How Lawbamba Ranks Lawyers & Sources Profile Data

Last updated: November 6, 2026

Lawbamba.com (“Lawbamba,” “we”) is an online attorney directory. This page explains where the information on attorney profiles comes from, how lawyers are ordered on listing pages, how our rank badges are calculated, and how a lawyer can correct or remove a profile. It works together with our Terms of Use.

1. Where profile data comes from

• Avvo: names, firm, office address, phone, practice areas, counties served, and Avvo client ratings and reviews, received through Avvo’s API. Profiles show short review excerpts and link to the full review on Avvo.
• Google: the public rating, review count and reviews of the lawyer’s Google business listing. We show Google data only when we have matched the listing to that lawyer; ratings shared by a whole firm are labelled “Firm” and are not counted in the lawyer’s own rating.
• Yelp and Lawyers.com: public ratings and review excerpts, with a link to the original.
• Official records: where available, attorney registration details from state court open-data registries (currently New York), and federal court dockets that list the attorney’s name, from the Free Law Project’s CourtListener archive. Court dockets are matched by name and may be incomplete; a docket shows that a name was listed on a case, not how the case turned out.
• Lawbamba reviews: reviews submitted on Lawbamba by clients. They are moderated before publishing (see Terms, Reviews).
• The lawyer: lawyers who claim a profile, or send a free update request, can correct their details.

Counties served are shown only when they are in the lawyer’s own state. A combined rating is the review-count-weighted average of the sources above. Information can change after we collect it, so confirm important details, such as licence status and fees, directly with the lawyer or the state bar.

2. Unclaimed and claimed profiles

Most profiles are unclaimed: we compiled them from the sources above, and the lawyer has not reviewed or endorsed them and has no relationship with Lawbamba. A lawyer can claim a profile for $1.99 per month to edit it, reply to reviews, add a website link and remove search ads from it. A claim is approved by our team after payment; it is not a check of the lawyer’s bar licence or qualifications.

3. How listing pages are ordered

On state, city and practice-area pages, lawyers are ordered by a score that is recalculated daily:

1. Lawyers with an active paid claim are shown first, marked “Claimed”. This placement is paid.
2. Then lawyers with reviews, ordered by their combined rating adjusted for review count (a lawyer with a few reviews is pulled toward an average rating, so a single 5-star review does not outrank many strong reviews), then by number of reviews.
3. Then lawyers without reviews; a profile photo moves a lawyer up within that group.

ZIP pages first group lawyers by distance from the ZIP code, then use the same score within each distance band.

4. How rank badges are calculated

Rank badges (“No. 1”, “Top 5”, “Top 10”) compare lawyers in one practice area within one location: a state, a city or a ZIP code.

• Lawyers are ranked by combined rating (the review-count-weighted average of Avvo, Google, Yelp and Lawyers.com ratings). Ties go to the lawyer with more reviews.
• A lawyer needs at least 5 reviews in total to receive any badge.
• No. 1 (gold) and Top 5 (silver) need a combined rating of at least 4.5; Top 10 (bronze) needs at least 4.0. A position whose rating is below its floor gets no badge.
• Payment and claiming do not affect badges. A claim only lets a lawyer copy the badge’s embed code for their own website.
• Ranks are recalculated at least every 90 days (daily for claimed profiles). If a lawyer no longer holds a rank, the badge image stops showing it, including where it is embedded on another website.

Badges reflect publicly available review ratings only. They are not an assessment of a lawyer’s skill, results or ethics, and they are not issued or approved by any court or bar association.

5. Case requests

When you describe your case on Lawbamba, our team reviews it and may forward it to the lawyer whose profile you were on (if we can reach them) or suggest other lawyers who list that practice area near you. Lawyers with an active paid claim may be suggested first. We do not charge lawyers per case or take any part of their fees. Lawbamba is not a law firm and not a certified lawyer referral service, and submitting a case does not create an attorney–client relationship.

6. Advertising

Unclaimed profiles and listing pages may show Google search ads, which can include ads from other law firms. Ads are labelled and are chosen by Google, not by us. Claimed profiles do not show search ads.

7. Corrections and removal

Anyone can request a correction for free with the “Request a free update” form on each profile; we usually make changes within 2 business days. Lawyers can ask for their profile to be removed with the same form; we verify removal requests with the lawyer or firm first. You can also email contactus@lawbamba.com. Copyright and takedown notices are covered in our Terms of Use.