained simply by paying is, by default, not written: Conservative line (not statute text) (70% confidence) | 3.3 | ## A.6 Things no rule prohibits, the history of the old rules, and the original texts we could not get **What you'll do in this section**: wherever the main text tags "Original text not obtained: no prohibition found in the current rules", come to the first table to check which documents it was checked against and at what confidence; to the client, say only "we found no rule that prohibits it". The last table lists the original texts we could not get and how to get them next time — get the members'-area item done before work starts. ### Things no rule prohibits The following twelve items all rest on "no current rule prohibits it", not "a rule allows it". Following this book's own convention, they are tagged "Original text not obtained": write them in this book's default wording, and do not use them as a basis for judgement; if a contrary ruling appears in the members'-area guidance or in a new Practice Direction, rewrite within the same quarter (for the reclassification triggers, see 0.2). | Item and the condition for writing it | Fixed sentence (scope checked and check date) | Confidence | Label | Used in | |---|---|---|---|---| | Writing the firm's own fee range and "from": range + billing method + what's excluded + stating that the final fee is set out in the letter of engagement, with "from" immediately followed by the defining conditions. The counter-evidence is PD 6.2.1 D's third sentence (the Council's advice that fee details are best explained to the client in person — advice, not a ban; see A.3) | No prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: the PCR in full [including Part 5 (r 37–49), r 17, r 18 and r 18A], all category 6 PDs and GNs on the Law Society's ethics page, the revoked Publicity Rules (in full); check date: 2026-09-29) | 75% | Original text not obtained | 1.2, 5.5 | | Proactively asking clients to leave a review: searches for "testimonial" and "endors" both return 0 across the old and current rules, and the ethics page has no document dedicated to client reviews. The four conditions — offer no incentive, don't write the review for them, don't ask only satisfied clients, don't dictate the content — are the conservative line, based on r 44(1)(b) | No prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: the current PCR in full, the revoked Publicity Rules (in full), the full category 6 list on the Law Society's ethics page; check date: 2026-09-29) | 70% | Original text not obtained | 1.5, 6.5 | | The firm's own page offering a free first consultation: it must be genuinely free, stating the scope and duration (r 44(2)(b)), and never written as a promotional hook. This item covers only the firm's own page; our own materials never say we provide "free legal consultation" (s 33(1)(b), see A.2). r 40(1)(c)(i) and PD 7.4.3 D.2(d)(i) cover only a referror advertising that the service is free | No prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: the PCR in full, the Law Society's 12 PDs and 2 GNs; check date: 2026-09-29) | 60% | Original text not obtained | 1.2, 5.5 | | Publishing on the firm's behalf: the basis is that r 42(1) assumes publicity done by someone else on the lawyer's behalf, not r 41(b) or r 46; having a partner or director sign off each batch of material is our own control gate, not a legal formality (the conservative line) | No prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: the PCR in full; check date: 2026-09-29) | 85% | Original text not obtained | 0.2, 6.1 | | Buying a pure advertising slot on a fixed rate card: limited to a placement that is listed by practice area, chosen by the reader, with no referral, no case assignment and no payment based on results; not even a fixed entry fee is paid to a referral or matching platform (the conservative line, 80%) | No prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR r 39, GN 6.1.1 paras 33–37, PD 6.1.2, the Law Society's Featured directory page; check date: 2026-09-29) | 70% | Original text not obtained | 6.2 | | When we run a firm's marketing for a fixed service fee, this does not amount to "place at the disposal" under s 33(3): we do not handle client allocation, and we do not "provide" the public with any particular lawyer's services; no case law or guidance has confirmed this, so have legal review it before we quote | No prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: all of LPA s 33; check date: 2026-09-29) | 70% | Original text not obtained | 0.2 | | Court fees and the firm's own fees in the same table, in a separate column: the subject is the court; give the fee table's name and the date the figures were taken | No prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: the PCR in full, the Law Society's 12 PDs and 2 GNs; check date: 2026-09-29) | Not stated separately | Original text not obtained | 1.3, 5.4 | | The firm's own page stating a platform rating in one line: write only one line — "platform · number of reviews · rating · check date" (r 44(2)(c), verifiable) — and this wording is the conservative line; no star-rating widget, no review-aggregation page | No prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: the PCR in full, the Law Society's 12 PDs and 2 GNs; check date: 2026-09-29) | Not stated separately | Original text not obtained | 1.5 | | Settings that control crawler access — robots.txt, the firewall, nosnippet and the like — do not count as publicity, so changing them does not need a partner's sign-off; text in schema markup meant for readers is still reviewed as publicity | No prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full [including the r 2(1) definition of "publicity" and Part 5], the Legal Profession Act and its subsidiary rules, the Law Society's 12 PDs and 2 GNs; check date: 2026-09-29) | Not stated separately | Original text not obtained | 2.4 | | Taking part in a third-party ranking guide's review process, submitting material by their own procedure; once listed, writing only your own entry (the conservative line) | No prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society's 12 PDs and 2 GNs, the full category 6 list on the Law Society's ethics page; check date: 2026-09-29) | Not stated separately | Original text not obtained | 3.3, 6.3, 6.6 | | Writing a second-opinion and change-of-lawyer page: the subject may only be the client's situation, never an assessment of the previous lawyer | No prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society's 12 PDs and 2 GNs; check date: 2026-09-29) | Not stated separately | Original text not obtained | 4.2, 5.11 | | Writing a case summary page: the subject is the court; for family law, use only judgments the court has already published in anonymised form, and additionally run the de-identification check | No prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society's 12 PDs and 2 GNs; check date: 2026-09-29) | Not stated separately | Original text not obtained | 5.15 | ### History of the old rules | Rule number | Original sentence | URL | Label | Used in | |---|---|---|---|---| | The revoked Legal Profession (Publicity) Rules (R 13, 2010 RevEd), r 6 | The old r 6 already had three items with the same structure as current r 43(1)(a)–(c): expertise must be justified, no claiming a success rate, no comparing fees or service quality (paraphrased). The full text of the 2010 RevEd (r 1–12) contains no "testimonial" or "endors", and the current PCR in full likewise returns 0 (2026-09-29) | `sso.agc.gov.sg/SL-Rev/161-R13/Published/20100531?DocDate=20100531` | Statute text (historical fact: neither the old nor the current rules ban testimonials; online marketing articles claim that Singapore lawyer advertising must not contain testimonials or endorsements, but neither the old nor the current original text supports this, so it is not relied on) | 1.5 | | *Law Gazette* 2012-08, "Publicity of Law Practice in Online Forums, Blogs and Other Social Media Platforms", paras 7 and 9 | Para 9: "if a person initiates a request on the website, online forum or blog (or through any other online platform) to retain the solicitor, he may respond with a private written proposal outside the website, online forum or blog (or through any other online platform) so that persons who did not request the proposal cannot see it." Para 7: recommends periodically reviewing whether the generic legal information on the firm's website is accurate and keeps up with changes in the law (paraphrased) | `v1.lawgazette.com.sg/2012-08/499.htm` | Conservative line (not statute text) (guidance from the Law Society's Ethics Committee, from the old-rules era, citing the revoked Publicity Rules; not carried over into the current PDs) | 5.2, 5.9 | ### The strongest objection to the side decision, and why we do not adopt it This book places law firms on the lightly regulated side, with 75% confidence (0.2). The key reading is this: r 43(1)(c) bans only two dimensions — "the fees charged" and "the quality of the services provided" — which fits the definition of "limited" in the third question of [[通用版 0.2 先判你属于哪一侧]]: "testimonials can be written but with conditions, or only part of comparison is banned". Read r 43(1)(c) as banning comparison across the board, and law firms fall on the strictly regulated side instead. The strongest objection is set out below, word for word: > Family law firms should be treated as strictly regulated: ① what r 43(1)(c) bans — "fees charged" and "quality of the services provided" — are exactly every dimension a buyer wants to compare; ② a family client's identity is itself confidential information, and a case is governed by both FJA s 10 and CYPA s 112 at once, so in family law the conditions in "testimonials can be written but with conditions" can almost never be met; ③ the Council's "dignity" standard has consistently reached beyond the rule's literal wording — flyers, HDB letterboxes, brochures left with clients, the firm's name in filmed footage, and TV price lists have all been found improper, and a website fees page is only one step away from a price list; ④ when unsure, start on the stricter side. Why we do not adopt it: ① and ② describe the wording within each cell, and this book has already written those cells to the strictly regulated side's standard — no comparing fees, no comparing quality, nothing published that could identify a child, family case studies and reviews decided case by case with sign-off, plus a separate de-identification check. Pulling the whole site onto the strictly regulated side changes only two more things — **banning fee ranges** and **banning requests for reviews** — and the original text happens to ban neither, so banning them would mean adding rules on the regulator's behalf. ③ Every dignity ruling with original text behind it targets offline distribution, in-person solicitation and television; for websites, PD 6.2.2 A says outright, "It is also permissible for the law practice to display the flyer and/or its contents on the law practice’s website.", and GN 6.1.1 para 31 says outright, "A law practice’s website can be used as an advertising tool". ④ "When unsure, start on the stricter side" governs situations where a judgement call is uncertain; every one of the four questions has original text to answer it, and the only uncertain judgement call is how the fees page is presented — and that cell is already written on the stricter side (no price posters, no promotional tone, stating that the final fee is set out in the letter of engagement). ### Rulings on conflicts in earlier drafts - **Market ranges that don't name anyone**: the ban on comparing fees or service quality with other firms is Statute text (r 43(1)(c)) — anything that names a firm, that lets readers identify which firm it is, or that appears in the same table or passage as the firm's own price, falls into this tier; a market range with no names, standing alone as its own sentence with the firm's own price nowhere nearby, is Conservative line (not statute text) (85% confidence) (1.3). - **Whether the firm's own page can display a platform rating**: whether it may be displayed is tagged Original text not obtained (fixed sentence in the table above); the one-line wording is the conservative line (1.5). - **The basis for publishing on the firm's behalf**: r 42(1) assumes publicity done on the firm's behalf (tagged Original text not obtained, fixed sentence in the table above); not r 41(b), and not r 46 either (for the reasoning, see the notes on those two rows in A.1). - **What gives PDs their binding force**: LPA s 71(7)–(9) plus r 44(1)(c); not r 38(c)(iv) or r 34(1)(f)(iv). - **"Write the approved full name in every piece of publicity"**: PD 6.2.2 C's original text covers only flyers, and its wording is *should*; extending it to every piece of publicity drops it to the conservative line (85% confidence); "match the approved name word for word" carries a separate conservative-line tag (75% confidence). - **Splitting out "leading"**: PD 6.2.1 D(a) says only that calling yourself leading without the expertise to back it up is misleading — not a blanket ban; by default, don't write it, and write it only when a third-party ranking guide's own tier of the same name backs it up (conservative line, 70% confidence). The basis for No. 1, top or best changes to r 43(1)(c) plus r 44(2)(c) (conservative line, 80% confidence). - **How to read "legal associates"**: employed lawyers, not paralegals; PD 6.2.3 says a breach "may reasonably be regarded" as misleading — not that it is automatically misleading. - **The Gazette**: s 88(4) requires only penalty orders and reprimands to be published in the Gazette; warnings are not. - **SAL's Family Law accreditation**: the earlier draft's line — "accreditation covers only three fields, and there is nothing a family lawyer can write" — is out of date: the current page now lists Family Law, but no one can claim it yet (0 entries for family law in the directory, 2026-09-29); the first results are due to be announced at the Opening of the Legal Year 2027 (OLY 2027); accreditation is valid for 3 years. - **Fixed entry fees for referral platforms**: GN 6.1.1 para 35's "pay a fee" reaches far enough to cover this, so it is not paid (conservative line, 80% confidence); a pure advertising slot bought on a fixed rate card has its confidence lowered from 80% to 70%, with a form-of-placement condition added (fixed sentence in the table above). ### Original texts we could not get | Item | Impact | How to get it next time | |---|---|---| | More than 100 pieces of written guidance from the Advisory Committee, and the 2019 and 2020 Ethics Digests (in the members' area; the download link returns a login page) | May contain case-specific rulings on reviews, directory listings, social media or fees pages; this is where most of the remaining uncertainty in the side decision's confidence lies, and a contrary ruling triggers reclassification that same quarter | Before work starts for the first law-firm client, ask the client's firm to export these using its own members' account | | *Law Gazette* 2010-03, "Ethics in Practice" | The source for PD 6.2.1–6.2.3; the PDs themselves have already been checked word for word, so the impact is small | Use a browser to fetch the corresponding page on the old *Law Gazette* site | | Disciplinary Tribunal report summaries | The real scale of penalties for publicity, touting and referral-fee misconduct | Search the last five years' summaries by touting, publicity and referral | | MinLaw's Q&A on foreign-law-practice publicity on ask.gov.sg | How to write a foreign law practice's Chinese-language page | Fetch with a browser | | A publicity PD issued by the Professional Conduct Council under LPA s 71(6) | No public text was found this round; if one exists, it outranks the Council's PDs (s 71(8)) | Check Supreme Court or Law Society announcements | | The Family Justice (General) Rules 2024 and the Family Justice Courts' practice directions | How much detail hearing documents may disclose; the rule number behind the "Hearing fees" line on the fees page | Next round, get the corresponding provisions from SSO and the Family Justice Courts' Practice Directions | | Women's Charter s 94 | The original sentence for the marriage-length threshold to file for divorce; until checked, the main text writes no number of years | Next round, get the original text from SSO | | CYPA s 2's age definitions of "child" and "young person" | Up to what age s 112 covers; until checked, read it on the stricter side | Get CYPA s 2 | | The CPFTA and the PDPA | The base layer; personal data in review replies (PD 6.1.1 already names the PDPA) | Check next round | | The rate-card terms for the Law Society's paid directory (the original `/advertise-with-us/` page now 404s) | Whether the paid directory placement includes referral or case assignment; must be obtained before buying | Find the rate-card entry point from the Featured directory page, or write to the Law Society to ask | | The Senior Counsel list | The source for checking the SC title on a lawyer's page | Get next round | | The LSRA's field names for individual practising details | Until verified, a lawyer's page states only the register lookup link and the check date, not a number | Open the register lookup results page in a browser and note down each field | | The original text of Syariah Court procedure and fees, and the AMLA (Administration of Muslim Law Act) | The source for the set of Muslim-marriage pages (5.17) | Get next round | | The post-nominals and official Chinese translation for SAL's Family Law accreditation | Once family-law accredited specialists exist, only the full title may be written | After the Opening of the Legal Year 2027 (OLY 2027), check SAL's updated marketing guide and backfill 1.6, 3.2 and this appendix | | Items that are only paraphrased, with no original sentence extracted: PD 3.11.2 in full, PD 7.4.3 para E, LPA s 78(1)(e), s 30(6), s 33(7A), s 83(2)(b)(i), s 85(1)(b)(c), CYPA s 112(1)(c), RI Rules r 11(2), GN 6.1.1 paras 11 and 37, PD 6.2.1 para C, the case footnote in PD 5.2.1, and para 7 of *Law Gazette* 2012-08 | When the main text cites these, it uses only a paraphrase, with no quotation marks; until PD 3.11.2 is obtained, cite only the document name | Next round, extract the original sentence for each one and add it to this appendix | # Appendix B · Templates and checklists ## B.1 Singapore law-firm source list **What you'll do in this section**: copy the three tables below into your *Citation-slot table*, row by row — contact, payment/billing, compliance verdict and priority map straight onto the matching fields — and work each row the way the figure below reads it. Where the compliance verdict says "not yet", ask two things in writing before you come back to judge it. The tables name no law firm, and you may not add one. ```mermaid Figure: branch first by what the compliance-verdict column says; for "not yet", first ask in writing what the platform does and how it charges; a platform that refers or assigns cases for law firms goes straight to "do not do" flowchart LR row["a row in the table"] --> j{"what the compliance-verdict column says"} j -->|can do| p["order by priority, P0 first"]:::hl j -->|by review process| rv["submit per their process, no payment"] j -->|correction only| fix["send a correction letter only if wrong"] j -->|not yet| ask["ask in writing: refers cases? how charged?"] ask -->|no referrals, fixed rate card| again["back to the verdict, reassess"] ask -->|refers or assigns, or paid per lead| no["reclassify as do not do"]:::warn j -->|do not do| mon["no