Consumer Protection & Advertising

The whole path from claim to charge. Section 5 of the FTC Act bars deceptive and unfair practices, and the Commission's guides and rules give that standard its detail: the Endorsement Guides revised in 2023, the Consumer Review rule in force since October 2024, and the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act for anything billed on a recurring basis. Every state has a deceptive-practices statute as well, most with a private right of action, so a national campaign clears 51 standards rather than one. Privacy law governs the data behind the campaign, and competitors can sue over a false comparative claim under the Lanham Act.

We clear marketing before it runs and defend it afterward. Before launch we parse the copy for express and implied claims, match each objective claim to its evidence, and design the disclosures so they are clear and conspicuous in the medium where the claim appears, which for a six-second video is a different problem than for a label. We write the influencer contract clauses and the monitoring protocol the Endorsement Guides assume, and we review subscription flows against the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act and the state renewal laws. When a civil investigative demand or a state attorney general's letter arrives, we represent clients in matters before the FTC and the state attorneys general.

Yes. We advise on consumer protection compliance and represent clients in matters before the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general, including civil investigative demands, inquiries, and enforcement actions. We appear for the companies in front of those agencies, and where a matter requires additional or locally admitted counsel we coordinate that engagement.

Under the FTC's Endorsement Guides, revised in June 2023, and since October 2024 under a rule that carries civil penalties. An endorsement must reflect the endorser's honest experience, and any material connection to the brand, whether payment, free product, or an employment relationship, must be disclosed in a way the audience cannot miss in that medium; a platform's built-in tag does not always qualify. The advertiser is liable for what its endorsers say. The 2024 rule separately bans buying or selling fake reviews, review suppression, and undisclosed insider reviews. We draft the disclosure standard, the contract clause, and the monitoring routine, because the regulator will ask for all three.

Generally, yes. An objective claim about performance, health, environmental impact, comparison, or pricing must be supported by adequate substantiation at the time it is made. We review the evidence behind a claim, flag the ones that need qualification or backup, and document the support so the record holds up to a regulator or a competitor challenge.

Each channel has its own consent rule. A marketing text sent by an automated system or a prerecorded marketing call needs prior express written consent under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and a commercial email must honor an opt-out within ten business days under CAN-SPAM. The comprehensive privacy laws now in force in about twenty states give consumers a right to opt out of targeted advertising and the sale of their data, several of them through a browser signal the site must honor. Since the 2025 amendments to the COPPA rule, sharing a child's data with third parties for targeted advertising needs its own, separate parental consent. We align the privacy notice, the consent mechanics, and the campaign so the data behind the marketing is as defensible as the claim in front of it.