By David M. Majchrzak
Klinedinst PC
Lawyers of all vintages work tremendously hard to achieve their clients’ goals. Trial attorneys may have a more direct, objective, feedback mechanism through a verdict or a ruling on a dispositive motion, but all lawyers inevitably receive feedback from their clients, sometimes very publicly. Many times, that feedback — positive or negative — may be posted online for anyone to find, even years down the line. So, it is critical, especially early in your career, to keep your clients happy.
Online posts can provide an ethical challenge for lawyers. There are, of course, perils in responding to a negative review. The normal reaction is to defend oneself.
The most common way of doing so — especially for people trained to be advocates — is to provide factual evidence that the services provided were competent. Whereas such information may be compelling, it frequently means disclosing confidential information, something that creates a new set of issues for a lawyer. Thus, the common trend when addressing negative reviews, for those who choose to do so, is to publicly invite the poster to contact the lawyer privately, highlighting that the attorney takes his or her ethical duties seriously, even when publicly attacked.
That issue is one that lawyers tend to identify quickly. One that runs a higher risk of getting overlooked is the false positive review (i.e., one where the reviewer did not receive the legal services referenced in the post from the lawyer being reviewed). The temptation is to simply accept these. They may be flattering to the attorney’s ego, and they might even be just the incentive a prospective client needs to contact the lawyer, but they are also misleading.
Both the State Bar Act and the Rules of Professional Conduct preclude attorneys from making statements about their availability for employment that are false, deceptive, or misleading. False reviews necessarily fall within this category. Even truthful reviews may be deceptive or misleading, depending on their use, such as when not accompanied by a disclaimer that the results were particular to the facts of the representation.
There are a few guidelines to consider. First, attorneys may not create lawyer reviews that appear to be posts from clients. Doing so creates the false impression that the review came from somebody who actually received legal services. Of course, what lawyers may not do directly, they also may not do through surrogates. So, this same analysis applies when an attorney solicits a review from staff members, family, or friends who never used the lawyer’s services, or if the attorney asks clients to post reviews containing inaccurate information regarding the legal services the attorney did provide.
The good news is that a lawyer does not necessarily face repercussions simply because there is a false review that includes his or her name. Unless the attorney played an active role in shaping the content of a review, the lawyer is generally not responsible for or subject to discipline merely because a third party publicly posts erroneous information.
However, lawyer may inadvertently jeopardize that safety through communications that relate to a false review the attorney had no role in soliciting or authoring. Consider a lawyer who knows that a review has erroneously — whether intentionally or not — been left on her profile, whether through the lawyer’s own website or through a web page the lawyer has contributed to on a third-party platform.
In such a case, that lawyer will have to decide whether (1) she stops using the profile page on the directory; (2) she has the misleading review removed — presuming the site administrator will do so; or (3) she expressly disavows the review. Absent taking one or more of these steps, the lawyer could be viewed as implicitly ratifying the review. Even if the lawyer abandons a website, it may be prudent to try to have the incorrect review removed or disavowed to minimize the lingering risk.
If the lawyer updates a profile, links to it, or otherwise incorporates it into her marketing efforts without addressing the review, the public could reasonably conclude the lawyer is ratifying the content(s) of the page. To the extent a lawyer either republishes information or allows it to remain, without comment by the lawyer on a profile page where the lawyer controls the content — even if on a third-party website — the attorney may be deemed to be restating that information.
Lawyers may want to approach each representation with the following mindset: when clients entrust you to handle a matter, in exchange, you entrust them with your reputation. By taking care of your clients, you take care of yourself, and there may never be a need for reviews other than those from your well-satisfied clients.