outreach, monitor only"]:::warn j -->|not reachable| chk["check your own entry only"] ``` How the verdict is reached: see the decision diagram in chapter 6, 6.3; the three tables are the result of judging every site against that diagram, site by site. The law-firm verdict adds two rules on top of [[通用版 6.4 三档信源与 B 档动作]]. First, the question "Does it refer, assign or match cases?" comes before the question about the title. Never pay or join any platform that refers clients to law firms, whether it charges per lead, per completed engagement, by commission or by a fixed entry fee. Paying per lead, per completed engagement or by commission hits r 39(2)(b) "must not reward the referror by the payment of any commission or other form of consideration;" and GN 6.1.1 para 35 "The participation in any Internet referral schemes which requires the law practice to pay a fee or share fees paid for legal services referred would be a breach of the LPA." [Statute text; see Appendix A.1, A.3]; we do not pay a fixed entry fee either [Conservative line (not statute text)], 80% confidence. We do not join referral or introduction platforms even when they charge the law firm nothing: GN 6.1.1 para 36 "Even if no fees are paid or shared, any participation in an online introduction service or referral service carried out in such a way as to ‘unfairly attract work’ to the law practice would be improper given the terms of section 83(2)(b) and/or section 83(2)(h) of the LPA." [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]; the original text does not say what counts as "unfairly", so this book never joins any such platform [Conservative line (not statute text)], 60% confidence. Second, the names of peer-reviewed rankings often include Leading or Best, but the ranking is decided by the reviewers and cannot be bought. So do not judge them by the decision diagram's question "Title self-awards best or top?"; submit materials through their normal process instead. Third-party rankings can serve as evidence of expertise: r 43(2)(g) lists assessment by peers as one of the seven factors [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; taking part in the review itself is not specifically addressed in any regulator document [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes, the full category 6 list on the Law Society's ethics page; check date: 2026-09-29). Once listed, write only your own entry, and never draw inferences such as "better than " or "the only firm listed" [Conservative line (not statute text)], 80% confidence. How "cited" is counted: L3 = the 30 questions in our 2026-09-29 run (practice areas other than family law, including the two cross-practice-area question types: choosing a lawyer and legal fees, and legal aid). ChatGPT run 1 gave 146 citations in total; the number in square brackets is run 2 (161 in total); AI Mode gave 122 in total. The family set = the 22 family-law questions in the public dataset (collected 2026-09-23; R1: ChatGPT 60 citations, AI Mode 52; R2: ChatGPT only, 59). One citation = one distinct URL in one answer. A site cited in only one question is marked "single case". The 7 recommendation questions = 2 near-me questions, 2 "is this firm good" questions and 3 "who's best" questions from L3. ### Rankings, directories and the Law Society (10) | Site (type) | URL | Contact and payment / billing | Compliance verdict | Priority | |---|---|---|---|---| | The Law Society of Singapore's "Find A Featured Lawyer/Law Firm" directory (the regulator's paid directory, listed by practice area)
Cited: L3 ChatGPT 4/146 [3/161], AI Mode 3/122 (listing pages plus the index page); of the 7 recommendation questions, listing pages were cited in 3 by ChatGPT across its two runs and in 2 by AI Mode; family: 2 citations (R1 AI Mode 1/52, R2 ChatGPT 1/59) | lawsociety.org.sg/find-a-featured-lawyer-law-firm/ (listing pages are under /firms/) | Paid: the index page's own words: "You can find a lawyer or law practice by area. Please note this is not a complete list as the listings are paid by advertising."; the Law Society's Advertise page (lawsociety.org.sg/advertise/) lists the law-firm directory as a bookable advertising slot, enquiries go through the Publications department · rate card and terms not obtained | May buy one slot: the only paid placement this book suggests considering [Conservative line (not statute text)], 70% confidence. Get the rate card and terms in writing before buying, and confirm the listing is display only, with no referral and no case assignment. Write the approved full name, a designation on the approved list, evidenced expertise and the firm's own fee basis in the entry; no price comparison with other firms | Already listed: P0 (update the blurb to match the firm's website, free); buying new: P1 (decide only after the free items are done) | | The Law Society's Legal Costs / Disputes page (the regulator's own explainer on fee disputes)
Cited: L3 ChatGPT 5/146 [5/161] (the same 5 questions both times: price, checklist and rules types), AI Mode 1/122 | lawsociety.org.sg/legal-costs-disputes/ | — · free | Not reachable; the firm's own fees page links out to it as the official route for fee disputes (chapter 1, 1.3) | — | | LSRA Search for a Lawyer or Law Practice (the government register)
Cited: L3 ChatGPT 3/146 [4/161], AI Mode 1/122; family R2 ChatGPT 1/59 (single case: not one word of it was copied; it was only attached at the end of the answer, as a pointer to check it yourself) | eservices.mlaw.gov.sg/lsra/search-lawyer-or-law-firm/ | — · free | Not reachable, check only: screenshot the entries for the firm and every lawyer at the time and keep them on file. The field name for individual practising details has not been checked [Original text not obtained]; lawyer profile pages and outreach letters give only the register lookup link and check date, never a number | — (the first step before you start) | | The SAL Directory of Specialists (the statutory body's specialist-accreditation directory)
Not cited in L3 or the family set | sal.org.sg/learn/specialist-accreditation/ (the "Directory of Specialists" tab on the page) | — · free | Not reachable, check only. 121 entries on 2026-09-29, 0 in family law; today no family lawyer can describe themselves as an Accredited Specialist in Family Law [Statute text; see Appendix A.5]; check again once the first list is announced at the Opening of the Legal Year 2027 (OLY 2027) | — | | Doyle's Guide (peer-reviewed rankings, including local rankings for family, criminal and other practice areas)
Cited: L3 ChatGPT 1/146 [1/161], AI Mode 1/122 (the same "who's best" question, single case); family ChatGPT 3 citations (R1 2/60, R2 1/59) | doylesguide.com (e.g. /rankings/criminal-lawyers-singapore/) | A research contact email on the site · the page states that rankings come from peer nomination and interviews and "cannot be purchased" (opened and checked 2026-09-29) | Take part through the review process: submit per their process, no payment, no canvassing; once listed, the lawyer's own page states only "listed in × guide × year × category × tier" plus a link (chapter 3, 3.3) | P0 | | Chambers (peer-reviewed rankings, including family-law and property sections for local firms)
Cited: L3 ChatGPT 1/146 [1/161] (the same "is this firm good" question, single case); family R1 ChatGPT 1/60 | chambers.com/info/submissions | The submission page's own words: "Submitting to Chambers is free."; 20–30 referees are required · there is also a paid profile-type product (found by search, not opened to check) | Take part through the review process; do not buy the paid product. Where the referee list would name a client, get the client's written authorisation first — confirming that someone is or was the firm's client is itself confidential information [Conservative line (not statute text)], 80% confidence; the requirement for client authorisation is r 6(3)(a) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] | P1 | | Legal 500 (peer-reviewed rankings, including a local firms section)
Cited: L3 [1/161] (run 2, the same "who's best" question, single case); family R1 ChatGPT 1/60 | legal500.com/the-legal-500-submission-information/asia-pacific-submissions/ | The page's own words: "Law firms appear in the editorial sections of Legal 500 free of charge."; the paid item is a separate set of directory listings · the Asia Pacific 2027 edition's submission deadline was 2026-06-08, already past | Take part through the review process; do not buy a paid directory listing | P1 (do it once the next window opens; inferred as the first half of 2027, not checked) | | Best Lawyers (peer-reviewed rankings)
Cited: L3 [1/161] (run 2, the same "who's best" question, single case) | bestlawyers.com/methodology | The page states it is "based entirely on peer review", and listed lawyers appear in its publication "at no cost"; there is also a paid marketing product for those listed · rate card unverified | Take part through the review process; do not buy the paid marketing product or a licensed badge | P2 | | Benchmark Litigation (peer review, leaning toward litigation)
In the family set it only made Google's top 10; neither engine cited it | Unverified | Unverified · unverified | Not yet; find out the review process and how it charges, then reassess | P3 | | The Straits Times × Statista "Singapore's Best Law Firms" annual rankings (run jointly by a newspaper and a statistics body, based on peer and client recommendations)
