1. What we publish
Lawyer Reviews Australia publishes two categories of review of admitted Australian lawyers:
- Verified reviews — matched to a confirmed engagement record before publication. Carry the Verified badge.
- Third-party reviews — sourced from public review platforms (Yelp, Google Business, Trustpilot, Productreview, and others). Always carry an Unverified — sourced from [platform] label and link directly to the original. We are not the publisher of these reviews; the third-party platform is.
Both categories carry source attribution. The "Verified" badge is reserved for engagement-record-matched reviews collected through our own intake. Reviews collected from third parties are clearly distinguished so readers always know the difference.
2. What "verified" means
Before a review goes live, all of the following are confirmed:
- The reviewer uploads a redacted invoice, costs agreement, or engagement letter showing the lawyer's name (or firm name) and a matter date within the previous 24 months.
- The reviewer's identity is verified once via a third-party identity verifier. The reviewer's name may be displayed publicly, abbreviated to initials, or shown as Verified client — their choice. The verifier always sees a real identity.
- The reviewer attests, on submission, that the review reflects their genuine experience.
3. What we will not publish
We screen for and decline to publish reviews that:
- Make specific outcome claims (e.g. "won my case", "the only reason I got off") — legal outcomes depend on facts we can't verify.
- Identify third parties by name (opposing party, witnesses, judicial officers, court staff).
- Contain content that may amount to defamation, contempt of court, or breach of suppression order.
- Are clearly written by a competitor, a family member of the lawyer, or the lawyer themselves.
- Contain personal information of the reviewer or anyone else that could compromise safety.
4. Right of reply
Before any review of a verified lawyer goes live, the lawyer receives a 48-hour pre-publication notice with the full text. Within that window, the lawyer can:
- Submit a single response to be published below the review, with their byline.
- Flag the review as defamatory, false, or in breach of this policy — in which case it is held for editorial review under the dispute process below.
- Take no action — in which case the review auto-publishes at the end of the notice window.
5. Dispute process
Disputed reviews are held while we work through the dispute. Our SLA is 48 hours to first response, 7 business days to resolution. We may:
- Publish the review unchanged if the dispute does not raise a credible breach of this policy.
- Publish the review with redactions where the breach is limited to a particular passage.
- Withhold the review where the breach is material and uncorrectable.
- Refer the matter to counsel where defamation, contempt, or suppression-order risk is identified.
Either outcome is publicly logged on the dispute log accessible from /complaints/.
6. Anonymity
Reviewers may publish under their full name, initials, or as Verified client. Anonymous public display is permitted; anonymous verification is not. The reviewer's verified identity is held by us and disclosed only under compulsion of law.
7. Removal requests
A reviewer may withdraw their review at any time within 30 days of publication. After 30 days, reviews are durable and form part of the public editorial record — though disputes from the subject lawyer remain available under section 5.
8. Third-party reviews — sourcing & attribution
To give consumers a fuller picture of how a lawyer is being discussed across the public web, we surface reviews from third-party platforms on lawyer profiles. Our policy:
- We are not the publisher. The original platform (Yelp, Google, Trustpilot, Productreview, etc.) is the publisher of the review. We surface the rating, date, and a short attributed quote with a link to the original. Readers are invited to read the full review at the source.
- Source is always shown. Every third-party review carries a visible Sourced from [platform] badge, the original date, and a direct link to the source page.
- Unverified is always labelled. Third-party reviews are marked Unverified because we cannot confirm the reviewer engaged the lawyer. Only reviews collected through our own intake with an engagement record attached carry the Verified badge.
- No selective publication. Where we surface third-party reviews for a lawyer, we surface all of them — positive and negative — from the source within the relevant time window. We do not curate.
- Right of reply applies. Every lawyer with a third-party review on their profile may publish a reply, dispute the listing, or request escalation under section 5 below. Reply contact: reviews@lawyerreviews.com.au.
- Concerns notice process. If a third-party review is defamatory, false, or breaches a suppression order, the lawyer can issue a concerns notice under the relevant state Defamation Act. We respond within 48 business hours.
- Take-down on request. Where the underlying review is removed from the source platform, the listing on our profile is removed within 7 business days of notification.
Aggregate ratings from review platforms (e.g. a Google Business Profile star average) are also displayed as a Public signal, separately from our verified review count.
