Lawyer reputation management for solo and small firms
Guide · Updated October 31, 2026
Solo and small-firm lawyers rarely have a marketing department, so reputation tasks compete with billable work. The good news is that a short, regular routine covers most of what matters.
This guide offers a lightweight approach to lawyer reputation management that fits into about an hour a month.
A one-hour monthly routine
- Search your name and firm name in a private window and note anything new on page one.
- Check your map listing for accurate hours, address and phone, and confirm the website link works.
- Read any new reviews and decide on a reply for each, keeping confidentiality in mind.
- Update one profile, such as your bar profile or a legal directory listing, so that each one gets refreshed over the year.
- Send review requests to clients whose matters closed this month, if appropriate.
- Write down anything that needs follow-up next month.
Put the hour on your calendar like a client meeting. Consistency matters more than intensity.
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.
Building accurate content so searchers see more of the real picture
When something cannot be removed, the remaining option is to make accurate information easier to find. This does not erase anything, and results vary, but it gives searchers more context.
- Claim and complete the profiles you control: your own website, relevant professional directories and major business or social profiles.
- Use consistent names, titles and descriptions across those profiles so search engines can connect them.
- Publish genuinely useful material, such as an accurate bio, a page about your services, or articles in your field.
- Keep it honest. Fake reviews, fake news sites and networks of thin pages can violate search engine spam policies and can make the situation worse.
Search engines decide what ranks. Anyone who promises a specific ranking result or a date is promising something they do not control.
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.
Steps to take after a post you believe is defamatory
A post that states something false about you as a fact is different from a harsh opinion. Defamation law varies by state, and only a licensed attorney can tell you whether a specific post meets the legal standard in your state. These are practical steps while you get that advice:
- Do not reply in anger or post anything that repeats the allegation.
- Preserve evidence: dated screenshots, the URL, the author's profile, and any related messages. Save copies outside the platform.
- Write down which statements you believe are false facts, and what documents show they are false.
- Note the date the post first appeared. Legal time limits for defamation claims are set by state law and can be short.
- Check whether the post also breaks the platform's own rules, which may be a faster route than a legal claim.
- Consult a licensed attorney in your state before sending any demand letter or threat.
Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, websites are generally not treated as the publisher of content their users post, so legal claims usually focus on the author. Identifying an anonymous author typically requires a legal process handled by an attorney.
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 someone to look at your situation with you and suggest a plan, you can book a paid consultation. This is a paid consultation: price confirmed when scheduling. No payment is taken on this site. We do not guarantee that any review, article, listing or search result will be removed.