In this week's The Lawyers Weekly, McKercher LLP's Marketing Committee chair comments on "The ups and downs of rating sites".

"I’m not certain how they choose who is asked to review the particular lawyer (in the peer review process). Some of the sites also have a client review. I’m not sure if that’s voluntary. We can’t give out the names of our clients, so I’m not sure how they arrive at that," she says.

"You could have 100 satisfied clients and one disgruntled one and I imagine it would be the disgruntled one that would go through the effort to post something on a website."

Metivier says as the number of rating websites has increased over the last few years, so, too, has the number of requests for firms to participate in the rankings process.

"Sometimes we aren’t even familiar with the organization conducting the review. You’re hesitant to respond because you don’t know them but you’re hesitant not to respond because then you have no input into the process. It’s one thing if there’s one or two per year but when it gets to be 10 it becomes an infringement on your professional time," she says.

Read the full story.