Family law reviews: what you can and can't ask clients to say

Published September 1, 2026 · Updated September 21, 2026

On Google's side the answer is short. You can ask every client for a review, with the link or QR code (the square barcode a phone camera reads) that Google provides for your profile, and you can reply to every review you receive. You cannot offer anything in exchange for one, ask only the clients who seemed pleased, write one yourself, or pay to have one changed or removed. Whether you may ask a family law client at all, and what a reply may say, is your bar's question, and this page sends it there.

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The rest of this page is about doing the permitted part well, and the part that goes wrong is the timing. A thank-you card sent the week after the dinner lands while the evening is still in the host's head. The same card five months later is a small mystery on the hall table. Review requests behave exactly like that, and the mistake is that the ask goes out on the firm's schedule, not the client's.

Two rulebooks

The first rulebook is Google's, and it governs the platform: what can be offered in exchange for a review, who may write one, and what gets a review taken down. That one is public, it is the same in every state and province, and it is squarely my job.

The second rulebook is your bar's, and it governs you: whether client testimonials are permitted, what a testimonial may claim, whether a disclaimer is required, how any of it sits with your duty of confidentiality, and what you may say back when somebody criticizes you in public. Bars differ on all of this, and the one that binds you is the one where you are admitted.

So the honest division of labor: I build the plumbing and tell you how the platform behaves, and the words go past your bar counsel before they reach a client. If you take one line from this page, take that one.

What Google's rules actually forbid

Four hard lines, and they are not opinions. Each one is on Google's own policy pages, linked at the end of this guide.

Nothing may be offered in exchange for a review. Google's wording covers payment, discounts, and free goods or services, for changing or removing a review as well as posting one.

You cannot ask only the happy ones. Google's policy says a business may not discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive ones. Sending your review link to clients who seemed pleased and quietly leaving out the ones who did not is exactly that. The same section says you may not require or pressure people to leave a review while they are on the premises, which rules out the tablet at reception.

You cannot write them. That covers staff reviews, family reviews and a review composed for a client to paste in. Google's policy treats reviews posted by or at the request of the business, or from multiple accounts by one person, as fake engagement.

And a truthful negative review does not come down. Google's reporting page says only reviews that violate its policies are eligible for removal, and that it does not get involved in disputes between a business and a customer. Offering the reviewer anything to change or remove it is on the incentive list above. Removal is only ever available for content that breaks a policy, which is a much narrower thing than content that is unfair.

The mechanics of asking

Google provides a review link and a QR code for every profile, and both go straight to the review box. Get the link, shorten it, and put it somewhere your staff can reach in two seconds. The QR code belongs on the closing letter rather than a sign at reception.

Then the timing, which is the whole ballgame. The moment worth asking at is the one where the work concludes and the client feels relief. In family law that moment is findable in every file: the day the final order arrives, or the day the agreement is signed. Ask out loud, by a human, in that conversation, and follow with the link the same day while the ask is still fresh.

Google's own tips page says to remind customers and sets no limit. My rule is one reminder, a week later, and then stop, because a second reminder reads as pressure to a client who has decided not to put their name beside a divorce.

Do not automate the ask into a sequence that fires ninety days after file closing. It still counts as a review request, and it still lands like the card on the hall table.

Ask an open question rather than a subject. "Would you be willing to say what it was like to work through this here" gets you a paragraph in the client's own words. "Would you mention that we were affordable and responsive" gets you a suspiciously similar-sounding review. Whether coaching what a client writes is acceptable to your bar is a question for bar counsel.

The asking routine, in order

This is the whole workflow on one card. Print it for whoever closes files.

• Bar counsel has confirmed, once, that you may ask clients for public reviews and has approved your wording.
• The profile's review link is shortened and saved where the closing paralegal can reach it.
• The asking moment is written into the file-closing checklist: the day the final order or signed agreement arrives.
• The ask is made in person or by phone, by the lawyer or paralegal the client dealt with.
• The link goes out the same day, in a two-line email with nothing else in it.
• One reminder a week later, then nothing.
• Every client who closes gets the ask, whatever the mood of the last meeting.
• Every review, good or bad, gets the bar-approved reply within the week.

When the review is from somebody who was never your client

Family law generates a category of review that a dentist or a plumber does not get: the one written by the opposing party, or by their relative, about a matter you were on the other side of.

Google's route for this is the report icon beside the review, or the Reviews Management Tool, and only a review that breaks a policy is eligible. The policies to read before you report are the ones on conflict of interest, which Google defines around employment and contractual relationships, on content not based on a real experience, and on personal information posted about someone without consent. Whether a review by the opposing party fits one of those is Google's call, not yours or mine. Google says evaluation typically takes several days, the tool shows a status for each report, and there is a one-time appeal if the first answer is no. It does not always work, and it is worth doing anyway, because the alternative is nothing.

What does not work is arguing in the replies. The reply field is a display case, and the audience is the next person deciding whether to call you.

Replying, and the confidentiality trap

Replying takes a few minutes a week, and every review deserves one, especially the difficult ones. Google posts your reply publicly under the review, under the business name rather than your own, and notifies the reviewer that you replied.

There is a trap in family law that other practice areas do not have. A public reply is visible to everyone, permanently, and anything it says about a matter is said in front of the next person deciding whether to call you. Whether a reply may even acknowledge that someone was your client is a confidentiality question for your bar, not a search question, so this page does not answer it. What I can say about the platform is that a short, warm, generic reply with no detail about any matter does the job the reply field is for, and it offers a phone number instead of continuing the conversation in public.

I am not going to write you a script for that, because the wording is exactly the thing your jurisdiction has views about. Draft it once, have your bar counsel look at it once, and then reuse it. It is a small job that only has to happen once.

What to expect

Fewer reviews than you think you should have. A client who would rather the internet never learned they were divorced will not leave one, and no amount of good process changes that. A family law practice with a modest number of thoughtful reviews and a reply under every one of them is in better shape than one with many and silence, and comparing your count to the dentist down the hall tells you nothing at all.

Two things on the profile itself decide whether the reviews you earn are worth anything. They have to land on a listing that ranks, which is the Maps ranking checklist, and on one listing rather than two, which is the duplicate profiles guide. Read those before you start asking, because reviews on a listing you later have to merge are the ones at risk.

Mediation and collaborative practices have an extra angle, because review vocabulary pre-qualifies clients for them; that sits on the mediators page. A backlog of unanswered reviews is on the solo practitioner page, and which listing a multi-attorney firm's reviews should land on is on the small firm page.

The whole setup above, link, printable code, closing-checklist line and routine, is part of the Better size; the sizes are on the homepage. If one review has you stuck, email hello@divorceseo.com with the matter details left out and I will say which of Google's routes applies.

And once more, plainly: compliance questions go to your bar counsel, not to this page.

Checked against Google help pages on 2026-09-21: Tips to get more reviews, Prohibited and restricted content, Report inappropriate reviews, Read and reply to reviews

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