Not cited in L3 or the family set | statista.com/page/best-law-firms-sgp | bestlawfirms-singapore@statista.com · the page mentions no fee of any kind; the 2027 edition's survey period was 2026-05-11 to 07-06, already over; the page's own words: "Self-recommendations will not be considered." | Can do, only three things: put it on the calendar, forward the participation link to clients and peers once the next survey opens, and never fill it in for them or pay them; once listed, write only a factual statement plus a link (chapter 6, 6.6) | P2 (the calendar item) | The Featured directory cell needs to be read as two separate things: first, buying a display-only advertising slot that makes no referrals, at a fixed rate card [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR r 39, GN 6.1.1 paras 33–37, PD 6.1.2, the Law Society's Featured directory page; check date: 2026-09-29), 70% confidence; second, suggesting only this one paid slot out of all of them for consideration, which is this book's own call [Conservative line (not statute text)], 70% confidence. The basis is that the regulator sells this slot itself, and its listing pages really were cited in the recommendation questions; its rate-card terms were not obtained this round, and whether every listing page counts as a paid slot is also inferred from the index page's own words, not checked entry by entry. ### Legal information sites, find-a-lawyer platforms, directories and review sites (9) | Site (type) | URL | Contact and payment / billing | Compliance verdict | Priority | |---|---|---|---|---| | singaporelegaladvice.com's articles (a legal-information site, with a Chinese sub-site)
Cited: L3 ChatGPT 3/146 [3/161], AI Mode 4/122 (including 1 citation of the Chinese sub-site); family 3 citations (R1 ChatGPT 1/60, AI Mode 1/52, R2 ChatGPT 1/59) | singaporelegaladvice.com/law-articles/…; cn.singaporelegaladvice.com | admin@singaporelegaladvice.com · the operator is a private company (footer); the footer's Write for Us link redirected to the homepage on 2026-09-29, the submission channel is not usable; paid items unverified | Correction only: the same site also runs a find-a-lawyer service and arranges calls with lawyers (see the next row), and its list articles carry Best / Top-Rated in the title. Send a correction letter when the firm is written up wrongly; do not submit, do not pay. Its divorce-fees guide, last updated 2022-04-13, is the original source of the industry-wide range figure and has been cited on both legs (family) — only correct the firm's own errors; never give it other firms' ranges | P1 | | singaporelegaladvice.com's Find a Lawyer and Call a Lawyer (finding a lawyer, arranging a call)
Cited: L3 ChatGPT 1/146 (an in-site lawyer profile page, single case), AI Mode 1/122 (the Find a Lawyer page, single case) | singaporelegaladvice.com/find-a-lawyer/; callalawyer.singaporelegaladvice.com | As above · the user picks a topic and a lawyer on the platform and pays the platform S$59; that lawyer calls back within 24 hours for 20 minutes; that S$59 can then be offset against instructing that same lawyer. The page does not say how the lawyer's side settles with the platform | Do not do: the platform charges the user, arranges the call for the lawyer, and then uses the offset to steer the follow-on engagement to that lawyer, which makes it an online introduction or matching service; how the lawyer pays the platform, if at all, does not change this verdict [Conservative line (not statute text)] | — | | ThreeBestRated (a rated directory, every page titled "3 Best Lawyers in ")
Cited: L3 ChatGPT 1/146 [3/161] (near me, "is this firm good"); family R2 ChatGPT 1/59 | threebestrated.sg (paged by area, e.g. /lawyers-in-jurong-east) | support@threebestrated.sg · states of itself "List your business for Free!"; whether it sells badges or certificates: unverified | For checkable facts and correction only (the title carries Best): you may use the free listing route to update the firm's own fact fields; do not pay, do not buy any badge or certificate, and once listed do not quote the ranking back as self-praise | P2 | | Global Law Experts (a membership lawyer network)
Cited: L3 AI Mode 2/122; family R1 AI Mode 1/52 | globallawexperts.com | A "Become a Member" entry on the homepage, states of itself "connects businesses, investors and HNW families with vetted lawyers" · the membership fee is not stated on the page | Do not do: a membership network that matches clients to lawyers is a referral or matching service; we do not pay a membership fee even if it is fixed [Conservative line (not statute text)], 80% confidence | — | | Lawzana (a lawyer directory)
Cited: L3 AI Mode 1/122 | lawzana.com | The lawyer sign-up page's title is "Get More Clients"; a search-result snippet shows subscription tiers set by the number of leads per month (the original page returned 403, not opened) | Do not do: distributing clients by lead is a referral or matching service (inferred, 70% confidence); to reassess, get the billing terms in writing first | — | | terris.sg (a personal-site list article, titled "9 Best Lawyers in Singapore")
Cited: L3 AI Mode 3/122 (3 questions) | terris.sg/blog/… | hello@terris.sg · the site owner states the ranking is their own, after their own research; does not take submissions (verified for the dental edition, 2026-09-21; carried over for the law-firm list articles, not asked separately) | Correction only (a Best-type title, editor's own picks) | P2 | | Review platforms (reviews.io, trustburn and the like)
Cited: family R2 ChatGPT 1/59 (reviews.io; what was copied was the first-screen rating block "4.9 / 317", not the review text itself, single case); L3 ChatGPT 1/146 (trustburn, single case) | reviews.io; trustburn.com | Unverified · how the platform charges businesses: unverified | Can do: requests for reviews follow the four conditions; the request and reply templates are in B.2. Putting a review on the firm's website needs the client's written authorisation (chapter 1, 1.5). If the platform charges a subscription, first ask in writing whether it is a software fee or a charge per review or per lead; a charge per lead is paying per lead, so under the first rule at the start of this section we do not use it | P2 | | Case-law and lawyer-profile sites (sgcaselaw.com and the like, auto-generating lawyer pages from court judgments)
Cited: L3 ChatGPT 1/146 [1/161] (the same "is this firm good" question, single case) | sgcaselaw.com | An on-site Contact page · states it is unrelated to the courts, with judgment data taken from eLitigation; paid items unverified | Correction only: check only the firm's lawyers' names and how the firm name is written; send a correction letter only if wrong | P3 | | Small editorial best / top list sites (lifestyle and review sites, including bestthingreview.com)
Cited: L3 ChatGPT 3 citations across the two runs, from 3 sites (all on "is this firm good" questions) | bestthingreview.com and others | Unverified · unverified | Correction only (Best / Top-type titles); do not submit, do not pay | P3 | Asking for reviews, in the review platforms row [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: the current PCR in full, the revoked Publicity Rules (in full), the full category 6 list on the Law Society's ethics page; check date: 2026-09-29), 70% confidence. The four conditions (offer no incentive, don't write the review for them, don't ask only satisfied clients, don't dictate the content) rest on r 44(1)(b)'s ban on misleading conduct [Conservative line (not statute text)]. ### Government, courts, public bodies and media (5 kinds) | Site (type) | URL | Contact and payment / billing | Compliance verdict | Priority | |---|---|---|---|---| | The courts (including the Family Justice Courts) and the eLitigation judgment database (government)
Cited: judiciary.gov.sg L3 ChatGPT 37/146 [32/161], AI Mode 8/122; family R1 ChatGPT 21/60, AI Mode 8/52, R2 ChatGPT 28/59; elitigation.sg L3 ChatGPT 5/146 [6/161] | judiciary.gov.sg; elitigation.sg | — · free | Not reachable; the firm's own pages quote its original sentences, provision numbers and update dates, and build downstream pages from it (chapter 5) | — | | The Ministry of Law and its Legal Aid Bureau and Public Defender's Office (government)
Cited: across mlaw.gov.sg L3 ChatGPT 22/146 [27/161], AI Mode 7/122 (including the LSRA register lookup) | mlaw.gov.sg; lab.mlaw.gov.sg; pdo.mlaw.gov.sg | — · free | Not reachable; copy legal-aid eligibility from the original text, add the check date, and do not attach a touting sentence (chapter 5, 5.6) | — | | Legislation (government)
Cited: L3 ChatGPT 5/146 [11/161], AI Mode 2/122; family ChatGPT 12 citations (R1 4/60, R2 8/59), all anchored to a specific section | sso.agc.gov.sg | — · free | Not reachable; the firm's own pages quote legislation down to the specific section, with a link carrying `ProvIds` | — | | Pro Bono SG (the Law Society's charity) and community legal clinics
Cited: L3 ChatGPT 3/146 [3/161], AI Mode 2/122 | probono.sg | — · free | Not reachable, check only; where the firm's lawyers take part in a pro bono capacity, write only the scheme's name and the official link on the pro bono page (chapter 5, 5.20) | — | | Lifestyle and personal-finance media, newspapers (SassyMama, SingSaver, The Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao and the like)
