Yes — past clients can leave Google reviews at any point after the engagement, and Google has no policy restricting how long after a transaction someone can post. A review from a client whose matter closed five years ago is valid. It will carry less weight than a review posted last month, because Google’s algorithm favors recency, but it still adds to your total count and your credibility. Most firms underuse this — they ask current clients and ignore the multi-year backlog of satisfied past clients who would happily leave a review if asked.
Google’s actual policy
Google requires that a review be based on a real experience with the business. It does not specify a time window for when that experience must have occurred. A 2019 personal injury client whose case settled and who hasn’t thought about your firm in three years is fully entitled to leave a Google review in 2026 if their experience is still memorable.
What Google does prohibit: reviews from people who never engaged with the business, reviews from competitors, reviews that are paid for or incentivized, reviews from employees or family members of the firm, and reviews that contain prohibited content (profanity, personal attacks, irrelevant content). None of those prohibitions are time-bound.
The practical effect: the entire population of past clients who closed matters with your firm — going back as far as your records go — is a legitimate audience for a review request.
Why the recency angle still matters
Google’s local algorithm cares about review recency. The signal is straightforward — a firm with 60 reviews where the most recent 20 are from the past 12 months looks more active, more in-demand, and more relevant than a firm with 200 reviews where most are from 2019 to 2021.
A past client’s review today still counts toward recency, even if their engagement was years ago. The review’s date is what Google sees, not the date of the underlying matter. This is why “review nurturing” — systematically going back to past clients and asking — works as a strategy. You’re converting old engagements into fresh review signal.
A current client’s review is more powerful than a five-year-past client’s review for one reason: the experience is fresh enough that the review will likely be specific, detailed, and credible to readers. A past client who hasn’t thought about your firm in three years can still leave a strong review, but it’s often shorter and more general — “Helped me a few years back, would recommend.” Useful, but less persuasive than detail.
Both add value. The mistake is asking only one population.
The review nurturing strategy
Most firms have an untapped backlog of past clients. Estate planning practices are the most extreme version — clients sign their documents and disappear for a decade until something happens. Family law and criminal defense have shorter cycles but still leave a long trail of past clients who closed positively and were never asked.
The nurturing approach: take 60 to 90 minutes a quarter to pull a list of 30 to 50 past clients from your matter management system. Filter for ones where the matter closed positively, the client expressed satisfaction at closure, and you have a current email address. Send a personal email — written in your voice, not a template — saying something honest. “It’s been a while. I’m working on improving our firm’s online presence so people who need a [practice area] attorney can find us. If you have 90 seconds, would you consider leaving a Google review of your experience? Here’s the link.” That’s the entire email.
The conversion rate on that kind of personal, low-pressure ask is usually 15% to 25% — meaning out of 40 emails, you might add 6 to 10 reviews to your profile. Do that quarterly and you’ve added 24 to 40 reviews a year on top of whatever your current-client process is generating.
The backlog of past clients is the most under-asked resource at most law firms. The agency that tells you “we’re going to run a review campaign” is usually selling SMS volume. The firm owner who sits down for an hour and writes 30 personal emails will out-perform the SMS campaign every time.
ABA rules on solicitation timing
ABA Model Rule 7.2 (and its state equivalents) governs lawyer marketing and solicitation. Asking a past client for a review is generally not “solicitation” in the rule’s defined sense — that term applies to soliciting prospective clients to hire you. A review request to a former client about an already-closed matter is a marketing communication, governed more by Rule 7.1 (no false or misleading statements) than 7.2 (no improper solicitation of new clients).
What you cannot do, in any state: offer the past client something of value in exchange for a review. No discounts on future work, no free hour of consultation, no gift cards. Google’s own policy prohibits this and so does ABA Rule 7.2(b) in most state interpretations. The exception in some states is a token of appreciation that’s clearly not tied to a positive review — but the safest practice is no incentive at all. See can I incentivize Google reviews for the full breakdown.
You also cannot ask only the past clients you think will leave a positive review. The “review gating” practice — pre-screening for satisfaction and only routing happy clients to the public review form — violates Google’s policy and may violate state ethics rules around misleading communications. If you’re going to ask past clients, ask broadly within your “matter closed positively” population, and live with whatever they say.
A few practical notes
Don’t ask past clients whose matters ended badly. Even if the legal outcome was the best available given the facts, a client who felt the result was disappointing isn’t going to write a positive review and shouldn’t be pushed. Use judgment.
Don’t ask past clients in confidentiality-sensitive practice areas — criminal defense, family, immigration — without thinking carefully about what their review would imply. A review that says “Helped me with my divorce” is a public disclosure of a private matter the client may not want online. Some clients will be fine with this; many will not. Ask in a way that gives them an easy out.
Don’t batch-send 200 emails in a day. Google’s algorithm is reasonably good at detecting unnatural review velocity bursts. A sudden spike of 20 reviews in 48 hours, after years of two-per-month, can get reviews filtered. Spread the asks over weeks.
And don’t draft the review for them. Tempting, but a client copy-pasting your draft into Google produces reviews that look identical, get flagged by the spam filter, and damage your profile. Send the link, trust the client to write what they want, and accept whatever you get.
For more on the request mechanics, see how do I get clients to leave reviews. For the volume question, see how many Google reviews does my law firm need. The parent guide: reviews, reputation and trust for law firms.