FTC Endorsement Guides: A Disclosure Checklist for Lawyer Reviews

What to take away

Why lawyers have two regulators to satisfy

A firm that posts a client's five-star review on its homepage is making an advertising statement. The FTC treats a testimonial as an advertising message that consumers are likely to believe reflects a real consumer's experience. The state bar treats the same page as a communication about the lawyer's services. The checklist below takes the FTC points first, then the bar points, then the record-keeping that supports both.

The rules in this article come from the FTC and from the California State Bar, which is used here as a worked example of a state rule. Every state adopts its own version of the professional conduct rules, so read your own state's Rules 7.1 and 7.2 and any ethics opinions before applying the bar items. For the national baseline, see the ABA Model Rules 7.1 to 7.5 guide, and for a state-level comparison see the article on California advertising rules and complaints.

FTC checklist: reviews and testimonials

1. Confirm every review is real. The FTC's Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule prohibits writing, creating, selling or buying fake or false reviews and testimonials. A business can be liable for purchased reviews it knew or should have known were false. A review from a relative who never hired the firm is exactly this problem. The California State Bar reached the same conclusion on its own rules: in its Formal Opinion 2019-199, an attorney who asked a sister who had never used the attorney's services to post a review about a fictitious case violated Rule 7.1(a).

2. Identify insiders and disclose them. The rule requires a clear and conspicuous disclosure when a testimonialist has a material relationship with the business that the audience would not otherwise know about. For a law firm, that likely includes partners, associates, staff, family members and anyone with a referral or financial arrangement. The FTC's guidance says a disclosure in the first line of a review would be considered unavoidable, and that hyperlinks and platform tools may not be adequate. A short statement can work.

3. Check how reviews were solicited. Incentives are not banned. The FTC says they are allowed as long as there is no express or implied requirement that the reviews express a particular sentiment. A discount offered only for positive reviews would fail that test. The FTC adds that generalized solicitations sent to all purchasers are exempt from the insider provision, and that the rule does not specifically prohibit asking only satisfied customers for reviews, but that the practice could still violate the FTC Act, so send the request to every client you are asking, not to the ones you expect to be happy.

4. Disclose gifts and incentives where the audience sees them. The FTC Endorsement Guides Q&A treats free products sent with an expectation of promotion as covered. For a firm, a gift card or fee discount given in exchange for a review is an incentive of this kind. The Q&A says a disclosure that sits in the comments is easily avoidable and that a single home-page notice is not enough for individual reviews.

5. Do not suppress negative reviews. The rule bars using false accusations, intimidation or unfounded legal threats to stop or remove a negative review. The FTC also says that paying a consumer to remove a truthful negative review may violate the FTC Act, even though the rule itself does not prohibit it.

6. Do not claim independence you do not have. Under the rule, a business cannot misrepresent that a website or organization it controls provides independent reviews or opinions. A "client reviews" microsite run by the firm must not present itself as a neutral rating service.

7. Watch for red flags in purchased or marketed reviews. The FTC says there is no general duty to investigate every review, but signs such as reviews appearing suspiciously fast or in large bursts can trigger the "should have known" standard. If an agency manages your reviews, ask how they are collected.

Bar checklist: testimonials and endorsements

8. Test the whole page for misleading impressions. California's Rule 7.1(a) says a communication is false or misleading if it contains a material misrepresentation of fact or law, or omits a fact necessary to make the communication considered as a whole not materially misleading. Apply that test to the testimonial and to the text around it.

9. Address the "same results" problem. Comment [4] to California's Rule 7.1 says a truthful report of achievements, or a testimonial about or endorsement of the lawyer, may be misleading if presented so as to lead a reasonable person to form an unjustified expectation that the same results could be obtained for clients in similar matters without reference to the specific factual and legal circumstances of each case. The comment adds that an appropriate disclaimer or qualifying language often avoids creating unjustified expectations. The sample disclaimer in the California opinion says a review is not a guarantee, warranty or prediction of the outcome of a legal matter and that the facts of each case differ. A disclaimer does not cure a testimonial that contains false statements.

10. Identify the responsible lawyer. California's Rule 7.2(c) requires any communication made under the rule to include the name and address of at least one lawyer or law firm responsible for its content. Check whether your state has a similar rule.

11. Review third-party profiles. In Formal Opinion 2019-199, the California State Bar says an attorney is not responsible for a profile created and maintained by a third party, but becomes responsible for its content by adopting the profile or by using it to market the practice. Linking the profile from the firm's website is one such use. The attorney must then avoid posting or inducing false or misleading content and must make reasonable efforts to correct it. The opinion also says that some periodic monitoring of the profile should be done, and that an attorney can abandon a profile by taking reasonable steps to alert the public that it is no longer monitored, such as a notice on the profile and ceasing to use it in marketing.

12. Check awards and ratings. The same opinion notes that ratings from a bona fide organization with clear evaluation standards are protected commercial speech, while a credential available to anyone who pays a fee could mislead. The firm should confirm how an award is selected before putting it next to client reviews. The directory rankings article covers how rankings are built.

Records to keep

A defensible file shows what was published and why it was acceptable. Keep for each testimonial:

The firm's reputation management checklist can host this log alongside monitoring tasks. Responding to a review can raise client confidentiality questions under your state's rules, which this checklist does not cover.

Official sources