Reinstated After a Suspension? A 90-Day Plan to Rebuild Your Online Presence

Before you change anything, find out what a prospective client actually sees. Search your full name, your name with "attorney" or "lawyer", and your name with your city. Do it on Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Use a private or logged-out browser window so your own history does not shape the results. Then screenshot page 1 for every search and save the screenshots with the date.

Make a simple list of every result: what the page is, who controls it, and whether it is about you, about the discipline, or about someone else with your name. That list is your baseline, and it tells you which profiles to claim next.

What clients see when they Google a disciplined lawyer

Work down your list and claim every profile you can: Avvo, Justia, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile, and any other legal directory that shows up for your name.

Claiming is only half the job. Complete each one: current practice areas, office address and phone, education and admissions, a recent professional photo, and a short bio written for clients.

Keep your name, address and phone number identical everywhere. Small differences make it harder for search engines to tell that these pages all describe the same attorney.

Claiming a profile does not remove an accurate disciplinary record from it. The point is that the rest of the page reflects who you are and what you do today.

A website you own, built around your name, is the result you control most. Ideally the domain or the page title uses your name so it has a fair chance to rank for searches of it.

Keep it simple and accurate: who you are, what you handle, where you practice, how to reach you, and a real photo. Follow your state's attorney advertising rules for everything on it.

This is also the window to finish your Google Business Profile: correct category, hours, photos and a description that matches your site. Then link your site from the profiles you claimed in the first month.

Write down the questions clients actually ask you on intake calls and in consultations. Each one is a short article waiting to be written.

Publish them on your site under your name, one at a time, on a schedule you can keep. Steady and useful beats a burst of posts followed by silence.

Plain language, general information, and a clear way to contact you. Keep every piece within your state's advertising rules.

Do not publish anything about the discipline. A post or statement about it can give search engines one more page connecting your name to the record.

Do not buy fake reviews. They are against the rules of the platforms that host them, and they put the profiles you just built at risk.

Do not pay anyone who promises to remove the record from Google. Accurate public records generally stay public. The honest goal is suppression: stronger, accurate pages about you ranking above them.

Attorney reputation defense

Once a month, repeat the searches from week one in a logged-out window and screenshot page 1 again. Compare them to your baseline.

Signs of progress: your own site and claimed profiles appear on page 1, they move up over time, and the discipline-related results sit lower than they did. Calls and inquiries from people who searched your name are another signal worth noting.

Expect it to move slowly. Ninety days is a starting point for this work, not the finish line.

How long it takes to push down negative results