Cited: family R1 AI Mode 2/52 (SassyMama and SingSaver, 1 each); L3 AI Mode 2/122 (a Straits Times article on a road-accident claim, and a piece on intestacy on the finance site smartwealth.sg, 1 each), ChatGPT [1/161] (run 2, a CNA article on damages awarded for a car-accident injury, single case); Lianhe Zaobao has only made Google's top 10 | Each site's own submission or editorial-desk page | Unverified · whether contributions are paid: unverified | A bylined contribution can be done: the lawyer signs it themselves, in the byline format under PD 6.2.4 A [Statute text; see Appendix A.3], giving only facts that are unique to and checkable for the firm; do not buy a paid advertorial | P3 (each leg's AI-citation sample is only 1–2 citations) | Outside the three tables, the five business profiles (Google, Bing, Foursquare, Apple, Yelp) are not among these 24 sites, but every free-text box, business Q&A, business post and photo caption on them is publicity: r 2(1) counts as publicity any advertisement "retrievable from, any mass medium (electronic or otherwise) or the Internet" [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. So they use the same word list as the firm's own site (B.3); for how to fill in a profile, see chapter 3, 3.4 and [[通用版 3.4 第三方资质分级、Wikidata 与五处商家档案]]. Forums and social media are not listed: across ChatGPT's two runs L3 cited them 1/307 in total, AI Mode 2/122, family 1/171. The three tables are the result of opening or searching every site on 2026-09-29, and are reviewed again each quarter. Items marked "unverified" are ones we could not find that time; "inferred", "found by search" and confidence figures are copied into the ledger exactly as they are, never turned into a definite claim. Where a page actually states a rate card, copy it exactly; where it does not, always log "quote on request". The only paid slot this book suggests considering is the Law Society's Featured directory; paid profiles in ranking guides, paid slots on list-article sites, and memberships of every kind of platform, are never bought. ## B.2 Outreach letter insertions, review request and reply templates **What you'll do in this section**: fill the law-firm-specific spots — the sentence saying who is writing on the firm's behalf, the firm's self-description, the bracket after the billing question, the three lines of the materials list, the fees and practising-details lines in the update letter, the declaration paragraph, and the line under the signature — into the matching places in the main letter in [[通用版 B.3 外联邮件与评价回复]]; correction letters are instead sent signed by a partner or director. Then copy the review request template (including the family-law-version line) and the review reply template, together with the three fixed rules, into the operations manual. Before sending, clear the three gates in chapter 6, 6.1 first (authorisation and this batch's sign-off sheet, the family self-check, the banned-word list). ### What to replace and insert in the main letter Copy the rest of the main letter from [[通用版 B.3 外联邮件与评价回复]] unchanged; change only these spots: | Insert point | English | Chinese | |---|---|---| | First sentence (replace the whole sentence) | I'm [Your Name] at [our company], writing on behalf of and with the written authority of **[approved full name of the law practice, incl. LLC / LLP]** | "我是 [我方公司] 的 [姓名]，受 **[律所核准全名，逐字照写，含 LLC / LLP 后缀]** 书面授权代为联络" | | The firm's self-description (right after the end of the first sentence; the approved full name is already in the first sentence, so it is not repeated here) | , a Singapore law practice | "（新加坡律所）" | | The bracket after the first billing question (replaces the General Edition's sentence) | (We can only take up fixed-rate listings that readers choose from themselves. We cannot take part in any referral, matching or lead scheme, however it is charged.) | "（我们只能采用读者自选、按固定刊例收费的刊登位；任何转介、配对或按线索分发的安排，不论怎么计费，我们都不能参加。）" | | Materials list: replaces "registered entity name and UEN" | • the law practice's approved name as licensed (incl. LLC / LLP) and UEN | "律所核准全名（含 LLC / LLP 后缀）与 UEN" | | Materials list: replaces the price line | • our published fee basis for [service] — how we charge, the fixed fee or range, what is included and what is charged separately — matching our fees page line for line | "[服务] 的公开收费口径：计费方式、固定费或区间、包含项与另计项，与官网收费页逐行一致" | | Materials list: add a line | • each lawyer's name as it appears on their practising certificate, with a link to the LSRA public search | "每位律师照执业证写的姓名，附 LSRA 公开查册链接" | | Update letter: replaces the price line | • Fees: [service] is charged [as a fixed fee of S$X / at S$X–Y depending on (conditions)], [inclusive of GST / not subject to GST]; court fees and disbursements are [included / charged separately]; the final fee is set out in our letter of engagement — see [fees page URL], updated [date]. | — | | Update letter: the practising-details line | • Practising status: [Name] can be checked on the LSRA public search ([link]), checked on [date]. | — | | Declaration paragraph | Include in every letter; use the law-firm version below | Same as left | | Under the signature line (letters we send in our own name always carry this line, never delete it; a correction letter signed by a partner or director does not carry it) | [Our company] is not a law practice and does not provide legal services. | "[我方公司] 不是律所，不提供法律服务。" | Each of these changes has a reason. We write on the firm's behalf as its authorised contact because r 42(1) already contemplates publicity carried out by another person on the lawyer's behalf [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: the PCR in full; check date: 2026-09-29), 85% confidence. The line under the signature exists because a non-lawyer implying that they are qualified to practise commits an offence under LPA s 33(1)(b) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2]; the wording of this line is our own, and we treat phrases like "our legal team" or "free legal consultation" as falling within that offence [Conservative line (not statute text)], 75% confidence. The billing bracket adds one point to the General Edition's sentence: no referral arrangement of any kind. The basis is the passages quoted under the first rule at the start of B.1; not paying a fixed entry fee either is the conservative line (80%). The practising-details line only gives the LSRA register lookup link and the check date, because the field name for individual practising details on the LSRA has not been checked [Original text not obtained], and we write no number of any kind before it is verified. Letters sent in the name of a limited liability law partnership (LLP) or law corporation (LLC) itself (including the correction letter below) end with the sentence "[approved full name] is incorporated with limited liability." LPA s 139(2) reads: "The partners of a limited liability law partnership must ensure that every invoice or official correspondence of the limited liability law partnership bears the statement that it is incorporated with limited liability."; s 154(4) says the same for a law corporation [Statute text; see Appendix A.2]. The provision does not define whether an outreach letter counts as "official correspondence"; to be safe, always add it [Conservative line (not statute text)]. ### Declaration paragraph (law-firm version, in every letter) ```split Figure: the declaration paragraph splits in two: the left column has a rule, so the letter can say "the rules don't allow it"; the right column has no express ban, so it only says "we don't provide it" There's a rule, so the letter can say the rules don't allow it || No express ban, so the letter only says we don't provide it Success rates, win counts || Self-awarded best, top, No.1 Past cases and client names that would breach confidentiality || Client testimonials Comparing fees or service quality with other lawyers || Family law: information that could identify a child involved in the proceedings, content covered by an order restricting publication || Family law: hearing details from proceedings heard in private ``` **English** > Before you prepare anything, three things we will not send, because the rules on lawyers' publicity in Singapore do not allow them: success rates or win counts; past cases or client names where that would breach client confidentiality; and any comparison with, or criticism of, other lawyers' fees or the quality of their services. Separately, we do not supply self-awarded labels such as "best" or "top", or client testimonials. **Chinese** > "有几类内容我们不会提供，先说清楚。按新加坡律师宣传的规则，下面三类不能写：成功率与胜诉数字；会违反保密义务的过往案件与客户名；与其他律师在收费或服务质量上的任何比较或批评。另外，自封的「最好 / 第一」一类说法和客户证言，我们也不提供。" **Family law firms add one sentence to the end of each of the two paragraphs** > For family matters, Singapore law also does not allow publishing anything that could identify a child involved in court proceedings, or anything covered by a Family Justice Court order restricting publication; and we will not send details from proceedings heard in private. > > "家事案件另有法律明文：不得发布能认出涉诉儿童的任何信息，也不得发布家事法庭禁止发布令所禁的内容；不公开审理的庭审细节，我们也不会提供。" Every item in the left column is backed by rule text: success rates are r 43(1)(b)(ii); cases and clients that would breach confidentiality are r 43(1)(b)(i) and r 6; comparison is r 43(1)(c) "(c) the publicity does not make any comparison or criticism in relation to the fees charged, or the quality of the services provided, by any other legal practitioner or law practice." [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; the child item is CYPA s 112(1)(a); the order-restricting-publication item is FJA s 10(4)(a), (5) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]. The right column has no provision that expressly bans anything, so the letter only writes "we don't provide it", never "the rules don't allow it": by default, never call yourself best, top or No.1 [Conservative line (not statute text)], 80% confidence; client testimonials [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: the current PCR in full and the revoked Publicity Rules (in full), searches for "testimonial" and "endors" both return 0; check date: 2026-09-29); not supplying them in outreach materials is our own working rule [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Not supplying hearing details applies FJA s 10(1) "Subject to subsection (2), all matters and proceedings in a Family Justice Court must be heard in private." to outward-facing materials [Conservative line (not statute text)], 85% confidence. The General Edition's whole paragraph (the optional paragraph for regulated sides) lumps client testimonials, before-and-after photos and best, top, leading