What we touch, keep, and can see. In full.
ABA Formal Opinion 512 and Rule 5.3(b) make you responsible for supervising an outside provider. That means you will be asked for this document. It describes the service as it works today; anything that is a commitment rather than current practice says so in the line itself.
The service reads the public Reviews tab of a Google Business Profile. No case list, no client file, no intake system, nothing from your staff.
Reviews already visible to anyone with the listing's URL, plus the reply text you approve.
The dated record of what was published under your name. Deleted on request, in writing, within thirty days.
Access is not delegated to contractors or offshore staff. Named in the agreement, revocable by removing our manager access.
Security, confidentiality, data handling
Question, then the answer that applies today. Where a line describes an undertaking rather than an existing control, it is written as an undertaking.
What data does the service process?
Three things and nothing else: (1) the public reviews on your Google Business Profile, as Google renders them to any visitor; (2) the reply text drafted for those reviews; (3) your contact details and billing information. No document, list, or record concerning a client or a matter is ever requested, received, or stored.
Verifiable: the reading tool visits only the listing's public Reviews tab and never authenticates as you to read anything else.
Is any client confidential information involved under Rule 1.6?
No. Information relating to a representation is confidential whatever its source, which is exactly why no reply drafted here confirms that a reviewer was a client, names a matter, or answers a factual claim about one. The service is built so that the question does not arise, rather than relying on discretion.
ABA Formal Opinion 496 (2021); Florida Bar Opinions 20-1 and 21-1.
Where is the data stored, and for how long?
Reviews read are cached for 24 hours to avoid re-reading a listing, then discarded. The log of replies published under your name is kept for two years so that you can audit what went out, and is deleted on written request within thirty days. Billing records are kept as long as tax law requires.
Current practice. Retention periods are an undertaking and appear in the agreement.
Who can access it?
One named person, identified in the agreement. Access is not delegated to contractors, agencies, or offshore staff. You revoke everything by removing manager access on your Google Business Profile, which takes effect immediately and needs no notice to us.
Undertaking. If that ever changes, you are told in writing before it does, not after.
Are language models used, and what do they see?
Yes, to draft reply text. What they receive is the public review text and the firm's name — the same words any visitor reads. They never receive a client name, a matter, a document, or anything from your systems. Drafts are then filtered in code and read by a person before they reach you.
Formal Opinion 512 (2024) requires you to understand this and be able to state it. The filter is published and testable on the home page.
Is anything used to train a model?
No. No content from your listing, your replies, or your correspondence is used to train, fine-tune, or improve any model, ours or a provider's. Where a provider's default terms would allow it, the setting that prevents it is the one in use.
Undertaking, and a term of the agreement.
What happens to a review that mentions a case?
It is stopped by the filter and escalated to you with a neutral draft that discusses nothing. It is never auto-posted. You decide whether to reply, stay silent, or ask Google to remove it.
Current behaviour: the pattern families that trigger escalation are published and testable.
What if there is a breach?
You are told within 72 hours of us knowing, in writing, with what was affected and what was done. Given the data classes above, a breach would expose public review text and your contact details, not client information — but the notice is owed either way.
Undertaking, and a term of the agreement.
How do you end it?
In writing, any month. Remove our manager access and nothing further can be read or published. The reply log is exported to you and deleted on request.
Current practice.
It is not legal advice and it is not a legal opinion on your obligations. It describes a vendor's practices so that you can carry out the supervision Rule 5.3(b) puts on you; your own judgment governs what you accept.
It describes the service as it works on the date shown in the footer. Where a line is an undertaking rather than an existing control, it says so, and the agreement is what makes it binding.
Nothing here reduces your duties under Rule 1.6. The design goal is that the service never comes near information those duties cover, not that it handles it carefully.