NASW Code 4.07(b): The Solicitation Rule Every Social Worker Should Know

A client finishes with you, tells you the work changed something real, and writes it down. Somewhere in the back of your head sits the thought that the sentence would look good on your website. Then the second thought arrives, the one about the Code, and the whole idea gets shelved without ever being answered properly.

The answer is shorter than most social workers expect. The catch is that Standard 4.07 has two parts, and the one usually quoted as the testimonial rule is only the second of them. The first covers something completely different.

Our overview of all three professions (Can Therapists Ask for Reviews?) covers the broad strokes across psychology, counseling, and social work. This guide goes deep on NASW Code 4.07, and on 4.07(b) in particular, the rule written for social work.

01What Standard 4.07 Actually Says

Here is Standard 4.07 in full, word for word, from the NASW Code of Ethics published at socialworkers.org:

(a) Social workers should not engage in uninvited solicitation of potential clients who, because of their circumstances, are vulnerable to undue influence, manipulation, or coercion.

(b) Social workers should not engage in solicitation of testimonial endorsements (including solicitation of consent to use a client’s prior statement as a testimonial endorsement) from current clients or from other people who, because of their particular circumstances, are vulnerable to undue influence.

Two clauses, two different targets. Clause (a) is about how you go looking for business. Clause (b) is about what you ask people to say once they’re already in front of you.

The heading over both of them is “Solicitations,” which is where the trouble starts. The word does a lot of work in this Code, and it means something different in each clause.

One more thing about the wording, and it’s the part people misread. NASW writes “should not” in both clauses. APA, ACA and AAMFT all write “do not” in theirs. That reads softer, so it matters what NASW says about its own verbs. The Code’s introduction to the standards states that “some of the standards that follow are enforceable guidelines for professional conduct, and some are aspirational,” and that enforceability “is a matter of professional judgment to be exercised by those responsible for reviewing alleged violations of ethical standards.” So whether “should not” binds you gets decided by whoever reviews the complaint. Reading it as optional is a bet on someone else’s judgment.

02Why 4.07(a) and 4.07(b) Are Two Different Rules

Clause (a) is a marketing rule. It stops you making an uninvited approach to someone whose situation means they can’t really say no. A direct pitch to a family at a hospital discharge. An ad campaign aimed at people in a court-ordered program. A private message to someone posting publicly about being in crisis. Nobody asked you for anything, and they’re not in a position to weigh it.

Clause (b) is a reputation rule. It stops you from asking someone in your caseload to endorse you publicly.

Look at the wording of each and the difference gets sharper. Clause (a) names three failure modes, “undue influence, manipulation, or coercion.” Clause (b) names only one, “undue influence.” Clause (a) applies to potential clients. Clause (b) applies to current clients and other people. They aren’t the same sentence with different nouns. They are built differently, and the difference shows up in what each one reaches.

Psychology’s code splits the same ground across two separate standards rather than two sub-parts. APA 5.05 is the testimonial rule. APA 5.06, In-Person Solicitation, is the parallel to NASW’s 4.07(a), and it reads: “Psychologists do not engage, directly or through agents, in uninvited in-person solicitation of business from actual or potential therapy clients/patients or other persons who because of their particular circumstances are vulnerable to undue influence.”

Two differences worth noticing, and they run in opposite directions. APA’s rule is narrower to start with. Read 5.06 again and it covers uninvited in-person solicitation only, while NASW’s 4.07(a) names no channel at all. On its face that reaches past in-person contact to mailings and online approaches, though the text doesn’t settle whether general advertising counts as soliciting a particular person. But APA writes two exceptions straight into 5.06, one for collateral contacts benefiting a client already in treatment, one for disaster or community outreach. NASW’s 4.07(a) contains no carve-out at all. So a social worker doing disaster response or street outreach sits under the broader rule with none of the explicit relief, left reasoning from the standard itself.

03Who Counts as Vulnerable to Undue Influence

NASW doesn’t define the phrase. What the text gives you instead is a test about someone’s circumstances, not a list of relationship labels you can check off.

