The Councl Score

What goes into it

Four pillars, combined at the weights below. More than half is your own reputation, by design.

Reputation55%

Your Google reviews, read in depth — not just the average. A confidence-weighted rating, review volume, how recent and how frequent the reviews are, and the spread: a wall of five stars with a cluster of one stars scores lower. It is your own clients' verdict, the hardest signal to argue with.

Experience20%

Years in practice, attorney count and bar admissions. Unlocked when you claim and verify your profile. An unclaimed firm is not penalised, it is simply not yet assessed here, and verifying can lift the score by up to 20 points.

Web presence15%

Whether you have a fast, modern, findable website and how it performs. Deliberately a small slice — a great firm with a dated site is still a great firm — but a missing or slow site is a real, fixable gap.

Reliability10%

Whether your profile is complete and verified, and whether you reply to your reviews. Engagement is a signal clients notice.

How the number is calculated

Each pillar is normalised to 0 to 100, then combined. None of the inputs is taken at face value:

• Bayesian rating. The raw star average is shrunk toward a global prior in proportion to how few reviews a firm has, so a single five-star review cannot outrank a thousand reviews at 4.8. Volume is then scored on a logarithmic curve — confidence, not raw count.
• Recency and velocity. We weight how recently the firm has been reviewed and its trailing-twelve-month rate of new reviews, log-scaled. A wall of old five-star reviews scores below an actively reviewed practice.
• Distribution analysis. The spread across one to five stars is examined directly; a disproportionate share of one-star reviews applies a multiplicative penalty that a simple average hides.
• Engagement. Whether the firm replies to its reviews, and how complete and verified its profile is, feed the reliability pillar.
• Verified experience. Years in practice, attorney headcount (log-scaled) and the number of bar jurisdictions are scored only after a firm claims and verifies its profile, and contribute nothing until then — the pillar is never estimated.
• Peer-relative context. The composite is placed against directly comparable firms — the same practice area in the same city — and reported as a percentile, so the number reflects standing among real peers, not an abstract scale.

The model and its weights are versioned and applied identically to every firm. The current methodology is v3.

Built to be checked

The score is not an opinion. More than half of it is your own Google reviews, which you can see yourself, and web presence is only 15%, so a dated site cannot sink a firm with a real track record. We also show where you land against your peers, a percentile within your city and practice, so the number has context, not just a colour. Claim your profile and you see the full breakdown, the exact gap, and the lever that moves it.

How to raise it

1. 1Claim and verify your profile to unlock the Experience pillar, worth up to 20 points.
2. 2Keep earning recent reviews. Both how fresh and how frequent they are feed the score.
3. 3Reply to your reviews. Owner responses lift the reliability pillar.
4. 4Have a fast, modern website. It is a small slice, but a missing site is the most common gap.

Important notes