I had a client that I was talking to, and they were really struggling getting reviews. This is a common thing with a lot of different law firms, especially family law, criminal defense, and other practice areas where you don’t necessarily want to air out your dirty business.
Nobody wants to thank their criminal defense attorney for getting those pesky child porn charges dropped. Sometimes it’s very difficult to get people that want to actually leave you reviews.
One tip that we give our clients all the time is that the reviews that you get do not necessarily have to be client reviews. What I mean by that is you can have a friend, a family member, a next-door neighbor, anybody that can vouch for your character.
Trading Reviews With Other Attorneys
What you can do is you can have them go on your Google listing and say, “If I were ever arrested for DUI, John Smith is the guy I would want to hire. He’s knowledgeable, he knows the law, he cares about his clients.” You can even get another attorney to do it. What I always tell my clients is, trade reviews with other attorneys. They could say, “My name is Mike Smith, and as a family law attorney, I know that Bill Johnson is extremely knowledgeable on the law. I know that he handles himself very well in the courtroom. I know that he cares about his clients and if I was ever arrested, he’s the first guy I would call.”
You don’t necessarily have to have actual client reviews, but you can have people that vouch for your character, that talk about how knowledgeable you are, how much you care about the law, how much you care about your clients, how good of a job you do, and how long you’ve been an attorney. All that good stuff. For example, “I’ve known John Smith for 15 years. He’s dedicated to his work. He’s dedicated to his clients, and he will not let you down.”
Anything like that is a great source of review. It all counts. When you’re not able to get clients to leave you reviews, it doesn’t mean that you can’t have reviews. You have to have reviews somewhere.