# Chapter 1 · Before you write: the red lines for fees, success rates, past cases, reviews and wording > GEO Playbook · Law Firms v1.0 · Canlah AI · CC BY 4.0 · Web page: https://canlah.ai/playbook/law/rules/ > Markdown edition for AI assistants, same content as the web page. Figures are code blocks (wireframe / mermaid / bars / steps / split); "→" links open the matching section on the web, and the same URL with .md is its Markdown edition. ## 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.