For a lot of clinical social workers, this reaches further than it does for a therapist in private-pay individual practice. Consider who’s on a typical LCSW caseload. Clients in acute crisis. Clients mandated into treatment by a court, who understand perfectly well that their compliance gets reported. Clients whose housing, benefits, custody arrangement, or discharge plan depends in part on something you write. Members of a group you facilitate.

That last category comes up constantly and the Code never names it. Read the standard on its own terms, though, and a member of a group you facilitate is a current client for 4.07(b) purposes, because that is what they are. The Code just doesn’t spell it out. It defines the standard by the power dynamic and leaves you to apply it.

The report-writing piece is the one social workers underestimate. If you author a document that shapes whether someone keeps their housing or sees their kids, you hold power over them that has nothing to do with how warm the relationship feels. Asking that person for a five-star review isn’t a neutral request, however it’s phrased. The Code never names report-writing authority anywhere, so this is a reading of the circumstances test rather than a line you can point to.

04The NASW Code 4.07(b) Permission Clause That Sets It Apart

Read the parenthetical in NASW Code 4.07(b) again, because this is the clause that takes NASW past the other three on one specific point:

(including solicitation of consent to use a client’s prior statement as a testimonial endorsement)

NASW doesn’t just reach asking for a testimonial. It reaches asking permission to use one you already have. If a current client wrote you a thank-you card, said something moving in session, or left an unprompted review, the conversation where you ask “would you mind if I put that on my website” is itself a solicitation under this clause. The same goes for anyone else whose circumstances make them vulnerable to undue influence, because that is the scope the whole standard carries.

That takes the asking route off the table, where the other codes either leave it open or never address it. Here’s how the four major codes compare:

Scroll the table sideways to compare all four codes.

ACA gives counselors a documented route. Its second sentence requires discussing implications and obtaining permission before using any testimonial, which is exactly the conversation NASW’s parenthetical prohibits. Same situation, two professions, opposite answers. If you hold both an LPC and an LCSW, start with what each of your licensing boards actually requires, because the boards are what regulate the licences. Where the boards leave you room and the two association codes still point opposite ways, following the stricter one is the safer bet.

Our companion guide to ACA Code C.3.b for counselors walks through that permission process in detail, and it’s the right reference if you’re licensed as an LPC or LMHC rather than a social worker.

05What NASW Never Says About Former Clients

This one surprises people. Read 4.07(b) again and look for former clients. They aren’t there.

The clause covers “current clients or other people who, because of their particular circumstances, are vulnerable to undue influence.” ACA names former clients explicitly in C.3.b. APA doesn’t. NASW doesn’t either.

That absence is not permission. It moves the question rather than answering it. Instead of asking “is this person a former client,” you have to ask whether their circumstances still make them vulnerable to your influence. Someone who wrapped up eight sessions of adjustment-focused work three years ago and someone you discharged last month from a mandated program are in genuinely different positions, and the Code makes you reason about the difference rather than apply a label.

What the Code definitely does not contain is a waiting period. There’s no two-year rule, no five-year rule, no point at which a former client’s testimonial becomes automatically solicitable. If you’ve seen that number somewhere, someone borrowed it from a different standard, usually a rule about post-termination relationships, and applied it where it doesn’t belong.

For most practice owners the ask is rarely worth it anyway. The upside is one paragraph on a website. The downside is a documentable finding in a board complaint you didn’t see coming.

06What to Put on Your Website Instead

We build websites for therapy and social work practices, and this comes up in almost every kickoff call. It arrives as a worry about competing. Every other site in the results carries a wall of five-star quotes, and this one can’t. What we keep coming back to is that someone reading a clinician’s website isn’t comparing star ratings. They want to know what a first session is like, what it costs, and whether this person has sat with someone like them before. None of those needs a testimonial.

The trust problem 4.07(b) creates is still real. People choosing a therapist want evidence from someone other than the therapist. Take the ask off the table and you still have most of the levers, they just aren’t client quotes.

