Wikipedia for Lawyers: Creating, Managing, and Monitoring a Page for Yourself or Your Clients

At Wikiconsult, we are frequently approached by lawyers seeking to create a personal Wikipedia page or edit a client’s page, often in the context of crisis management and online reputation.

Here’s what you need to know in such situations.

What Are the Criteria for a Lawyer to Have Their Own Wikipedia Page?

To qualify for a dedicated page, you must meet Wikipedia’s eligibility criteria. These include:

• General notability guidelines, which apply to everyone, and
• Specific notability criteria, depending on your industry.

There are no specific criteria for lawyers or legal professionals. This means the general notability guidelines are the ones that apply. For English, these guidelines state:

A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.

The general notability guidelines on Wikipedia are here.

What does this mean in practice?

You need:

• At least 2 media publications about you,
• Spaced at least 2 years apart,
• That focus solely on you,
• Published in well-known national outlets (regional or specialized press doesn’t count),
• That are not press releases or sponsored articles.

These publications are essential and will form the basis for drafting your article.

🛑 A common issue for lawyers is that they are often cited in news articles to comment on trials or current events. However, such publications don’t establish notability because they aren’t centered on the lawyer (their career, achievements, or failures) but rather on a separate topic (a trial, a societal issue, etc.).

Why do some lawyers have Wikipedia pages that don’t meet these criteria?

When browsing Wikipedia pages for lawyers, you might come across some that don’t seem to meet the eligibility criteria. The most likely explanation is that these pages were created over 10 years ago when Wikipedia’s standards were far less strict.

These pages are at risk of being deleted at any time – this happens daily. Today, it’s nearly impossible to bypass these guidelines and create a page without strictly adhering to them.

What Should a Lawyer’s or Law Firm’s Wikipedia Page Include?

To craft your biography or your law firm’s Wikipedia page, I recommend drawing inspiration from high-quality, featured articles on Wikipedia. For example, the article on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who also practiced law, serves as an excellent model.

Typically, your page should include:

• An infobox, featuring a freely licensed photo of you and summarized key information.
• An introduction, summarizing the entire article in one or a few sentences, with a length proportional to the article.
• A Biography section, potentially divided into subsections (e.g., early life and education, career, personal life, etc.).
• A Distinctions section, if applicable.
• A Bibliography section, if relevant.
• An external link to your professional website.
• Categories and portals, particularly the English law portal.

Carefully structuring your page like this will ensure it meets Wikipedia’s standards while providing clear, valuable information.

Can You Edit Your Own Wikipedia Page or a Client’s Page?

It is not prohibited to create or edit your own Wikipedia page, though it is not recommended.

If you choose to do so, you must clearly declare your conflict of interest either on your user account or on the Talk page of the article you are editing.

You are required to explicitly state on whose behalf you are editing (including yourself), even if the remuneration is indirect.

🛑 Everything is traceable on Wikipedia, and failing to follow these fundamental transparency rules can backfire. French lawyer Juan Branco learned this the hard way.

Several sections of his own French Wikipedia page —visited thousands of times on some days—detail his ‘self-promotion’ and ‘hostile interventions’ on the platform.

What to Do If Your Edit Is Removed?

Are you familiar with Wikipedia patrollers?

These are volunteer contributors responsible for monitoring recent changes to the encyclopedia and reverting edits that don’t comply with Wikipedia’s editorial guidelines.

Typically, the person who reverts an edit provides a reason for doing so. You can check this by reviewing the page’s edit history. Simply click on View History at the top right of the article.

You will need to take this feedback into account and possibly make the edit again.

🛑 It is pointless to ‘force’ the edit and try to reapply it without any changes. This can lead to your account being blocked and the page being locked, making it editable only by regular contributors to the encyclopedia.

Can you sue Wikipedia?

It is indeed possible for lawsuits to be filed against the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts Wikipedia.

On this topic, I am preparing an article that covers some legal cases related to Wikimedia and Wikipedia (coming soon).