Illustrative situation, not a report of a specific matter.
A client posts an unhappy review. The lawyer answers. In the reply are details that could only have come from the representation: a date, an outcome, a family arrangement, the reason a particular decision was made.
The lawyer may believe those details are necessary to defend a reputation. For the client, the public response can become a second injury. Confidentiality does not automatically end when the engagement ends, and a former client’s criticism does not by itself create permission to disclose private information.
The campaign’s five-star illusion resource collects concerns about how legal services are presented online. The question here is narrower: what a lawyer may disclose when a client challenges that public image.
What the confidentiality rule covers
Texas Disciplinary Rule of Professional Conduct 1.05 is the confidentiality rule. Its scope is broader than privilege. It covers information protected by the attorney-client privilege and also unprivileged client information acquired by reason of the representation. A lawyer’s memory of the representation does not become unrestricted because the client posts a public complaint.
The duty is not absolute. The professional rules recognize limited circumstances in which disclosure is permitted, including where the client raises a claim or defense against the lawyer. Those exceptions are tied to their purposes. An online review is not automatically a formal claim or proceeding that opens the client’s file to public discussion.
What Opinion 662 addresses
Texas Ethics Opinion 662, issued in August 2016, addresses a former client’s negative online review. A former client’s negative review does not, by itself, permit disclosure of confidential information in response. A proportional and restrained response that reveals no confidential information remains possible. The applicable formal-proceeding exceptions differ from the review situation. The opinion also does not foreclose judicial relief where a statement is actionable defamation.
Why a public defense can cause lasting harm
A review can be edited, removed or buried. A public disclosure cannot be recalled in the same way. Screenshots circulate, search engines index the reply, and unrelated readers encounter private details without context. Once a confidence is published, deleting the response does not guarantee the information has disappeared.
Reporting about review disputes is difficult to verify for the same reason. Competing accounts are common and neither side’s version is self-proving, which is why the ethics opinions are a better starting point than an assumption that a public narrative tells the whole story.
Our lawyer accountability commentary asks how the profession responds to client concerns. It is advocacy, not an ethics ruling about a particular reply.
What is not required
Nothing here bans criticism, and nothing here means every lawyer response is improper. Some reviews are false, and some statements are actionable. A lawyer may acknowledge criticism, note that professional obligations limit a public reply, or invite the person to communicate privately. There is no single safe reply that fits every situation, because the answer depends on what the client’s own information actually is.
Opinion 685, briefly
Texas Ethics Opinion 685, issued in January 2020, addresses a different question. It permits truthful requests to actual clients for reviews, and it places responsibilities on a lawyer who authorizes marketing and knows a review is false or misleading. It does not address how a lawyer should answer criticism.
What to do if this happens
If a lawyer has already replied, preserve the original review and the reply in full. Capture the complete text with dates and account names before anything is edited or removed, and keep related messages. If the reply disclosed information you understood to be private, seek independent advice promptly rather than continuing the dispute in a comment thread.
Separate reporting has examined alleged attorney review manipulation and alleged lawyer review fraud. Those topics concern the accuracy and origin of reviews. They do not change the confidentiality rule and they do not establish misconduct by any lawyer or firm.
A fuller summary of the review-solicitation question appears in the state’s legal ethics guidance for lawyers.
Jeff Morgan’s bar-complaint commentary is another campaign perspective on accountability. A social-media discussion is not a confidential complaint channel; keep private case details out of public comments and seek advice about the appropriate process.
Separate campaign resources
A public review and a professional grievance serve different purposes. The campaign’s published filings include questions about how fees accumulate. Another examines advice about continuing litigation. A third concerns the terms of representation. These are separate allegations, not disciplinary findings.
Other submissions ask what clients knew about professional connections when choosing a lawyer. They also raise questions about independent representation during estate administration. A further account concerns understanding a fee agreement before signing.
The record concerning an arbitrator’s disclosures raises a different part of the accountability question. Each filing needs to be read alongside its supporting materials and any response or decision. These campaign records do not establish facts about a lawyer’s response to a review, and they imply no endorsement by the people or institutions discussed in this article.
Separate campaign resources include Damn Lawyers, accounts collected for probate victims and materials on court-accountability resources. Assess each claim against its supporting records and distinguish allegations from findings.
General information, not individual legal advice. Rules, ethics opinions and remedies vary by jurisdiction and circumstances. AI-assisted editorial illustration; no actual client file or review is depicted.