Attorney review management: from intake to reply
Guide · Updated October 31, 2026
Law offices tend to treat reviews as an afterthought, handled whenever a partner notices a new one. Attorney review management works better as a defined office process with clear steps and owners.
This guide maps that process from the end of a matter, when you might ask for a review, to the moment a reply is posted.
Mapping the process
- Matter closes: the responsible attorney decides whether a review request is appropriate. Some matters, such as sensitive family or criminal cases, may warrant no request at all.
- Request: staff send a short, neutral request with a direct link, without referring to the nature of the matter.
- Monitoring: one staff member checks for new reviews on a fixed schedule and logs them.
- Routine replies: brief thank-you replies that do not confirm the person was a client or describe the matter.
- Negative reviews: sent to the responsible attorney, who decides whether to reply, report or do nothing, with the confidentiality rules in mind.
- Monthly check: a partner skims the log for patterns, such as complaints about communication or responsiveness.
What the ethics rules say about replying to client reviews
Lawyers have a duty of confidentiality under rules based on ABA Model Rule 1.6. In Formal Opinion 496 (2021), the ABA's ethics committee concluded that a negative online review alone does not permit a lawyer to disclose confidential client information in a response.
The opinion describes options that generally remain available:
- Not responding at all, which is often reasonable.
- Asking the website or search engine to remove the review if it is false or breaks the site's rules, without revealing confidential information.
- Posting a short reply that does not reveal client information, for example saying that professional obligations prevent a detailed response and that the lawyer does not believe the post is accurate.
- Contacting the former client privately to try to resolve the concern.
State rules and ethics opinions vary. Check your state bar's guidance or consult ethics counsel before replying to a review that touches on a representation.
Asking for genuine reviews the right way
The steadiest way to improve how a profile looks is a regular flow of honest reviews from real clients. How you ask matters.
- Ask everyone, not just happy clients. Screening people first and only sending satisfied ones to a review site is known as review gating. Google's policies prohibit discouraging negative reviews or selectively asking for positive ones.
- Do not pay or reward people for reviews. Google prohibits incentivized reviews, and the FTC's 2024 rule on consumer reviews and testimonials prohibits buying reviews and conditioning rewards on positive or negative sentiment.
- Never write reviews yourself or have staff, relatives or vendors post them without clear disclosure.
- Make it easy: send the direct review link soon after the visit or job, in one short message.
- Check each platform's rules. Yelp, for example, asks businesses not to ask for reviews at all.
Replies that usually make things worse
- Calling the reviewer a liar or saying they were never a client, in public.
- Sharing details about the client's visit, account, bill or history.
- Offering a refund, discount or gift in exchange for editing or removing the review. Major platforms prohibit this, and the FTC's rule on consumer reviews targets conditioning rewards on what a review says.
- Threatening legal action in the reply. If you believe the post is defamatory, talk to a licensed attorney privately instead.
- Long replies that relitigate every point. Two to four sentences is usually enough.
If you have already posted a reply you regret, most platforms let the business edit or delete its own response. Replace it with a short, calm version.
Turning review themes into fixes
Individual reviews are noisy. Patterns across many reviews are useful. Once a month, read every new review and tag each one with one or two themes, such as wait time, communication, cleanliness, billing or staff attitude.
Count the themes and look at which are rising. Share the top one or two with the people who can actually change them, and note what was changed and when. Later, check whether newer reviews still mention the issue.
This turns reviews into operating information, and it gives you true, specific things to say in future replies.
Legal note: this guide is general information, not legal advice. Laws and platform policies change and vary by state. For advice about your situation, consult a licensed attorney in your state.
Getting help
Many of these steps you can take yourself. If you would like to see how we help teams track and answer reviews in one place, you can book a demo and we will walk through it with you. We do not guarantee that any review, article, listing or search result will be removed.