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, scored once an evidence review confirms them. Claiming lets a firm submit that evidence; it does not score the pillar on its own. Until the review passes, the score is calculated on the public pillars we can measure, never counting this one as zero, and the profile shows the verified potential the firm could reach once it is confirmed.

Web presence15%

Whether the firm has a live, findable website. A live site receives a base value; speed and freshness are included only where they have been measured. Deliberately a small slice, and scheduled to move into a separate Site Health measure in v4.

Reliability10%

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

Your score, and your potential

Until an evidence review confirms a firm’s experience, we score it on the public signals we can measure, never counting experience as zero. Your profile also shows your verified potential, the score you reach once that experience is confirmed. Claiming your profile lets you submit the evidence; the review is what moves the pillar.

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 an evidence review confirms them. Until then the composite is renormalised across the pillars we can measure rather than treating experience as zero, and we report the verified potential a firm reaches once its experience is confirmed. The pillar itself 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 public methodology is v3.1. Evidence Score v4 remains in shadow mode until its published evidence-coverage gates pass.

Built to be checked

The inputs are designed to be checked. More than half of the current score comes from public Google review evidence, and web presence is limited to 15%. We also show where a firm lands against direct peers within its city and practice. Claimed profiles expose the breakdown, evidence status and source freshness behind the number.

How to raise it

1. 1Claim your profile and submit experience evidence. A review confirms it, and only then does the pillar move.
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