Attorneys suspect fakes in peers' online reviews

By Kris Olson
BridgeTower Media Newswires
 
The periodic email solicitations do not tempt him in the least, but they are irksome, Boston attorney Marc L. Breakstone says.

“Improve your business reputation with our Google reviews,” reads one unscrupulous service’s pitch. “We will spread these reviews and ensure everything looks as natural as possible.”

As attorney advertising goes, the cost is not steep: The service promises to post five 50- to 100-word Google reviews from “high-quality users,” one a day, for under $30. There is a slight volume discount for those purchasing 10 or 20 reviews.

Breakstone cannot prove any of the competitors of his personal injury and malpractice firm are artificially burnishing their online reputations with fake reviews, whether purchased or posted by friends or family members, he acknowledges.

But he is not alone in seeing the red flags. There are telltale signs to look for, says Tim Blacquier, vice president of digital marketing and technology at Keches Law Group: generic comments, perhaps cut and pasted from a template; a reviewer who has either posted no other reviews or a bunch, but for businesses in different parts of the country.

Given that they have come by their own favorable reviews honestly, Breakstone and Blacquier say it is troubling to imagine unsuspecting potential clients being led astray by another firm’s volume of favorable reviews, the sheen of which would fade upon closer inspection.

“We live in a consumer-review-driven economy, and the average consumer may not look beyond the number of reviews and the average number of gold stars,” Breakstone says.

Blacquier says awareness of what seems to be a proliferation of fake reviews is something that has driven him “batty,” but “you can’t prove who’s doing what.”

The hope is that “the smart consumer will see through it, and that will catch up with the bad players,” he adds.

Breakstone agrees that, with any luck, discerning would-be clients will see through the artifice of bogus generic reviews.

“But it is a form of false advertising, and it denigrates our profession,” he says.

Breakstone and Blacquier say their focus is on keeping their own digital houses in order, rather than dropping a dime on the suspected transgressors. But rest assured, if a lawyer or firm were found to have purchased or otherwise falsified reviews, there would be consequences.

Ethical violation

In a September 2018 article posted to the Board of Bar Overseers website, Assistant Bar Counsel Robert M. Daniszewski makes clear that it would constitute a violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct for lawyers to create or solicit fake reviews as part of their marketing or public relations strategies.

Specifically, it would violate Rule 7.1, which prohibits any false or misleading communications about a lawyer or a lawyer’s services, Daniszewski writes in the piece.

According to the rule, a communication is false or misleading if it includes “a material misrepresentation of fact or law or omits a fact necessary to make the statement considered as a whole not materially misleading.”

“A glowing review purportedly submitted by an actual client, but in fact generated by the lawyer, would constitute a false and misleading communication under Rule 7.1,” Daniszewski writes.

In addition, posting a sham review in the name of a purported client would also violate the requirement in Rule 7.2(c) that lawyer advertising include the name of the lawyer or firm responsible for its content, according to Daniszewski.

Bar Counsel Rodney S. Dowell reiterates that “any form of advertising that’s false or misleading is likely going to land a lawyer in disciplinary trouble — and that certainly includes fake online reviews.”

Dowell adds that an attorney could also run afoul of the Rules of Professional Conduct even with otherwise accurate reviews authored by real clients, if they give the client or a third party any form of compensation for posting it.

Dowell says his office has and will continue to investigate and prosecute such conduct.

“However, we like to emphasize that if lawyers have any questions about what is and is not permitted in regard to online advertising or reviews, they should refer to Rules 7.1 and 7.2 and call us on the Ethical Helpline to discuss any uncertainties,” he says.The helpline, 617-728-8750, takes calls on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Potential 93A exposure

Beyond bar discipline, Breakstone says he thinks causing fake online reviews to be posted is an intentional deceptive act that could subject a law firm to damages under Chapter 93A.

A Pennsylvania case settled about a year ago lends credence to that belief.

In that case, Tabatha Wolfe hired the Pittsburgh-based employment law firm Kraemer, Manes & Associates to represent her in a potential sexual harassment suit against her former employer. She says she chose the firm based on reviews she had read on Facebook and Google, which she later determined not to be genuine.

