When one consider the online PR of any lawyer or law firm, it is hard to discount online reviews. Online reviews are taking over the legal industry.

Online reviews seemed to original begin with the search engines like Google and Yahoo. Following the reviews of other industries like hotels and restaurants, the two major search engines broadened the use of online reviews to encompass almost all areas of business.

One area of business that was not left out was law firms and lawyers. It used to be that lawyers and law firms did not have to worry about online reviews. Many law firms could run advertising on television, radio and the telephone book and not have to worry about their online reputation.

Many lawyers could also develop their business through word of mouth referrals. This also had the effect of inoculating law firms from having to worry about their online reviews.

Those days have pretty much come and gone. Not only do the major search engines allow online reviews, numerous online directories allow clients to review their attorneys. The number of online review sites is almost impossible to list in one post.

Webpages like Avvo really delved into allowing online reviews. That resulted in one of the relics of the legal industry allowing it, which is Martindale Hubbel / Lawyers.com.

There are countless other online directories that allow online reviews of lawyers. Yelp is one webpage that has really become prominent. They now team up with Yahoo / Bing in terms of allowing online reviews.

The legal consumers are now online searching the reputation of lawyers. Like it or not, online reviews matter. Potential clients read them and make a decision about what lawyer to hire whether that is fair or not.

Thus, lawyers and law firms that worry about their reputation really need to look no further than their online reviews. It is critical that lawyer and law firms monitor their reputation online. They also have to encourage positive reviews from happy clients to off-set any negative reviews they might get.