Legal notice and mandatory details for law firms in Germany

The most common gaps in law firm legal notices

Look through the legal notices of German law firms and you keep finding the same mistakes. Almost all of them can be fixed in a quarter of an hour:

1. The chamber is missing, or it just says “Rechtsanwaltskammer” without district and address.
2. The professional rules are named, but without saying where to find them.
3. The liability insurer is missing altogether or appears without the territorial scope.
4. The link to the EU's ODR platform is still there, even though the platform was shut down on 20 July 2025.
5. For a PartG mbB (partnership with limited professional liability), the partnership register and the partners authorised to represent it are missing.
6. The firm's blog has no responsible person under the Medienstaatsvertrag.

The details under § 5 DDG

In 2024, the Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz replaced the Telemediengesetz (Telemedia Act); the list of required details stayed the same in substance. The information must be easy to recognise, directly accessible and permanently available, in other words through a “Legal notice” link on every page.

A membership number with the chamber or your beA SAFE ID (the identifier of the special electronic lawyers' mailbox) does not belong in the legal notice. For a sole practice, the register and authorised representatives drop out; for a GmbH, also name the managing directors and, if you give details of capital, the share capital.

Chamber, professional title and specialist lawyer titles

You must state the chamber you belong to, with its address or website. Because your chamber admitted you and exercises professional supervision, it is also the competent supervisory authority within the meaning of § 5 (1) no. 3 DDG. Get the exact name right: several federal states have more than one chamber, for example North Rhine-Westphalia with the chambers of Düsseldorf, Hamm and Cologne. What counts is the district in which your firm is based.

• Professional title: “Rechtsanwältin” or “Rechtsanwalt”, awarded in the Federal Republic of Germany.
• Specialist lawyer title: for example “Fachanwältin für Familienrecht” (certified specialist in family law), stating which chamber awarded it.
• Other professions: if tax advisers or patent attorneys work in the firm, also name their professional title and chamber (§ 8 (2) BORA).
• European lawyers: if you practise under the professional title of your home state, name that state.

Naming the professional rules correctly

§ 5 (1) no. 5 (c) DDG requires you to name the professional rules and say how they can be accessed. For lawyers, these are the Bundesrechtsanwaltsordnung (BRAO, Federal Lawyers' Act), the Berufsordnung (BORA, Professional Code), the Fachanwaltsordnung (FAO, Specialist Lawyers' Code), the Rechtsanwaltsvergütungsgesetz (RVG, Lawyers' Remuneration Act) and the Code of Conduct for European Lawyers (CCBE). The “Berufsrecht” page of the Bundesrechtsanwaltskammer (BRAK, Federal Bar) is a suitable reference, plus gesetze-im-internet.de for the statutes. If you practise as a European lawyer, add the EuRAG (Act on the Activities of European Lawyers in Germany).

Liability insurance: § 10 BORA and the DL-InfoV

The Satzungsversammlung (the bar's rule-making assembly) has revised § 10 BORA; since 1 December 2025, the provision has expressly referred to § 2 (1) DL-InfoV. Under it, you provide clients with the following information, among other things, before the contract is concluded: name, legal form, address, contact details, register, supervisory authority, professional title and chamber, VAT ID number, the terms of engagement you use, choice of law and place of jurisdiction, and the name and address of the professional indemnity insurer and the territorial scope of the insurance (§ 2 (1) no. 11 DL-InfoV).

You may provide this information electronically, that is, on the website. For professional practice companies (Berufsausübungsgesellschaften), the names of the personally liable partners are added; here, under § 10 BORA, a reference to the official lawyers' directory is enough. In practice, this means: the insurer with address and territorial scope belongs in the legal notice, and the power of attorney can refer to that page.

Consumer arbitration under § 36 VSBG

If you run a website and conclude contracts with consumers, you must state whether you are willing or obliged to take part in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration body (§ 36 (1) no. 1 VSBG). Businesses that employed no more than ten people on 31 December of the previous year are exempt (§ 36 (3) VSBG). If you declare that you are willing to take part, name the competent body with its address and website (§ 36 (1) no. 2 VSBG).

Firm blog and newsletter: § 18 MStV

For business services, § 18 (1) MStV requires a name and address, which the legal notice under the DDG already covers. But if you publish journalistic or editorial content, such as regular articles on new judgments or a client newsletter with legal news, you also need a responsible person with name and address (§ 18 (2) MStV). Among other things, that person must be permanently resident in Germany. In small firms, this is usually the owner or a partner.

Firm name and public appearance under the BORA

The legal notice is part of how you present yourself to the public, so the BORA rules on public statements apply here too. Lawyers who merely share offices (Bürogemeinschaft) must not present themselves as a partnership (Sozietät) (§ 8 (1) BORA). Former partners may only continue to be named if this is made clear (§ 8 (3) BORA), and a short name must be used consistently (§ 9 BORA), meaning the same on the website, letterhead and Google profile. Which designations for specialisation are permitted is explained in the article Advertising for lawyers in Germany.

Data protection, legal professional privilege and cookies

The privacy policy under Art. 13 GDPR sits on its own page and describes exactly the services your website uses. For law firms, professional secrecy comes on top: hosting providers, form services and IT support are service providers within the meaning of § 43e BRAO. You need a contract with them in text form that binds them to confidentiality and informs them that a breach is a criminal offence, in addition to the data processing agreement under Art. 28 GDPR. § 2 (2) BORA allows unencrypted email with clients at least where they consent; for the contact form, you should rely on encrypted transmission and storage in any case.

If you are setting up, you will find the whole route in the article Setting up a law firm in Germany. Which pages a firm website needs besides the legal notice is covered in Website content.