Reputation and Google review management for law firms

What’s included

A system, not a one-off request

Most firms only ask for a review right after a matter closes, if at all, and the request often gets forgotten. We build a consistent process that asks at the right moment, makes leaving a review genuinely easy, and follows up without being pushy. The effect compounds: research on legal consumers has found that around 82% of people who researched a lawyer online relied on reviews as part of that process, and close to 40% of those people said reviews were their primary source of information when choosing who to call.

Every review, good or difficult, gets a professional response from us within your approval process, so nothing goes unanswered and nothing risks a breach of your professional conduct rules. This work sits close to local SEO, since review volume and recency feed directly into map pack visibility, and it should never run in isolation from your core SEO or website, which is usually where a prospective client lands after checking your reviews.

It also matters more than most firms assume for the fence-sitters. Roughly two-thirds of consumers say they’re more likely to hire a business with visible reviews, and among younger clients, the figure often cited is around 81%. A firm sitting on a handful of stale reviews from years ago is quietly losing enquiries to a competitor with a steady, current flow, even when the underlying legal work is comparable.

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Responding professionally

A calm, on-brand response to every review

A five-star review still deserves a genuine thank you, and a difficult one deserves a measured, professional reply, never a defensive one, and never anything that risks confidentiality or your professional conduct obligations. Most consumers won’t seriously consider a firm rated below four stars, so a single unanswered negative review can do disproportionate damage next to competitors who respond well.

We draft every response for your review before it’s posted, so you stay in control of what appears publicly under your firm’s name. This is also where reputation work overlaps with branding, the tone of a review response is part of how your firm’s identity actually reads to a prospective client, and with social media, where the same trust-building tone needs to be consistent.

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Common mistakes

Where firms lose the trust they’ve already earned

The most common mistake is treating reviews as a one-off task instead of a system. A firm asks a handful of happy clients right after launch, gets three or four reviews, then goes quiet for a year. To a prospective client scanning your profile, a rating that hasn’t moved since 2024 reads as a firm that’s stopped taking new work, or worse, stopped satisfying clients, even if neither is true.

The second is responding defensively, or not at all, to a negative review. A calm, professional reply that doesn’t confirm or discuss the matter publicly does more for prospective clients reading it later than the original review does damage. Silence, by contrast, reads as guilt.

The third is chasing reviews indiscriminately without segmenting by matter type. A family law client and a commercial law client have very different things they’ll say, and a wall of generic five-star ratings with no detail is less persuasive than a smaller number of specific, varied reviews across your practice areas.

How this fits with your other marketing

Reputation work rarely stands alone

Reviews are the trust layer underneath almost every other channel. A Google Ads campaign sending traffic to a firm with three-year-old reviews wastes spend on clicks that bounce once the prospect checks your profile. A SEO programme that gets you ranking well still needs the review signal to convert that ranking into a call. And digital marketing strategies that ignore reputation are missing the layer most prospective clients actually check last, right before they dial.

It also compounds with your referral network: an accountant or financial planner referring a client feels more comfortable doing so when that client can independently verify the recommendation with a quick search. Reviews back up word of mouth rather than compete with it.

Most firms bundle this into a broader marketing programme rather than running it alone, see our pricing page for how engagements are typically structured.