Google Reviews for Lawyers: Ask, Reply, Count the Calls

A law firm's Google reviews answer to three rulebooks at once: Google's own content policy, the FTC's rule on reviews and testimonials, and the ethics rules your state bar writes for lawyers. Ask every client the same way, never pay for a review, and read the profile's own numbers, not memory, to see which calls it actually brought.

Quick answer

Ask every client whose matter closed, not only the ones you expect to praise you, and never offer anything for a review: Google's policy bans both, and the FTC's rule bans paying for a particular outcome. Before answering a negative review, strip out the matter, the result and who the client was, and have a lawyer read the reply first. Run one profile per office, and give any lawyer clients reach directly a profile of their own, titled with their name alone, never a practice area. Then stop guessing which calls the profile brought: read the Calls count on its Performance page, add a UTM tag to the website link, and have intake log "Google Maps" as its own source.

What can you ask a client for, and what crosses a line?

Google's policy for reviews on Maps removes content not based on a real experience and reviews paid for, directly or in kind. It bars a business from offering payment, discounts, or free goods or services for a review (a waived fee is a free service) and from discouraging negative reviews or selectively soliciting positive ones, a practice known as review gating; it also removes reviews based on a conflict of interest, such as current or former employment or a family tie (Google, checked 2026-10-05). The same policy says a business should not ask for specific content in a review, such as a practice area or a staff member's name, or press a client to write one while at the office.

In practice, review gating is a feedback form that hands the Google link only to clients who answer well, or a personal ask to happy clients while complaints go to an intake line. One script, sent the same way to every client whose file closed, avoids it.

A conflict of interest reaches past the lawyers on the letterhead. A paralegal, a receptionist, a former associate, a spouse or a lawyer's own account all fall under "current or former employment" or "familial relationships," so none of them should post a review of the firm, even an honest one.

What does the FTC's rule add to Google's policy?

Google's policy only reaches Google. The FTC's Trade Regulation Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, 16 CFR Part 465, in effect since October 21, 2024, is federal law: it bars a business from writing, buying or procuring fake reviews, including ones that misrepresent what the reviewer experienced, from offering anything for a review on the express or implied condition that it be positive or negative, and from putting out an insider's review or testimonial, a lawyer's own, a staff member's or a relative's, without a clear and conspicuous disclosure of that tie (FTC, checked 2026-10-05). Per the FTC's answers, one request sent to every client is exempt from the insider section even if an employee receives it, and the rule itself does not ban asking only happy customers, though that could still violate the FTC Act.

The rule also runs the other way: it bars using a groundless legal threat, a physical threat, intimidation or a public false accusation to stop a review or get one taken down, so a cease-and-desist letter over an unhappy client's review needs a legitimate legal basis.

What do the bar rules say about asking for reviews, and about replying?

Your state bar, not Google or the FTC, decides what a lawyer may give in return for a recommendation. ABA Model Rule 7.2(b) bars giving or promising anything of value to a person for recommending the lawyer's services (ABA, checked 2026-10-05). Its comments define a recommendation as a communication that endorses or vouches for a lawyer's credentials, abilities, competence, character or other professional qualities, and allow only a token thank-you gift, never one the person was promised or led to expect in advance (ABA, checked 2026-10-05). Neither the rule nor its comments mention reviews by name, so whether a review counts as a recommendation is a question for your own bar.

Quoting a review on the firm's website or in an ad brings in Rule 7.1, which bars "a false or misleading communication about the lawyer or the lawyer's services" (ABA, checked 2026-10-05); what attorney ads may claim covers testimonials in ads.

Replies get their own treatment in what a defense firm can say in a review reply and who should draft the reply when an agency runs the profile. The holding behind both is ABA Formal Opinion 496: a negative online review, alone, does not meet the self-defense exception that would allow disclosing information about a client's representation (ABA, checked 2026-10-05). The same opinion lets a lawyer ask the website or search engine host to remove a post, as long as the request reveals nothing about a client's matter. Google, for its part, removes only reviews that violate its policies and asks owners not to report one simply because they disagree with it (Google, checked 2026-10-05).