together as things "Singapore's advertising rules for our sector don't allow"; for law firms none of the three holds: there is no ban on testimonials in either the current PCR or the revoked Publicity Rules, before-and-after photos have no use for a law firm, and there is no express ban on best, top or leading. Use the law-firm version here instead of the General Edition's version; leading may be written when a third-party ranking's own tier of that name backs it (B.3). When you switch to an update letter or a correction letter, replace only points 1 and 2 of the main letter and keep the declaration paragraph. ### Correction letters: signed by a partner or director Correction letters follow the swap-in paragraph in [[通用版 B.3 外联邮件与评价回复]]; the law firm changes only the sign-off: it is sent signed by a partner or director of the firm (in a sole proprietorship, the sole proprietor signs), written "[Name], [Partner / Director / Sole Proprietor], [approved full name]", with LLPs and LLCs adding the limited-liability sentence above; we may draft it on the firm's behalf, but never sign on its behalf. The duty to procure rectification or withdrawal under PCR r 42(2) falls only on the lawyer themselves and the firm's directors and partners, not on employed lawyers [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; we also apply this duty to entries that a third party wrote on its own [Conservative line (not statute text)], 65% confidence. A correction letter changes only that one fact, attaches an official source (the LSRA register lookup, the firm's own fees page), and never mentions a ranking or smuggles in any comparison. ### Review request template (use only after sign-off) Operating instructions, six fixed rules: 1. The template goes word for word into the sign-off sheet (B.4), and is only used once a partner or director has signed it; before that signature, you may only ask the client verbally to "leave a review", with no guidance at all on what to write [Conservative line (not statute text)]. 2. The firm sends it from its own mailbox to its own clients; we never handle the client list — a client's identity is itself confidential information (r 6) [Conservative line (not statute text)]; personal data is handled under the PDPA, and the PDPA's original text was not checked this round [Original text not obtained]. 3. Send it to every client whose case is in the same category and closed in the same period; never ask whether they were satisfied first and decide whether to send it based on that. 4. Offer no incentive at all: no discount, gift, prize draw or fee reduction on the next matter. 5. Never write it for them, never give a sample review, never ask staff, family or friends to post reviews; never dictate what to write (except the family-law reminder line, see below). 6. The metric counts only requests sent, never reviews produced (the fixed monthly-report sentence is in B.3). Asking for reviews as such [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: the current PCR in full, the revoked Publicity Rules (in full), the full category 6 list on the Law Society's ethics page; check date: 2026-09-29), 70% confidence. Rules 3–5 are the four conditions (don't ask only satisfied clients, offer no incentive, don't write it for them, don't dictate the content), and rest on r 44(1)(b)'s ban on misleading conduct — a review that came with an incentive, was written for the client, or was requested only from satisfied clients does not show the reader an ordinary experience [Conservative line (not statute text)]. **English** > Subject: A short review of your experience with [approved full name] > > Dear [Name], > > Thank you for instructing [approved full name]. We send this note to every client whose [type of matter] matter closed in [month], asking whether they would be willing to leave a review of their experience on [platform]: [link]. > > Leaving a review is entirely up to you. Whether you leave one, and what you write, makes no difference to how we act for you now or in future, and we do not offer anything in return. > > [Name], [Partner / Director / role], [approved full name] **Chinese** > “主题：请您简单评价一下与 [核准全名] 的合作 > > [称呼]： > > 感谢您委托 [核准全名]。[月份] 结案的 [案件类型] 客户，我们每一位都会收到这封信，问一句是否愿意在 [平台] 留下评价：[链接]。 > > 留不留评价完全由您决定。留与不留、写什么，都不影响我们现在和今后为您办理事务，我们也不会为此提供任何回报。 > > [姓名]，[合伙人 / 董事 / 职位]，[核准全名]” **The family-law version adds one sentence before the sign-off** > Please do not include your children's names, schools, or any detail that could identify them. > > "请不要在评价里写孩子的名字、学校，或能认出他们的细节。" Whether this sentence counts as "dictating the content": under this book's reading, it does not — it limits identifying information, not an opinion on the service [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Where a family client's review gives a child's identifying details, we do not republish that review or restate it in a reply; whoever publishes information that could identify a child involved in the proceedings bears the criminal liability (CYPA s 112(5)(b) "the person who publishes or distributes it") [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]. Whether a family client's review goes onto the firm's website is decided review by review: first through B.4's family self-check sheet, then by a partner or director's written sign-off. ### Review reply template (reply to every review within 72 hours, negative ones included) Replies are sent from the firm's own account; where we draft one on the firm's behalf, it still goes into this batch's sign-off sheet, and a family law firm's reply first goes through B.4's family self-check sheet. **English** > Thank you for your feedback. We do not discuss anyone's legal matters in a public channel, and we do not confirm whether any person is or was our client. If you would like us to follow up, please contact us at [phone / email] and [role] will handle it directly. **Chinese** > "谢谢您留下反馈。我们不会在公开渠道讨论任何人的法律事务，也不会确认任何人是否委托过我们。如果您希望我们跟进，请通过 [电话 / 邮箱] 联系，由 [职位] 直接处理。" Three fixed rules: ① never confirm whether the reviewer is or was the firm's client, and never discuss any case — including the facts the reviewer wrote into the review themselves ② never comment on the opposing party, or on opposing counsel or the judge ③ every negative review gets the same template: no arguing, no restating what happened. Also as in the General Edition: no fees, results, win rate or comparison with other firms ever appears in a reply. Family law firms add one more rule: no word about a child, a court or a court order ever appears in a reply. Basis: PD 6.1.1 lists online posts about clients, judges and the opposing party among its examples of improper posts; item (g) reads "to avoid adverse remarks on the conduct or character of the opposing party." [Statute text (the Council's advisory wording); see Appendix A.3], applied to review replies [Conservative line (not statute text)], 85% confidence. We neither confirm nor deny that the reviewer is or was the firm's client (r 6(2)) [Conservative line (not statute text)], 80% confidence — a client writing it themselves in a review does not amount to the firm being authorised to confirm it publicly. PD 6.1.1 also specifically reminds firms to comply with the PDPA: "Law practices are also reminded to adhere to standards imposed by the Personal Data Protection Act 2012 …" [Statute text; see Appendix A.3]; the PDPA's original text was not checked this round [Original text not obtained], so no personal data of any kind appears in a reply. To have a negative review removed, the only route is asking the platform to handle offensive content under its own rules; we never edit the review's text [Conservative line (not statute text)]. ## B.3 Word list (English–Chinese) and the fixed monthly-report sentence **What you'll do in this section**: attach the English–Chinese word list below to the compliance memo in full, as one shared copy for on-site and off-site work; before every page launches, search the whole page using the second part's search words (body text, FAQ, captions, table headers, title, meta, structured data, business profiles and directory listings all included), and handle any hit per the table; run our own sales and outreach materials separately through the third, smaller table; copy the fixed sentence in the monthly report's reviews section verbatim, without changing a word. ### Word list for law-firm pages For a word not in the table, write the English original and do not invent a Chinese rendering [Conservative line (not statute text)]. Every wording in the "what to write instead" column is drawn from the seven classes of checkable facts in chapter 1, 1.8. | English | Chinese equivalent | Can it be written? What to write instead | Basis | Label | |---|---|---|---|---| | success rate, win rate, 95% won | "胜诉率" / "成功率" / "从未败诉" | Do not write it; rewrite as the process, the timeframe or the statutory conditions | r 43(1)(b)(ii) | Statute text (A.1) | | cheapest, lowest fees, more affordable than other firms | "最便宜" / "比同行低" / "市场价 X，我们 Y" | Do not write it; write the firm's own billing method, what's included and what's charged separately | r 43(1)(c) | Statute text (A.1) | | guarantee, we will win, assured outcome | "包赢" / "保证" / "一定帮你拿到" | Do not write it; write the factors the court considers, citing the provision | r 44(2)(d) | Statute text (A.1) | | No. 1, top, best (self-description) | "最好" / "第一" / "首选" / "顶尖" | Do not write it by default; write the practice areas and years in practice | r 43(1)(c) (an implied comparison with peers' service quality), r 44(2)(c) (cannot be verified) | Conservative line (not statute text) (80% confidence) | | leading | "领先" / "首屈一指" | Do not write it by default; write it only when a third-party ranking has placed you in a tier of that name, and give the ranking's name and year | PD 6.2.1 D(a) (calling