When businesses or hotels get hit with negative reviews on Yelp, Google or other social media sites, they can fire back. Or have their lawyers do it for them.
But when lawyers themselves are the targets, ethics rules prohibit them from posting responses that are inflammatory or reveal confidential information about the client who posted the review. The American Bar Association Model Rule 1.6 prohibiting attorneys from revealing client confidences has some exceptions when defending themselves in a dispute, but it doesn’t apply to online reviews.
With more attorneys seeking reviews to build their practices, and also itching to be ...