LawyerDB
  1. Overview
  2. How we rank

How we rank

The order of the lawyers is neutral. Nobody can buy a better position, and we show no advertising. The order comes from four steps, always in the same sequence.

1. Fachanwalt title

When you choose a practice area, we show only lawyers who hold the title Fachanwalt (specialist lawyer) for that area or name it as a focus of their work. Lawyers with the Fachanwalt title come first, then those with the focus. The regional bar association awards the Fachanwalt title only after proof of special theoretical knowledge and practical experience (section 43c of the Federal Lawyers' Act, BRAO, in conjunction with the Fachanwaltsordnung, the rules for specialist lawyers). Without a chosen practice area, this step plays no role.

2. Distance

If you enter a postcode or a place with a radius, the distance to the firm counts next. If you search a whole city without a radius, and on the city pages, the distance does not count; there the overall rating follows directly after the Fachanwalt title. We calculate in steps: up to 2, 5, 10, 25 and 50 kilometres, and beyond that. Within one step the exact distance does not count, so that the next step has an effect. If we do not yet know the exact address of a firm on the map, we use the centre of its postcode area and write "about" before the distance. For places outside the covered cities, we show the covered lawyers within 25 kilometres. The locations of postcode areas and places come from GeoNames (licence CC BY 4.0), the locations of firms from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, licence Open Database License).

3. Overall rating

After that, the overall rating counts, rounded to one decimal place. A lawyer without a review yet counts with a starting value of 4.0 stars, so neither better nor worse than the average.

How we calculate the overall rating

For each firm we show the reviews of the individual platforms separately, each with the number of reviews, the date they were retrieved and a link to the source. We also calculate an overall rating on a scale of 1 to 5 stars. We proceed as follows:

  1. Uniform scale: We convert all ratings to a scale of 1 to 5. A rating of 9 out of 10 points, for example, equals 4.5 out of 5 stars.
  2. Weight by number: Each platform counts as much as it has reviews. An average of 200 reviews carries more weight than an average of 3 reviews.
  3. Balance for few reviews: Few reviews say little. We therefore add 10 imaginary reviews with a value of 4.0 to the actual reviews. With many reviews this balance hardly matters. With few reviews it prevents a single very good or very bad review from deciding the result. Experts call this method a Bayesian average.
  4. No double counting: Some platforms show the same reviews. Das Örtliche and Gelbe Seiten, for example, carry over the reviews from golocal, and golocal also shows reviews from 11880 and Yelp. These platforms form a shared pool of reviews. We show each platform individually, but we count the shared pool only once, using the platform that shows the most reviews. We count Google and ProvenExpert separately. For ProvenExpert we consider only the reviews left directly on ProvenExpert, not those carried over from other platforms. Platforms that themselves summarise the reviews of other platforms, such as werkenntdenBESTEN, we include only if no other source is available.
  5. Complete data only: A rating without the number of reviews is not included in the overall rating. If there are no reviews, we show no overall rating. We do not show reviews of companies and associations that employ in-house counsel (Syndikusrechtsanwälte), because they do not relate to legal advice.

An example: A firm has 4.8 stars from 40 reviews on Google, 5.0 stars from 10 reviews on golocal and the same 5.0 stars from 10 reviews on Das Örtliche. The reviews from golocal and Das Örtliche count only once. The overall rating is then (10 × 4.0 + 40 × 4.8 + 10 × 5.0) divided by (10 + 40 + 10), that is 282 divided by 60. This gives 4.7 stars.

We use only values that are publicly visible without logging in, and we update them regularly. Firms cannot buy their placement or their overall rating.

Every profile lists the individual reviews per platform with their number, date and link, so that you can check them yourself. Reviews that apply only to a firm are marked as such.

4. Fixed neutral order

If all previous steps are equal, a fixed order decides, calculated from the identifier of the entry. It does not depend on the name, because an alphabetical order would always favour the same names, and it cannot be influenced.

What does not affect the order

Payments, memberships, advertising, the number of clicks on a profile and our own preferences. We count clicks on contact buttons in our own database, without cookies and without storing your IP address, to understand which details are helpful. They have no influence on the order.

Whom we show

We show lawyers (Rechtsanwälte) who are entered in the official lawyer register with a firm address. We do not show in-house counsel (Syndikusrechtsanwälte). They are admitted as employees of a company, an association or an authority and may advise and represent only their employer (section 46, paragraph 5 of the Federal Lawyers' Act, BRAO). If someone is also admitted as a lawyer with their own firm, we show only that firm. If the register says that someone is no longer a member of the regional bar association, we do not show the entry either.

Where the details come from

Name, professional title, admission, Fachanwalt titles, bar association and firm address come from the official lawyer register of the German Federal Bar (section 31 of the Federal Lawyers' Act, BRAO). We take languages, focus areas, online consultation and links to profiles on other sites from firm websites and from the directories of bar associations and lawyers' associations, but only if name and address, or firm, match, or name and phone number. We do not show uncertain matches. Every detail names its source and the date it was retrieved.

The buttons for calling and writing use the phone number and e-mail address from the lawyer register. If the firm's website gives a different detail and the site certainly belongs to this person, we use the website's detail and name it as the source below the buttons. The box with the details from the lawyer register always shows the details from the register. If a web address leads only to a placeholder page of the provider, we show no button to it.

Is something wrong or out of date? Every profile has a "Request a correction" link.