yourself leading without expertise is misleading), r 44(2)(c) | Conservative line (not statute text) (70% confidence) | | specialise in, expertise in (body text) | "擅长" / "专精" / "专长于" | Write it only with r 43(2) evidence; log the evidence number on the sign-off sheet (B.4) | r 43(1)(a), r 43(2) | Statute text (A.1) | | Specialist, Expert (as a title) | "专家律师" / "离婚专家" / "某某专家" | Not as a title; use advocate and solicitor as the title, and write expertise as a separate, evidenced sentence | r 33(1) + PD 3.5.2 | Conservative line (not statute text) (75% confidence) | | — | "资深" / "权威" (describing a lawyer) | Do not write it by default; rewrite as the year of admission, or the share of the lawyer's own practice this type of case makes up (write it only if backed by a ledger) | r 44(2)(c) (cannot be verified) | Conservative line (not statute text) | | Accredited Specialist in Building and Construction Law, Maritime and Shipping Law, Data and Digital Economy Law | Only the official Chinese translation in para 4.7 of SAL's *Marketing Your Accreditation* guide | Only for individuals whose accreditation is current, written in SAL's format, only on the person's own page, together with the year of accreditation | SAL's *Marketing Your Accreditation* guide, paras 4.1–4.8 | Statute text (A.5); "together with the year of accreditation" for these three types is our own wording: Conservative line (not statute text) | | Accredited Specialist, Senior Accredited Specialist in Family Law | No official Chinese translation yet; do not translate it yourself | As of 2026-09-29, no one can write it (121 entries in the directory, 0 in family law); once the first batch is announced at OLY 2027, only for individuals currently listed in the directory, write the term in full — never invent an abbreviation | SAL's current page, the Family Law accreditation information guide (v1.01), the directory | Statute text (scheme and timetable, A.5); post-nominals and Chinese translation: Original text not obtained | | Senior Counsel, SC | "资深大律师" (SC only) | Only for people appointed under LPA s 30 | r 33(3), LPA s 30 | Statute text (A.1, A.2) | | Consultant | "顾问律师" | Write it only after 10 years in practice; a foreign lawyer may write only Foreign Law Consultant, also only after 10 years | LPA s 75D, RI Rules r 11(1)(2) | Statute text (A.2) | | no win, no fee | "不赢不收费" / "胜诉才收费" | Write it only on pages for proceedings on the CFA list, and state the CFA conditions; never write it on family-law pages | LPA s 107, s 115B, PCR r 18A, CFA Regulations reg 3 | Statute text (A.1, A.2); on a family-law page it is misleading: Conservative line (not statute text) (85% confidence) | | free consultation | "免费咨询" | State the scope and the length, e.g. "First 30 minutes free of charge; document review not included"; never write it as a promotional hook | r 44(2)(b) (omitting a material fact is misleading) | Original text not obtained (fixed sentence below the table) | | XX LLC, XX Law Corporation | Firm-name suffix | An LLC carries the suffix everywhere — never dropped from structured-data fields or business profiles either; a firm that is not an LLC must not use it | LPA s 154(3) | Statute text (A.2) | | — | Chinese firm name | Use only the Chinese name the Director of Legal Services has approved in writing; where none is approved, write the approved English name on the Chinese page too — never translate it yourself | LPE Rules r 7 | Statute text (A.2); applied to web pages and business profiles: Conservative line (not statute text) (85% confidence) | The free consultation row [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: the PCR in full, the Law Society's 12 PDs and 2 GNs; check date: 2026-09-29), 60% confidence. This row governs only the firm's own pages; our own materials never mention free legal consultation — see the third part of this section. ### Words to search the whole page for before launch Two groups of words, searched across the same scope: body text, FAQ, captions, table headers, title, meta, JSON-LD, the free-text fields of business profiles, directory listings, and PDFs sent out. ```text Group 1: peer price ranges and market-rate words — a hit means delete, don't rewrite market generally costs ranges from average typical fee "市场" "行情" "一般在" Group 2: words from the table above — a hit means check the table and handle it per the "what to write instead" column success rate win rate cheapest lowest guarantee we will win No. 1 top best leading specialist expert no win no fee free consultation "胜诉率" "成功率" "最便宜" "包赢" "保证" "最好" "第一" "首选" "领先" "专家" "资深" "权威" "不赢不收费" "免费咨询" ``` A hit in Group 1 always means delete, because peer price ranges are never written, whether or not a firm is named: naming a firm, or making it identifiable, hits r 43(1)(c) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; an unnamed market range is [Conservative line (not statute text)], 85% confidence. Court fees are not in this group — they are paid to the court, and sit in the same table as the firm's own fees, in a column of their own [Original text not obtained]: no prohibition found in the current rules (scope checked: PCR 2015 in full, the Law Society Council's 12 Practice Directions and 2 Guidance Notes; check date: 2026-09-29); for how to write it, see chapter 1, 1.3. ### Words we never use in our own materials Sales materials, the signature block of outreach letters, and case-study pages on our own website go through this separate, smaller table: | Word | Can it be written? | Basis | Label | |---|---|---|---| | our legal team, "我们的法律团队", "我们的律师" | Do not write it; write "engaged by [approved full name]" | LPA s 33(1)(b) (a non-lawyer implying they are qualified to practise) | The offence: Statute text (A.2); this wording falls within the offence: Conservative line (not statute text) (75% confidence) | | free legal consultation, "免费法律咨询" (offered by us) | Do not write it | Same as above | Same as above | | pay per lead, pay per case, success fee, revenue share, "按线索收费", "按签约客户收费", "按律师费分成" | Do not write it; quote only a fixed service fee | LPA s 33(3) (an offence of our own); on the firm's side: fee-sharing breaches r 19, and paying per lead, per case or per signed client falls within r 39(2)(b) | Statute text (A.1, A.2) | ### Chinese pages Chinese pages are optional: build them only if the firm has Chinese-speaking clients, and accept them against the AI Mode leg only. Of L3's 4 Chinese-language questions, ChatGPT cited Chinese pages 0/47 across both runs, AI Mode 5/22 (Chinese pages judged heuristically by title and URL); of the 28 citations across the family set's 3 Chinese-language questions, only 1 was a Chinese page (AI Mode, single case). Before a Chinese page launches, check its copy against the "Chinese equivalent" column of the table above. ### Fixed monthly-report sentence (reviews section, copy verbatim) Below the three monthly review numbers in the monthly report (for the table headers, see [[通用版 B.4 工单、台账与月报表头]]), always add this line without changing a word: > The review metric counts only requests sent; star ratings and review counts are observation records, not an acceptance measure. The General Edition's sentence ("We do not request reviews …") is for the strictly regulated side; law firms do not use it — law firms do ask for reviews, they just never treat the number of reviews or the star rating as a result. ## B.4 Lawyer sign-off sheet and family self-check sheet **What you'll do in this section**: before every batch of materials goes out (pages, outreach letters, directory listings, business profiles, contributions, review request templates, review replies), fill in a sign-off sheet and have a partner or director sign it (in a sole proprietorship, the sole proprietor signs), and file it together with the materials; before family-law materials go for sign-off, a designated person on our side first runs them through the family self-check sheet, and any hit means they do not go for sign-off; before work starts for the first law-firm client, gather everything on the "Five things to have in hand before you start" list. ```steps Figure: a batch of materials from drafting to publication; family-law materials get one extra step, our own self-check; the sign-off sheet is filed together with the materials 1 | Draft against the word list | We write it, run it past the B.3 word list and the whole-page search 2 | Family self-check | Done by a person on our side; any hit sends it back for a rewrite 3 | Fill in the sign-off sheet | Expertise evidence numbers, letter-of-engagement version number 4 | Partner sign-off | Signed by a partner or director; employed lawyers do not sign 5 | Publish | Search the whole page once more before publishing; publish only on zero hits 6 | File | Sign-off sheet, self-check sheet and materials filed together ``` The sign-off sheet is our own control gate, not a legal formality [Conservative line (not statute text)]; the signatory is a partner or director (in a sole proprietorship, the sole proprietor), because the duty to procure rectification or withdrawal under PCR r 42(2) falls only on the lawyer personally and on the firm's directors and partners, not on employed lawyers [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]. ### Sign-off sheet fields One sheet per batch; the fields are fixed — no adding or removing them: | Field | How to fill it in | |---|---| | The firm's approved full name | Copy it word for word from the LSRA register lookup, including the LLC / LLP suffix; where a Chinese name is approved, put it on a separate line | | Batch number and date | YYYY-MM-DD; one batch = a set of materials sent for sign-off on the same day | | This batch's materials list | One line per item: type (page / outreach letter / directory listing / business profile / contribution / review request template / review