What Clients See When They Google a Lawyer With a Disciplinary Record

A prospective client can search your name before they call, even when they found you through a referral or a practice-area search. What comes up can shape whether they take the next step.

That is why I look at the name search separately from the search for your services. A firm can have a useful practice-area page while the attorney's own search results still lead with an old disciplinary record.

Not every prospect searches, and not every name search looks the same. Start by looking at the actual results for your name, rather than assuming what someone will see.

An Avvo profile can put the discipline notice in front of someone who was simply looking for your contact information. Profiles can display a notice such as "This lawyer was disciplined by a state licensing authority in [year]" along with the sanction type.

Avvo displays disciplinary information and factors discipline into the Avvo Rating. Its profile note also says the information may not be comprehensive or updated, and recommends checking with the state bar.

Claiming your Avvo profile is free. It lets you complete the profile, but it does not erase an accurate disciplinary history. Treat it as a place to keep your professional information accurate, not as a removal tool.

An official attorney record can appear alongside the commercial directories. It serves a different purpose from your website: it is an official source, not a page written to introduce you to a prospective client.

In New York, the official attorney directory provides registration information, and the relevant Appellate Division provides disciplinary-record information. Your current registration and the historical disciplinary record are different parts of the picture.

Reinstatement does not mean the historical record disappears. If you practice outside New York, I would need to look at your state's actual records before describing what its directory shows.

The published disciplinary decision itself may rank, whether on an official court page or a case law site. A prospective client can land on the decision without first seeing a current biography or learning that you returned to practice.

An accurate published decision is a public record. The reputation work is not to rewrite it or pretend it never happened. It is to give the search engine stronger, accurate pages about you to show alongside it and, where possible, above it.

Google's Results about you tool handles requests involving personal contact information, such as a phone number, home address or email address. It is not a tool for removing court or disciplinary records.

Can you remove an attorney suspension from Google?

Sometimes coverage of the discipline appears in a news article or a bar publication. That is not part of every attorney's results, so it needs to be checked rather than assumed.

When coverage does appear, read the page itself. A headline or search snippet is not the whole story. Check what it says, when it was published, and whether it describes a historical event rather than your current status.

An accurate report does not become inaccurate simply because you have since been reinstated. Any request to correct an error needs to concern an actual error, not a promise that a publisher will remove truthful coverage.

Official records, established directories and published decisions can be strong results for a name search. If your own online presence is thin, there may be very little current information competing with them.

A practice-area page alone may not fill that gap. Someone searching your full name needs pages that clearly identify you, accurately describe your work, and give them a fuller picture of the attorney they are considering.

That does not mean every disciplinary result will rank first, or that authority is the only ranking factor. It means we need to look at both sides: what is already ranking and what accurate material exists under your name.

Claimed professional profiles, a personal attorney website, consistent useful content, and an accurate Google Business Profile can give search engines more current pages to consider. None of them automatically outranks a disciplinary record.

The point is to build a coherent, truthful presence under your own name. Keep your credentials and contact information consistent. Make the website useful to someone deciding whether to call. Publish content grounded in your actual practice, with your review and approval before it goes live.

A Google Business Profile should reflect your actual business and follow Google's eligibility rules. It is not a workaround for a public record. Neither are claimed profiles or a new website.

I call this suppression, not removal. The goal is for stronger, accurate pages to appear first while the record remains available. What can move, and how long that may take, depends on the results for your name. No page 1 outcome is guaranteed.

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