Colleagues are the obvious one. A supervisor, a peer, a referring physician, or someone who attended a workshop you taught can usually speak to your clinical skill without entering 4.07(b) territory, because they aren’t vulnerable to your influence. Run the test on each person anyway, since it’s a circumstances test and not a category. Anyone who works for you, reports to you, depends on you financially, or sits in an ongoing evaluative relationship with you, like a current supervisee whose licensure hours depend on your sign-off, is inside a power dynamic the standard does reach.

Aggregate outcome data works too, and social workers are usually sitting on more of it than they realize. Completion rates, symptom-measure changes across a caseload, average time to first appointment. Numbers can describe your work without any individual being identifiable in them. Two conditions. The aggregate has to be genuinely de-identified, which is harder in a small caseload, because a single-digit group can point straight at a person. And a number on your website is an advertising claim, so be ready to show how you measured it.

The rest is craft. A clear description of how you work, honest writing about who you help and who you don’t, credentials stated plainly. Our guide to building trust without client testimonials covers what actually moves people to book, and if you want a review presence that stays inside the standard, start with getting Google reviews ethically.

Checklist

• Ask colleagues, supervisors, and referral partners for endorsements. Most sit outside the vulnerable-to-undue-influence test, but screen each one for employment, supervision, evaluation, or financial dependence before you ask.
• Publish aggregate, de-identified outcome data instead of individual quotes. Check that a small number can’t be traced back to one person, and be able to show how you measured whatever you publish.
• Never ask a current client, or anyone whose circumstances make them vulnerable to your influence, for permission to reuse something they already said. NASW’s parenthetical makes that request itself a solicitation.
• Post a standing statement on your Google Business Profile explaining that you can’t respond to reviews, positive or negative, and invite people to contact you directly instead.
• If a client posts identifying details, don’t reply in public. A public reply risks confirming the relationship, and engaging with the content gives away more. If you already have an established way to reach the person, you can ask whether they’d soften the specifics. Take advice first if they’re a current client, because the request comes from someone who holds influence over them.
• Check your own state board’s advertising rules before you rely on the national Code alone. Some boards adopt the NASW Code into regulation outright.

07Where Your State Board Fits

Two systems run in parallel here, and it pays to know which one does what.

NASW enforces its Code through its own ethics process, and members agree to take part in that process. But the Code doesn’t describe itself as a members-only document. It says it “is relevant to all social workers and social work students,” and that it “is to be used by” bodies “such as licensing and regulatory boards” that “choose to adopt it or use it as a frame of reference.” It also says plainly that “violation of standards in this Code does not automatically imply legal liability or violation of the law.”

Your licence is a separate matter. It comes from a state board, and that board writes its own rules on advertising, solicitation, and endorsements. Sometimes those rules mirror NASW’s language. Sometimes they’re stricter, and sometimes they cover ground the national Code never touches, like how you may describe a specialty or what has to appear in a paid ad.

And sometimes a board doesn’t mirror the Code at all. It adopts it. North Dakota’s rule is one sentence: “The board adopts the national association of social workers 2017 code of ethics” (N.D. Admin. Code 75.5-02-06.1-01). Tennessee’s requires that “all licensees shall comply with the code of ethics adopted by the National Association of Social Workers,” names the 2017 revision, and adds that “violation of the code of ethics or state law or rules may subject a licensee to disciplinary action” (Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 1365-01-.10). In those two states 4.07(b) isn’t a membership question. It’s a licensing rule, and it reaches you whether or not you have ever joined NASW.

Notice which version both name. They adopt the 2017 Code, not the 2021 revision quoted earlier. For Standard 4.07 that changes nothing, since (a) and (b) are word for word identical in both. For other standards it might, so check which version your own board adopted.

Where a board rule and the Code genuinely conflict, the board’s rule is what decides your licence. Tennessee spells that out in the same rule: “if the code of ethics conflicts with state law or rules, the state law or rules govern the matter.” Following the stricter of the two is usually the sensible risk decision, but that’s prudence rather than a legal hierarchy. This guide covers the national Code, not your board’s regulations, and it isn’t legal or ethics advice. If a decision carries real risk, put the question to an ethics consultant or the board itself, in writing.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and references