Stop Sending Google Review Requests Only After Wins
Two matters close in the same week. One client got a settlement well above what she expected, and the partner stops by your desk: "Send her the review link." The other client lost a motion that sank his case. Nobody mentions a review link, and nobody sends one.
No one wrote that down as a policy, but it works like one. If wins decide who gets asked, your firm is choosing reviewers by how likely they are to be happy. Google's review policy has a rule that, in our reading, covers exactly that.
What Google's policy says, and what it doesn't
Google's Prohibited & restricted content page for Maps user-generated content has a section on Rating Manipulation, which the page says "includes Incentivized or Biased Reviews, which are not allowed and will be removed from Maps." The page shows no publication date. As of November 2026, its examples of prohibited conduct include:
"Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers"
The same section says "When soliciting reviews, merchants should not require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews while on the premises, nor should they request that specific content be included." It also lists "Merchants requesting that staff solicit a certain number of reviews."
The quoted policy passages don't mention case outcomes, won matters or law firms. Applying the rule to a wins-only list is our own reading, and we think it's the obvious one. A favorable result is the firm's best guess at which clients will post something positive, so asking only those clients selects for positive reviews, even if nobody meant it that way.
The permitted side is just as plain. Businesses may "Solicit or encourage the posting of content that does represent a genuine experience," "without offering incentives to do so or attempting to influence the rating or the contents of the review." A client who lost and is unhappy about it still had a genuine experience with your firm.
Three filters that are really satisfaction filters
Outcome is the filter people notice, but it isn't the only one that does this job.
The matter was lost
This is the opening scene. The case result stands in for the client's mood. Some clients who lose call their lawyer the best part of a bad year, and some who win are furious about the bill. The filter measures satisfaction badly, but it's still trying to measure it, and that's the problem.
The client complained
A billing dispute or a sharp email in month four, and the file quietly drops off the list. The reasoning sounds sensible ("why invite trouble?"), but you're excluding the client because of what they're likely to say.
The private feedback was unhappy
This one is the easiest to miss. Some firms send a short private survey before or alongside the review request. If only clients who rate you well in private get the Google link, the survey has become a gate. Keep the two separate: every client gets the same public review invitation, whatever they said in private.
Separating Google's policy from the FTC rule
The FTC's Trade Regulation Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, 16 CFR Part 465, was published in the Federal Register on August 22, 2024 (89 FR 68034) and took effect on October 21, 2024. It passed its second anniversary on October 21, 2026, a good prompt to look at how your firm asks. But it covers different ground from Google's policy.
Section 465.4 deals with incentives. It makes it a violation "for a business to provide compensation or other incentives in exchange for, or conditioned expressly or by implication on, the writing or creation of consumer reviews expressing a particular sentiment, whether positive or negative." Section 465.7 deals with review suppression. Part (a) covers using "an unfounded or groundless legal threat, a physical threat, intimidation, or a public false accusation" (for accusations, made knowing they're false or with reckless disregard for the truth) to stop a review or get one removed. Part (b) covers a business materially misrepresenting that the reviews shown on its own website represent most or all of the reviews submitted when reviews "are being suppressed (i.e., not displayable) based upon their ratings or their negative sentiment."
A selective invitation list with no incentive attached isn't, by itself, what either section of Part 465 describes. That doesn't put it outside the FTC's view. The FTC's Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, as amended on July 26, 2023, say at 16 CFR 255.2(d) that advertisers "should not take actions that have the effect of distorting or otherwise misrepresenting what consumers think of their products." Example 11 in the same section describes a marketer that collects private feedback and invites only purchasers who give very positive feedback to post reviews on third-party sites. The Guides say such a practice "may be an unfair or deceptive practice if it results in the posted reviews being substantially more positive than if the marketer had not engaged in the practice." That's the private-survey gate described above. Part 465 itself comes in if you tie anything of value to reviews expressing a particular sentiment, or if your own site implies it shows most or all reviews while holding back the negative ones. Whether any of this applies to your firm is a question for your counsel and your state bar's advertising rules.
A ten-minute audit of your request list
Take a hypothetical firm: four attorneys, family law and personal injury, on Clio. The office manager writes down the rule as it actually works, not as anyone would describe it:
"We send the review link when a matter closes, if the result was good, the client hasn't complained, and they gave us four or five stars on the feedback form."
Then she tests each condition with one question: does this depend on what the client is likely to say about us?
"When a matter closes" doesn't, so it stays. "If the result was good" does, so it goes. So do "the client hasn't complained" and "four or five stars on the feedback form."
What's left is one outcome-neutral trigger applied to every closed matter. The firm then decides, with its confidentiality duties and bar rules in mind, whether to exclude any matters for reasons unrelated to sentiment, such as a sealed juvenile matter or a client who has asked not to be contacted. Each exclusion gets written down with its reason.
If your firm runs on Clio, run the same test on your closing workflow. Check who marks a matter closed and whether anyone holds back the request step for specific files. Repsight sends email and SMS review requests and integrates with Clio, but the rule about who gets asked belongs to your firm. Write it down.
Some clients you lost for will now get the link, and a few may post something hard to read. When that happens, read what ABA Formal Opinion 496 (issued January 13, 2021) says about replying before anyone at the firm types a response.