According to the Wall Street Journal, the FTC has received more than 2,000 complaints regarding the online consumer review site Yelp since 2008, with businesses alleging that they have been damaged by fake reviews and that Yelp allegedly “blackmails” businesses by offering to remove negative reviews in exchange for placing ads on the site.

In addition, a November 2013 report by Harvard Business School professor Michael Luca found that fake reviews on Yelp have risen dramatically, estimating that 20% of Yelp reviews in 2013 were fakes. 

Yet, according to a new study from Software Advice on How Clients Use Online Legal Reviews, Yelp is by far the most used and most trusted legal review website.  The study found that 58% of respondents said it was the first place they turn for legal reviews, followed by Super Lawyers, Martindale-Hubbell and Avvo.

I have had dozens of attorneys ask me about the benefit of posting reviews on Yelp. Quite honestly, I cannot recommend it at this time. I have had far too many attorneys tell me how they received their first negative review on Yelp followed quickly by a sales call asking if they wanted to advertise.

If they advertised often the negative review would "disappear" and as soon as they stopped paying for advertising their positive reviews suddenly disappeared and the negative one reappeared. If I had only heard this story once or twice I could ignore it, but at this point, I've heard similar experiences dozens of times.

I hope at some point in the future I can reverse my recommendation, but for now I think it's best to stay away from actively promoting your firm on Yelp.  If your clients want to give you a review, I would steer them to one of the other trusted sites at this time.