reply) + URL or file name + version number | | Expertise sentences and evidence | One line per "擅长" / "specialise in" / "expertise in" sentence: the original sentence + which of the r 43(2) factors applies (a academic qualifications · b experience · c proportion of working time involved · d level of success achieved · e complexity of law and practice · f significance of the matters · g assessment by peers) + evidence number; if factor d is used, keep the evidence on file and never let a success rate appear on the page | | Fee sentences and the letter of engagement | One line per fee sentence: the original sentence + the matching letter-of-engagement template's version number; the billing method, what's included and what's charged separately must match the letter of engagement item for item | | Authorisation for case studies and reviews | One line per item: the number and date of the client's written authorisation (r 6(3)(a)); without authorisation, it is not listed and not sent | | Family-law materials | yes / no; if yes, write the family self-check sheet number, the checker and the check date | | Sentences that need the firm's decision | List, item by item, every sentence in this batch labelled Conservative line (not statute text) or Original text not obtained; for each, record the signatory's choice: write it the book's default way, or relax it with written reasons (conservative-line items only) | | How our own service fee is calculated | Fixed service fee; write the contract number; never calculated per lead, per case, per signed client, or as a percentage of legal fees | | Signatory | The name and designation, signature and date of a partner or director (in a sole proprietorship, the sole proprietor) | | Fixed declaration (printed above the signature; never removed) | This sign-off confirms only that the facts in this batch are true and that their publication is authorised. It does not transfer the lawyer's responsibility for the publicity, and it does not take on the publishing party's own legal liability. | Where the two sentences of the fixed declaration come from: r 42(1) requires the lawyer to ensure that all publicity about their practice is compliant, whether that publicity is by the lawyer or "by any other person on the legal practitioner’s behalf" [Statute text; see Appendix A.1], so even once the sheet is signed, the responsibility still sits with the lawyer; and the four offences that fall on us — LPA s 33(3), s 33(1)(b), CYPA s 112(5)(b), FJA s 10(5) — do not depend on the lawyer having broken any rule, so a lawyer's signature cannot shield us from them [Statute text; see Appendix A.2, A.4]. The "how our own service fee is calculated" field is on the sign-off sheet because charging per lead, per completed engagement, or as a share of legal fees could fall within s 33(3). Only two kinds of item can be relaxed by a signature: facts only the firm itself knows, and judgement calls labelled Conservative line (not statute text); an item labelled Original text not obtained is still written the book's default way even once signed — it is never used as a basis for judgement (for the stop-and-escalate rules, see chapter 1, 1.1 and [[通用版 0.4 合规句的三档标签与停笔规则]]). **A written sign-off resolves only the stop-and-escalate situations; it never turns something banned as Statute text into something publishable.** ### Family self-check sheet (done by us, before sign-off) Every case study, case-law commentary, republished review, review reply and contribution from a family law firm goes through this table first. Whether to write up a case, whether to put a review on the site, and how far a reply goes are decided case by case by a partner or director, with a written sign-off; this table covers the step before that signature, and it quotes the two statutory provisions that no sign-off can release. | # | What to check | What to do on a hit | Basis | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | The child's name, school, address, photos (including backgrounds in photos that could identify the child) | Delete; do not publish it even after the child turns 18 | CYPA s 112(1)(a), (1)(c) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]; photos: s 112(5) penalises "any information or picture", and the item in (1) that deals specifically with photos was not obtained word for word [Original text not obtained] — delete under the same provision | | 2 | Combinations that could piece together the child's identity: age + school or grade + a parent's occupation, the area they live in, the month of the divorce or the hearing, and the like | Delete until it can no longer be pieced together | CYPA s 112(1)(a) — "any particulars that are calculated to lead to the identification of any child or young person concerned in the proceedings" [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]; combinations count too: Conservative line (not statute text) | | 3 | Whether the court has made an order restricting publication in this case (ask the firm; the firm answers in writing) | If yes → do not write the matter up at all, not a single word | FJA s 10(4)(a), (5) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4] | | 4 | Hearing details, witnesses, the content of documents submitted to the court | Delete until only the legal points and the procedure are left | FJA s 10(1) [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]; applied to case-study pages and reviews: Conservative line (not statute text) (85%) | | 5 | Descriptions that match a specific party: occupation + length of marriage + asset class, or things like ethnicity + address | Delete | PCR r 6, confidentiality [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; applying FJA s 10(1) here: Conservative line (not statute text) | | 6 | Copy that plays up conflict, such as "fight it all the way", "make the other side pay" | Rewrite it, presenting mediation and divorce by mutual agreement as the first choice | PCR r 15A(2)(b), the duty to advise the client to consider amicable resolution [Statute text; see Appendix A.1]; applied to copy: Conservative line (not statute text) (65%) | | 7 | Whether a collaborating business (divorce consultants, investigation or advisory services) is on the list of touts published by the Family Justice Courts | If yes → do not work with them, do not link to them | FJA s 39(1), (6), LPA s 78(1)(e) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2, A.4]; not linking: Conservative line (not statute text) | | 8 | Whether the review or case-study text has the client's written authorisation | If not → do not send it for sign-off | PCR r 6(3)(a) [Statute text; see Appendix A.1] | Three fields at the foot of the table: checker (on our side, name) · check date · conclusion. There are only two possible conclusions: none of the eight items hit — send for sign-off; any item hits — send it back for a rewrite, then recheck from item 1, and do not send it for sign-off. Why this step is done by us, and cannot be skipped: CYPA s 112(5)(b) penalises "the person who publishes or distributes it", and s 112(9) counts websites and messaging systems as publishing too; FJA s 10(5) penalises "Any person" [Statute text; see Appendix A.4]. If we publish it or pass it on, we are the ones penalised, and a lawyer's signature does not change that. The list in item 7 is gazetted: "A copy of the list must be kept hung up in the Registry of the Family Justice Courts and must be published in the Gazette." [Statute text; see Appendix A.4] — you can find it by checking the Gazette. We take the stricter reading in two places: this book counts custody and access proceedings within a divorce case as within CYPA s 112's "any proceedings in any court" [Conservative line (not statute text)], 80% confidence; the original text of CYPA's age definitions for "child" and "young person" was not obtained [Original text not obtained] — until checked, take the stricter reading and apply this table to every minor. ### Five things to have in hand before you start Gather all of these before the first law-firm client's work starts; missing even one means the first batch's sign-off sheet does not go out: 1. **Ethics guidance in the Law Society's members' area**: Ask the firm to use its own members' account to export the Advisory Committee's written guidance issued since 2015 and the 2019 and 2020 Ethics Digests, and send them to us for filing. The Factsheet's own words: "From 2015 to date, the Advisory Committee has issued more than 100 written guidances to members." [Statute text (statement of fact); see Appendix A.5]; these documents sit in the members' area, and we cannot get them [Original text not obtained] — they are the main source of the remaining uncertainty in the book's side decision (75% confidence). Where the exported guidance takes a stricter position, that firm follows the stricter position; if a ruling such as "fee ranges or price lists on a website are unbefitting the dignity of the profession" or "lawyers may not ask clients for reviews" turns up, the whole book moves law firms to the strictly regulated side in that quarter (chapter 0, 0.2). 2. **LSRA register lookup screenshots**: one for the firm, one for each lawyer, with the check date noted. 3. **The current version number of the letter-of-engagement template**: check every fee sentence against it, sentence by sentence (chapter 2, 2.1). 4. **Written record of the approved name**: the approved full name in English; where a Chinese name is approved, attach the Director of Legal Services' written approval (LPE Rules r 7) [Statute text; see Appendix A.2]. 5. **Our own service contract**: states only a fixed service fee, never charged per lead, per case, per signed client, or as a percentage of legal fees; the authority to publish on the firm's behalf and the sign-off process are written into the contract.