Editorial policy.

1. Editorial independence

Editorial output is produced independently of commercial relationships with lawyers, firms, or advertisers. Sponsored placements cannot direct editorial coverage, and lawyers paying for placement receive no advance review of editorial that mentions them.

Where editorial content references a lawyer or firm by name, the relevant commercial relationship (if any) is disclosed in the article.

2. Source standards

Every editorial article on Lawyer Reviews Australia is built on primary sources:

• Australian statutes (cited by section)
• Australian case law (cited by neutral citation)
• Court annual reports and case statistics
• Regulator publications (SIRA, ASIC, ACCC, AFCA, OMARA, etc.)
• State Law Society costs surveys and our own 2026 practitioner survey (312 firms)
• Peer-reviewed academic literature where relevant

We do not rely on secondary commentary or unattributed industry estimates. Every numerical claim in an editorial article is sourced.

3. Reviewer process

Every editorial article is reviewed by a currently practising Australian lawyer in the relevant practice area before publication. The reviewer’s admitting jurisdiction and date of review are published on the article.

Reviewers are paid a flat fee per article. Reviewers do not receive equity, lead referrals, or any other commercial benefit tied to the article. A reviewer who is an active client of the platform is identified as such.

4. Fact-checking

Each article is fact-checked at draft stage against three categories of claim:

• Statutory citations. Every Act, section, or rule referenced is verified against the current published version at austlii.edu.au or legislation.gov.au.
• Numerical claims. Filing fees, processing times, monetary thresholds, and cost ranges are verified against the regulator’s current published schedule.
• Editorial judgments. Where the article expresses an opinion (e.g. “a no-win-no-fee structure isn’t always cheapest”), the rationale is articulated and attributable to either editorial analysis or a named reviewer.

5. The editorial line on legal advice

This is a critical compliance line. We publish general information about Australian law. We do not publish legal advice on specific matters. The distinction:

• OK: “Property settlements in matters with this profile typically resolve in the range of 55–65%” (general pattern)
• Not OK: “You will receive 60% of the property pool in your matter” (specific prediction)
• OK: “You should consider whether the 25% uplift cap applies to your matter” (general framework)
• Not OK: “You should accept the settlement offer of $400,000” (specific recommendation)

Our matter assessments and calculators surface ranges and frameworks, never single-point predictions. Specific advice on your matter requires an admitted lawyer with current practising certificate.

6. Voice and tone

Our editorial voice is plain, direct, and helpful. We write as we would want a friend who happened to be a lawyer to explain something to us:

• Plain English (Year 10 reading level for most consumer content)
• Concrete numbers and named statutes, not abstract concepts
• Acknowledgement of uncertainty (ranges, not single predictions)
• Editorial opinion where appropriate, clearly identified
• No AI-generated content. Articles are drafted by editors and reviewed by humans.

7. Image use and copyright

We use only images we have licensed, original to the platform, or sourced from royalty-free libraries with appropriate attribution. We do not scrape headshots from LinkedIn or chambers websites. Lawyer profile photos appear only after the lawyer has claimed their profile and uploaded their own image.

8. Corrections

Errors get corrected promptly with a dated note explaining what changed. The corrections log is at /complaints/ and lists every change since launch. We never silently edit.

9. Conflicts

If an article discusses a lawyer or firm in our paid product line (sponsored placement, audit client, etc.), the relationship is disclosed in a note in the article. Editorial coverage of a paid client is not preferential.

10. Right of reply

Where editorial content discusses a named lawyer or firm and they take issue with how they have been described, they may submit a right of reply to editor@lawyerreviews.com.au. We will publish the reply where it raises a credible factual issue or perspective the original article didn’t consider. We will not retract editorial conclusions because someone disagrees with them.