How law firms are ranked here

Every list on this site is in one order, produced by one number. There is no editor's pick, no featured position inside the ranking, and no way to buy a place in it. This is what the number is made of, what each firm competes on, and what the site deliberately refuses to do.

One score, three inputs

The Ranked Score is a single value built from three components with fixed, published weights: client upvotes, verified reviews, and how complete the listing is. The weights are the same for every firm in every city, they are applied by the database rather than by a person, and the values in force are published live on how we rank.

Two firms with identical inputs get an identical score. Nobody here can nudge one of them.

Upvotes: the signal every listing has

An upvote is the simplest signal there is: one person, one vote per firm, no account and no comment required. It is open on every listing on this site, free and paid alike, and it is the largest single component of the score.

Votes do not count linearly. They are scored on a curve with diminishing returns, so the distance between five upvotes and twenty-five is large and the distance between two hundred and two hundred and twenty is small. Without that curve a list would simply rank firms by size, and a very good two-person practice would never appear near a merely competent large one.

Verified reviews: a Ranked Pro signal

This is the part we want to be plain about, because it is the one thing on this site that differs between a free listing and a paid one.

Reviews are the second component of the score, and receiving them is a feature of Ranked Pro, the paid listing. A free listing is ranked on upvotes and completeness; its review term is zero. A Pro listing additionally competes on the ratings its clients leave.

That is a real commercial decision and it deserves to be stated rather than buried: a firm that pays gains access to a signal a firm that does not pay cannot earn. What money still does not buy is a position. Reviews are written by clients, they are moderated before publication, their average is blended with a prior so that one glowing review cannot outweigh eighty considered ones, and a bad review counts exactly as much as a good one. Paying opens the channel; what comes down it is out of the firm's hands.

Ranked Pro is open. A firm joins it from its own page: claim the listing, start the 14 free days — no card — and the review form appears on the profile the moment it does. Until a firm joins, its page says so where the form would be, and how we rank says which state a listing is in.

Profile completeness

The last component is the least glamorous and the most useful: does the listing tell you what you need before you pick up the phone? Completeness looks at whether the firm has a description, its fields of law, the languages it works in, contact details, an address and its opening hours filled in.

It is in the score because an incomplete listing wastes your time. A firm whose page does not say whether it does family law, whether it works in French, or whether a first consultation costs anything is a firm you have to phone before you can decide anything. Rewarding completeness pushes firms to answer those questions once, in public, for everybody.

It is also the only component a firm controls outright, which makes it the fastest way for a good practice that is new to the site to climb — and it is free.

What the score is not

It is not a quality inspection. Nobody from this site sits in on a consultation, reads a file or assesses anyone's legal skill. The score aggregates what clients say and what the firm has published; it adds no opinion of our own.

It is not legal advice, and it is not a recommendation. A list narrows a search; it does not make a choice. Choosing a lawyer in Belgium covers the part the list cannot do for you.

And it is not stable forever. Scores move as votes and reviews arrive and as firms update their information.

What cannot be bought, at any price

A position in the ranking. Not directly, not by paying more, not by having a competitor pushed down. The order is computed from the three components above and from nothing else.

Advertising exists on this site, and it is labelled. Sponsored slots sit outside the ranked list, are marked as advertising wherever they appear, and never change the order of the list next to them. If you cannot tell whether something is paid placement, that is a bug — tell us.

What a firm can do today

Fill in the profile completely, because that fifth of the score is free and immediate. Ask the clients who already value you to leave an upvote — asking is fine, buying is not, and bought signals are removed when we find them. And correct anything that is wrong on the listing.

If you run a practice that is not on the site yet, add it. Submissions are checked before they go live, listing is free, and a new listing starts on exactly the same terms as everybody else.