Each state bar writes its own version of these rules, so check yours before acting on any of this. I measure calls and clicks, not law; I am not a lawyer, and nothing here is legal advice.

Does every lawyer at the firm need a profile of their own?

Google's guidelines for representing a business allow one profile per location, with an exception that matters to law firms: individual practitioners, with lawyers among Google's examples. A lawyer who works in a public-facing role and can be contacted directly at the verified location during stated hours should have a dedicated profile, titled with the lawyer's name only, while the firm keeps its own profile for that location (Google, checked 2026-10-05). Support staff should not create profiles, and a lawyer should not have several profiles to cover different practice areas.

A practitioner's profile may add a title such as JD or Esq. and nothing else. For the firm's name, Google's examples turn down "Verizon Wireless 4G LTE" for adding service information and "Holiday Inn (I-93 at Exit 2)" for adding location information, so a firm name padded with a practice area or a city fails on both counts.

A mailing address the firm rents but never works from, a virtual office, does not qualify for a profile at all. An office in a co-working space counts only with clear signage, the firm's own staff on site and clients received there during business hours.

Which number in the Performance tab means a call came from the profile?

Open Performance on the profile and five metrics matter here: Searches, the terms people used to find the listing; Views; Directions; Calls, the number of clicks on the call button, which says nothing about whether the call connected; and Website clicks. Google notes that these figures include actions from both unpaid results and Google Ads (Google, checked 2026-10-05). None of them says whether the caller became a client; only intake does.

Linking the profile to GA4 (Admin, then Product links, then Google Business Profile links) copies those counts, calls and website clicks among them, into GA4 beside your website data (Google, checked 2026-10-05); it still does not show who signed.

Then add a UTM tag to the website link on the profile: a few characters appended to the end of the URL, such as ?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=gbp, that GA4 reads to label the visit without changing anything the visitor sees. Without it, a visit through the profile's link looks like any other visit from unpaid Google search; with it, GA4's campaign reports list those visits under "gbp".

Google's guidelines do not mention call tracking numbers. They ask for a number that connects to the individual business location and is under the business's direct control, and they bar numbers that redirect or "refer" callers to phone numbers other than the business's own (Google, checked 2026-10-05). A tracking number held in the firm's own account and ringing straight to the office line fits that wording most closely; either way, pair the Calls count with intake asking, and logging, "Google Maps" on every call.

What should you check every month, and against which rule?

Illustrative: every number below is made up for an imaginary three-lawyer family law firm; not one figure comes from a client.

Three ratios turn that sheet into something to track, and the same formulas work on your own numbers. Divide tagged callers by the Calls count for the tag rate, 24 ÷ 60 = 40 percent, the share of button taps intake can actually trace to a caller. Consultations divided by tagged callers gives the consult rate: 10 ÷ 24, about 42 percent. For the sign rate, divide signed cases by consultations, 4 ÷ 10 = 40 percent. A tag rate that slides from one month to the next points to calls going unanswered or intake skipping the question, so check it against the phone system's own missed-call count before blaming the profile.

Does the map pack replace your website, or sit beside it?

The listings under the map on a local search, the map pack, come from Business Profiles; the unpaid results below them are web pages. Google says local results depend mainly on how well a profile matches the search, how far away the business is and how well known it is, and that more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking (Google, checked 2026-10-05). A firm can rank in one, both or neither. Fixing the website side of that split covers the organic half.

What should the person running your profile be able to answer?

Whoever manages the profile, in house or at an agency, should answer four questions on request:

• What exact script or email does every client see when asked for a review, and does it ever change by who is asked?
• Is anything, a discount, a gift card, a fee waiver, ever offered for leaving one?
• Does anyone on staff, or a relative of someone who is, appear among the reviewers?
• Does the monthly number start from the profile's Calls count, or from intake's own "Google Maps" tag?