Unpacking the Texas Civil Barratry Statute

​When Texas Senate Bill 140 took effect in September 2025, it dramatically expanded the state’s telemarketing regime by treating a wide range of text and multimedia messages as “telephone solicitations” and tying violations of those rules to potent private remedies under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA), including treble damages and uncapped repeat recoveries. While SB 140 raises the stakes for companies that direct marketing campaigns to Texas numbers, the stakes are higher still for marketers of legal services, thanks to Texas Government Code § 82.0651, better known as the Texas civil barratry statute. This obscure law turns illegal client solicitation from an attorney disciplinary issue into a powerful source of civil liability—with serious consequences for anyone marketing legal services to Texans.

What is Barratry?

Barratry is the illegal, unethical solicitation of professional legal employment—often called “ambulance chasing”—where a lawyer or someone acting for a lawyer initiates uninvited contact to convince a person to hire them, typically after an accident or other traumatic event.

All states regulate barratry to a greater or lesser degree, but they typically do so through ethics rules (typically versions of ABA Model Rule 7.3) and many criminalize traditional “ambulance chasing” (barratry, champerty, maintenance, or unlawful solicitation) as crimes.

However, in most states the consequences of violating a barratry prohibition are largely limited to bar discipline for the attorney along with potential criminal liability. Texas has one of the toughest laws in the country against “ambulance chasing,” and it doesn’t just target lawyers—it can also hit marketing and lead‑generation companies that help bring clients in the door.

Overview of The Texas Civil Barratry Statute

The Texas civil barratry statute (Texas Government Code §82.0651) is not just an ethics rule for lawyers—it includes a private right of action with statutory damages that can be aimed at both attorneys and the marketers who help them solicit clients.

The statute prohibits conduct that violates Texas Penal Code Section 38.12(a) or (b) or Rule 7.03 of the Texas State Bar Rules. The penal code prohibits attorneys from soliciting employment “in person, by telephone, through a direct message on a social media platform, or by another electronic communication, including through a false, misleading, or deceptive electronic communication,” while the state bar rule says:

A lawyer shall not solicit through in-person contact, or through regulated telephone, social media, or other electronic contact, professional employment from a non-client, unless the target of the solicitation is:

(1) another lawyer;

(2) a person who has a family, close personal, or prior business or professional relationship with the lawyer; or

(3) a person who is known by the lawyer to be an experienced user of the type of legal services involved for business matters.

If someone violates the solicitation prohibitions set forth in the Texas Penal Code or the State Bar rules, the civil barratry statute expressly gives individuals the right to sue over illegal client solicitation and sets out what they can collect if they win. In other words, it’s a standalone civil cause of action, not merely an add‑on to a grievance or criminal case. In fact, the civil barratry statute creates two distinct paths to sue, with built‑in statutory remedies.

1. People who retained an attorney: If someone actually hired a lawyer after being illegally solicited, they are treated as a “client” under the statute. As such, they can sue to void the contract for legal services and recover statutory relief, including:

• All fees and expenses they paid under the contract
  
• The balance of fees/expenses paid to others under that contract
  
• A fixed statutory penalty (currently stated as $10,000 in the statute), and
  
• their own attorney’s fees and costs.

The Texas barratry statute allows the client to unwind the fee agreement, force disgorgement of what the lawyer earned, and still collect an additional statutory award on top. That makes these cases attractive to plaintiffs’ lawyers and expensive for firms and their marketing partners.

2. People who were only solicited for legal services: Under the Texas barratry statute, a person doesn’t have to hire the lawyer to sue. If someone was solicited by prohibited conduct but did not sign a contract, the statute still gives them a private right of action against “any person who committed barratry.” A plaintiff who wins under this section is entitled to:

• A statutory civil penalty per person (again, currently set at $10,000 in the enacted text)
  
• Any actual damages caused by the solicitation, and
  
• Reasonable and necessary attorney’s fees.

This turns each improper call, text, or in‑person approach into a potentially self‑funding lawsuit: the plaintiff gets a fixed statutory amount plus fee‑shifting, even if they never became a client and suffered no traditional economic loss.

Why This Matters for Marketers

The statute’s language applies to “attorneys or other persons” who engage in the prohibited conduct. That is where marketing and lead‑generation companies come squarely into view. The law is written broadly enough that it doesn’t just apply to licensed attorneys. Thus, anyone who participates in the illegal solicitation can be dragged into a civil barratry lawsuit, including lead generators and call centers conducting cold-call campaigns on behalf of law firms.

Under the civil barratry statute, every person contacted without prior consent could potentially sue the marketer as a direct defendant and also sue the lawyer or firm that hired the marketer, if the lawyer financed, directed, or knowingly benefited from the scheme.

The Risk of Stacked Exposure

Texas’s civil barratry statute is only one part of the risk picture; marketers can face stacked exposure where the same outreach also violates federal and state telemarketing laws, greatly increasing potential damages. This means that when a legal services campaign involves calls or texts to Texas numbers without the prior consent of the called party, a single call or text can result in:

• TCPA Damages: Up to $500 per call or text, which can be trebled to $1,500 if the violation is found “willful or knowing.”
  
• Texas SB 140 Damages: Between $500 and $10,000 per violation, and if the conduct is knowing or intentional, consumers can seek treble damages under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, plus potential recovery for mental anguish and attorney’s fees.
  
• Civil Barratry Damages: $10,000 statutory penalty, plus actual damages and the plaintiff’s attorney’s fees.

As if all this wasn’t sufficient, there is also the potential for criminal prosecution under Texas Penal Code §38.12 and professional discipline (and potential disbarment) for the attorney under the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct.

Ordinary Advertising Not Covered

To be clear, the Texas civil barratry statute does not ban all legal advertising. The highest risk is direct, personal, targeted contact with someone the marketer knows or suspects needs legal help. By contrast, general advertising aimed at the public—TV commercials, billboards, search ads, websites, educational content—is usually allowed, as long as it follows standard advertising rules (truthful, not misleading, proper disclaimers, etc.).

For marketing companies, the safe zone is “If the person contacts us first, we can talk to them.” The danger zone is “We reach out first, and we’re targeting them because we know they just had a specific incident.”

Practical Implications for Legal Service Marketers

For marketers of legal services, the key takeaways are clear:

• Understand that Texas civil barratry is not just an ethics rule; it is a statute that empowers anyone wrongfully solicited to sue for $10,000 plus actual damages and attorney’s fees.
  
• Recognize that you can be sued personally or as a company, even if you are not a law firm, if your outreach crosses the line into illegal solicitation.
  
• Design campaigns so that Texans come to you or the firm first (via search, websites, or ads) instead of being chased through unsolicited calls or texts.
  
• Build strict no‑barratry clauses and controls into your contracts and operations: no runners, no cold‑calling of identified accident victims, no using sensitive incident data for one‑to‑one solicitation.

Texas’s civil barratry statute transforms improper solicitation from a background ethics concern into a litigation and business‑model risk for anyone involved in marketing legal services in the state. The combination of per‑person statutory penalties, fee‑shifting, and the availability of actions by non‑clients means that aggressive lead‑generation tactics can quickly turn into high‑stakes civil exposure for both marketers and the law firms they serve. Legal services campaigns must rely on consent and avoid unsolicited outreach, especially in the hours and days after an accident or other life‑changing event.