Ask, credit, answer. Disclose nothing.

No: the draft for a complaint confirms no one as a client and repeats nothing the review says, so when a one-star names the divorce, the house, the fees and the solicitor, the reply names none of them and gives the complaints route instead. That is the line the regulators draw: ABA Formal Opinion 496 holds that a negative review “is not a ‘controversy between the lawyer and the client’” that would let you disclose anything about the representation, and the SRA says you may respond “provided that you do not disclose confidential or privileged information”. The draft is written to the stricter reading, so it holds on either side of the Atlantic. See the review autoresponder.

A reply rule decides, and you write the rules: each one reads “if the location is X, the rating is Y, on platforms P”, ends in reply automatically, queue for a person or ignore, and the first match wins. The firm on this page sends anything under four stars to the queue, where the complaints partner reads the draft and approves it with one click, in Reviewflowz or in Slack, Teams or Zendesk if that is where she works. Set the default rule to the queue and add no auto-reply rule, and nothing posts without a person. Automatic replies only ever post on Google, Trustpilot, Facebook and the app stores; on ReviewSolicitors every reply is a paste and a click. See the review autoresponder.

Say so, and no more. ABA Opinion 496 says a lawyer “may respond simply by stating that the person posting is not a client or former client”, and the SRA suggests a neutral line, “we have not been able to verify this review is from a genuine client”, plus a report to the website; both warn that if the poster turns out to be a relative or the other side of a real matter, even “that is not what happened” can disclose it. In Reviewflowz a tag rule reads every new review against your own list, so a review that says it never used the firm arrives tagged “Fake review”, in any language, and your rating rule keeps a one-star out of auto-reply and in the queue for the dispute. Neither Google nor Trustpilot promises to take it down. See review marketing.

Neither. The message is your template, so it says what the one on this page says, “Your matter with us has now closed”, the fee earner’s name and one button; it never names the practice area or the matter, and it never asks the client for a sentence about it. It goes out when the matter closes in Clio Manage, Smokeball or PracticePanther, by email or text, with reminders that stop the moment the client reviews, and the client’s score never decides where they are sent. Nothing changes hands for it: ABA Model Rule 7.2(b) allows only “nominal gifts” that are “neither intended nor reasonably expected to be a form of compensation for recommending a lawyer’s services”, and the SRA’s own guidance on reviews is to give the client a link, not an incentive. See review generation.

It is a testimonial in most states’ terms, and the rules differ, so check yours before the widget goes live. New York allows “testimonials or endorsements of clients, and of former clients” on a page that carries “Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome” and, for a matter still pending, the client’s informed consent in writing; Florida’s Rule 4-7.13 bars a testimonial “written or drafted by the lawyer”, given “in exchange for” something of value, or missing “the disclaimer that the prospective client may not obtain the same or similar results”; the comment to ABA Model Rule 7.1 adds that a truthful account of results can still mislead if it creates “an unjustified expectation”. In England and Wales the SRA says you “can also use positive reviews and quotes on your website”, under the Code’s rule that publicity is “accurate and not misleading”. The widget shows each review as the client posted it on Google or Trustpilot, filtered to the lawyer credited and the rating floor you choose, and the disclaimer your rule requires sits on the page beside it. See review marketing.

It reads four things: the matter’s status, its main contact, that contact’s email and phone, and the office, and it never writes to a matter. You open Integrations in Reviewflowz, are sent to Clio to authorise the connection and sent back, with no keys to copy; use a user who can see all matters, because a matter that user cannot see never sends a request. Only matters closing after you connect are enrolled, open and pending matters never send, and you can stop requests for a particular client, per contact. See the Clio Manage integration.

Only with a test step and rules, which is how this works. The default agent builds each draft from replies your firm has already posted on the platform, matched by rating band first, so a one-star draft is built from your one-star replies and never from a five-star thank-you. Before anything posts, Test your agent runs it against the real reviews on your account, one after another, so you read what it would have said to last month’s complaint; a free trial includes 20 AI replies for exactly that. Every reply that did post automatically comes back to the queue marked unread, with a thumbs up or down that records what was off, so a partner can audit a month of replies in a sitting. See the review autoresponder.