After the relationship went south, Wolfe ended up suing the firm for malpractice. But she also added claims for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, civil conspiracy, civil RICO violations, and a breach of the Pennsylvania Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law based on the false five-star reviews.

She alleged the firm generated the glowing reviews by directing non-lawyer employees to solicit their friends and relatives to post them.

Wolfe claimed that employees were rewarded with paid time off when they completed the task.

“Although some of KM&A’s online reviews are from legitimate clients, enough five-star reviews are from non-clients to make KM&A’s aggregate scores materially higher than they would be if all reviews were from clients,” Wolfe’s complaint read.

In its reply brief, the firm argued that if Wolfe’s review-based claims were allowed to proceed, it “would invite claims against virtually any business for allegedly ratifying or failing to disavow reviews by third parties the claimant believes to have been inaccurate in some way.”

The firm further argued that the law does not recognize such claims and that it could not be held to account for allegedly misleading reviews by third parties.

Yet, recognizing the claims is exactly what Allegheny County Judge Christine Ward did, at least to the extent that she declined to dismiss them. The case
settled later.

As part of the settlement, the defendants denied wrongdoing but agreed to scrub its Facebook and Google business pages of reviews that had been generated by its employees and their contacts, and it agreed to steer clear of practices designed to generate inauthentic reviews.

Wasting an opportunity

A number of attorneys Lawyers Weekly reached out to for this story said they are not devoting a lot of time to generating or monitoring online reviews — fake or otherwise.

That may be a mistake, say lawyers who are carefully curating their reviews. While ignoring the forum altogether might spare them the pitfalls outlined above, their peers are also missing out on a marketing opportunity that is not only free but figures to become an increasingly important source of new business, they say.

To find representation, “your next generation of potential clients is going to the web,” Blacquier says. “They are not asking their neighbor; they are not calling mom.”

Instead, they are using the internet.

“If you’re not there, you’re invisible,” he says. “You may be the best attorney for them, but they will never know it.”

James C. Bradbury, head of Amabile & Burkly’s Worcester office, says the firm has seen an uptick in the number of people calling them solely based on internet searches.

“People are kicking the tires and making a choice based on Google reviews,” Bradbury says.

Amabile & Burkly has long preferred word-of-mouth to advertising on television or billboards, Bradbury says. And online reviews are “the modern form of word of mouth.”

Keches attorney Jason R. Markle says he has devoted time to grooming his online profile, not so much to bring in business, but because the first thing potential clients do when they are given the name of an attorney — or any business — is Google them.

“Coming back with little or no results on a Google search is a bit of a death sentence, speaking as a consumer,” the Milton lawyer says.

Blacquier says the sea change among his firm’s attorneys with respect to their attitudes toward online reviews has come within the past year or so. He says he pointed out that satisfied clients were already writing letters of appreciation, indicating a willingness to expend some effort to sing their lawyers’ praises, and that it would be helpful from a marketing perspective to have them share those thoughts online.

For now, Breakstone, Bradbury and the Keches lawyers say they are managing their online reviews on their own, without the assistance of any kind of software or service, though Blacquier says services to solicit and manage reviews might be a worthwhile investment for larger firms.

Beyond the time it takes to set up an online profile, creating a repository for online reviews does not cost anything, Blacquier notes.

Attorneys say they give minimal guidance to satisfied clients about what to write, beyond suggesting that they be specific and describe in some detail an argument a lawyer may have made or a tactic used in the courtroom.

“The other thing is, we’re not perfect,” notes Keches managing partner Sean C. Flaherty of Taunton. “We have negative reviews.”

While an online best practice is to acknowledge such reviews, Daniszewski’s BBO article cautions that attorneys have gotten into trouble by responding too rashly to a disgruntled client’s online review, leading them to run afoul of Rule 1.6(a) by posting confidential client information.

He suggests contacting the client offline and offers a sample response an attorney can post to indicate disagreement without divulging any facts about the representation.

A smattering of negative reviews may even help establish the authenticity of the favorable ones, lawyers say.

Think about shopping for a television on Amazon, Bradbury says. Many consumers are now savvy enough to gravitate to one that has 100 reviews that average four stars instead of one with all five-star reviews, but only a few of them, which should raise doubts about their authenticity.

Increasingly, clients are shopping for legal services the same way, he says.