Reputation Management for Law Firms
Every other industry is told to answer every review publicly and fast. For a law firm that advice ranges from useless to a bar complaint.
Reviews Are Harder for Attorneys
In January 2021 the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility issued Formal Opinion 496, Responding to Online Criticism. Its conclusion is blunt. A negative online review, on its own, does not meet the requirements for permissible disclosure in self-defense under Model Rule 1.6(b)(5). The opinion goes further and says that as a best practice, lawyers should consider not responding at all, because a response may draw more attention and invite more from an already unhappy critic.
Now set that next to the advice sold to every other local business. Reply to everything. Reply publicly. Reply fast. Correct the record. For a law firm, following that script can put confidential information on a public page.
We are a marketing company. Formal Opinion 496 is an ABA opinion, your own state’s rules control, and nothing on this page is legal or ethics advice. Your firm’s counsel decides what your firm may post. What we build is the process that produces reviews in the first place, plus a draft in front of you for every response, so the decision stays with the attorney every time.
There is no statistic at the top of this page either. No credible source publishes what review volume does to map pack position for the legal category specifically. We would rather tell you that than repeat a figure from a vendor blog.
WHY LEGAL IS DIFFERENT
The Clients Happiest With Your Work Are the Quietest in Public
- Litigation produces a losing side. A restaurant serves two hundred people a day and disappoints a few. A trial disappoints one party by design, and that party has your firm name and a keyboard.
- Satisfied clients will not sign their name to it. A succession, a custody fight, a criminal charge. People are pleased with the outcome and still unwilling to attach it to a public profile tied to their real name.
- Reviews from people who were never your clients. Opposing parties, their relatives, and the occasional person who called once and did not like the fee quote.
- You cannot correct the record. The facts that would clear the firm are exactly the facts you are not permitted to publish. The public sees only your silence next to their version.
- Nobody at the firm asks. The file closes, the client leaves happy, and the request never gets sent because it is not part of anyone’s checklist.
- Asking at the wrong moment. A request that lands mid-matter reads as pressure from someone holding the client’s case. Timing is not a detail here.
- Filtering the ask, or hiding the bad ones. The FTC’s final rule on consumer reviews, announced in August 2024, bars a business from misrepresenting that displayed reviews represent all or most of those submitted when reviews have been suppressed based on rating or negative sentiment. It also covers using groundless legal threats to remove a negative review.
- Reviews attached to the wrong place. Praise sitting on a personal profile for an attorney who moved firms years ago, or on a duplicate listing nobody has claimed.
THE PROCESS
Ask at the Right Moment. Answer With Permission
The ask is a timing problem. The response is a permission problem. Treat them separately.
The ask goes at the closing moment, not on a monthly schedule. The hour the succession is finished, the charge is dismissed, the settlement funds clear, the will is signed. That is when the client is grateful and thinking about it. A week later they are back to their life and the request reads as marketing.
The wording matters as much as the timing. A request that comes from the attorney by name, in one short message, with a direct link and an explicit note that a first-name-only review is fine, outperforms an anonymous automated blast every time. We build the sequence, your firm approves the wording, and we route it to fire off the event that actually marks the close.
Then response. Every review that arrives gets read the same day and routed to the firm with a draft reply, and the draft never contains anything about the matter. Where the reviewer was not a client at all, the response is usually shorter and simpler. Where they were, Formal Opinion 496 is worth reading with your counsel before anyone types a word. In every case the attorney approves before it posts. We do not publish responses on our own judgment, ever.
Here is our do-not list, in writing. We will not write a review. We will not send requests only to the clients we expect to be pleased. We will not offer anyone anything of value for a review. We will not threaten a reviewer to get a post removed. And we will not post a response under your firm’s name without your written approval. If a competitor’s agency is doing those things, matching them is not the fix.
WHAT WE RUN
What a Review Program Actually Involves
Nine services around reviews. Most of the outcome comes from the first two, and the rest keeps the reviews you earn pointed at the right place.
HOW WE WORK
Why Firms Let Us Handle Something This Sensitive
- Approval on every public word. No response posts under your firm name without an attorney signing off. That rule does not bend for speed, and it is the reason firms hand us this at all.
- We are not your ethics counsel and we say so. We flag what we see, we point at the published opinion, and we stop there. Interpreting the rules for your firm is your counsel’s job.
- Timing built into your actual close process. Not a monthly blast to the whole client list. The request fires off the event that marks the matter finished.
- We refuse the shortcuts out loud. No written reviews, no gating, no incentives, no takedown threats. If that means slower growth in review count, that is the trade.
- Bad reviews get triaged the same day. Read, routed, drafted, and often resolved offline before anything public happens. Speed matters on the private side, not the public one.
- Month to month. Veteran owned, owner operated. You keep every review, every profile, and every login if we part ways.
What Attorneys Ask About Online Reviews
The first question is nearly always about the bad one. We start there too.
That is a question for your counsel before it is a marketing question. ABA Formal Opinion 496 addresses this directly and concludes a negative review alone does not open the door to disclosure in self-defense. We draft, you and your counsel decide, and nothing posts without approval.
We can report a review that violates the platform’s own policy, which sometimes works and often does not. We will not use legal threats to pressure a reviewer. The FTC’s review rule covers unfounded threats used to remove negative reviews.
Asking is common practice, and how it may be worded is governed by your bar’s rules and your firm’s judgment, not ours. What we will not do is offer anything of value in exchange or send requests only to clients we expect to be happy.
A first-name or initials review still counts on Google and still carries weight. Telling clients up front that they do not need to give details or use a full name removes the biggest objection in legal review requests.
More than you have, and steadily rather than in a burst. We will not quote a threshold number, because nobody publishes reliable data on that for the legal category. Consistent recent reviews outperform a one-time push in every market we have watched.
No. We do not write reviews, we do not have staff write them, and we do not buy them. Beyond being against every platform’s rules, the FTC’s review rule targets exactly that conduct, and the damage to a firm’s credibility is not recoverable.
At the close, not during. The hour the case resolves, the funds clear, or the documents are signed is when the client is grateful and thinking about the firm. A request that arrives mid-matter can read as pressure from their own attorney.
No, and treat any agency claiming to as a warning. We build the process and draft the words. Your firm’s counsel and your state bar decide what may be published. We implement what you approve and remove anything you flag.
Want More Reviews Without the Exposure?
Book a free discovery call. We will look at your current reviews, your closing process, and where the request should sit inside it.
Related services: Reviews feed almost everything else. Digital marketing for law firms shows how, and the testimonials end up on your law firm website. Alongside that, Google Business Profile management owns the listing the reviews live on, organic search optimization gives the profile pages worth ranking, and answer engine optimization uses your reviews as the raw material AI assistants describe your firm with.
The rest of this silo: SEO for law firms, AI search optimization for law firms, Google Ads for law firms, and Google Business Profile for law firms.