How Do Lawyers Actually Rank in the Metro Vancouver Google Map Pack Right Now?

Rankwise Lab — Market Study · August 2026

This is a Rankwise Lab Market Study — public Google search data, observed and analyzed by Rankwise, not client results. Rankwise does not have lawyer clients and does not claim to have caused anything you're about to read. Law is a regulated profession in British Columbia; this study makes no claims about, endorsement of, or advertising on behalf of any firm named below — it reports what is already public on Google Maps.

Abstract

Across 216 searches in 18 Metro Vancouver cities, 15% of the top-ranked results in the lawyer Map Pack — 32 of 213 — belong to a firm with fewer than 30 reviews, a materially more open top spot than Rankwise found running the identical measurement on the Metro Vancouver veterinary Map Pack the same week (3.5%, see Rankwise's veterinarian Lab study). Centra Lawyers LLP appears most often, in 15 of 216 searches, but its highest tracked review count is 58 — modest next to the 200+ review counts that typically lead Map Packs in less fragmented categories. 233 distinct firms show up across the dataset, and most appear only once. The review floor itself sits low: the median review count across 609 tracked appearances is 70, and 78 of those appearances — 13% — belong to firms with fewer than 20 reviews. Where a firm sits in that field depends heavily on which city it's in: in Port Moody and Richmond, 42% of the #1 spots go to a firm under 30 reviews; in Vancouver, West Vancouver, North Vancouver, Coquitlam, and Pitt Meadows, none do.

1. The question

A lawyer weighing whether local-search visibility is worth the effort wants a plain answer: how many other firms is a Google search actually surfacing, and what does it take to be one of the three names in the map results. This study asks that directly — across 12 common legal-service searches (lawyer, personal injury lawyer, family lawyer, divorce lawyer, criminal defense lawyer, real estate lawyer, immigration lawyer, estate lawyer, business lawyer, employment lawyer, ICBC claim lawyer, wills and estates lawyer) and 18 Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley cities — who shows up, how many reviews it takes, and whether the answer changes by city.

2. How this was measured

This study pulls from 216 keyword searches in the Rankwise Lab market-study dataset — the same collection pipeline behind our published trade studies — generated 2026-07-08 to 2026-07-09 — 12 legal-service terms crossed against 18 cities (Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, Richmond, Coquitlam, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Delta, Langley, New Westminster, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Maple Ridge, White Rock, Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Mission, Pitt Meadows). Data collection used SerpAPI against live Google Maps results — the same public map results a prospective client would see. Unlike Rankwise's earliest Lab studies, which searched every city from one fixed vantage point, each of these 216 searches was run FROM the city it targets — a search for "family lawyer Richmond" used a Richmond, BC search location, not a shared regional one — so the city figures in this study come directly from the search location on each row, not from parsing a business's street address after the fact (that inference method produced a materially incomplete result in an earlier Rankwise Lab dentist study and isn't used here).

Each of the 216 searches can surface more than one Map Pack result; 639 total listings came back, and 609 of those carried a visible review count on Google — every review-tier and median figure below is drawn from that 609, not from all 639 listings or from the full 216 searches.

Limits, stated upfront: this is a snapshot from 2026-07-08/09, not a trend line. There is no click, call, or retained-client data behind any of these numbers — appearing in the Map Pack is not the same as being hired. 233 distinct firms appear across the dataset; most appear once, and a single appearance carries far less weight than a pattern across a dozen searches.

3. Findings

How concentrated is the lawyer Map Pack in Metro Vancouver?

Not very. Out of 233 distinct firms tracked, the most frequent — Centra Lawyers LLP — appears in 15 of 216 searches, or 7%. Nobody clears 10%.

N = 216 keyword searches. Source: Google Maps search results, per-city search location, generated 2026-07-08/09.

None of the six most-frequent firms carries the kind of review count that leads Rankwise's other Lab studies — HVAC and plumbing top names often clear several hundred reviews, and one Richmond plumbing company Rankwise tracked separately runs past 4,700. The highest of these six, Bahar M. Law Corporation, tops out at 269. Frequency in this category looks tied more to appearing across multiple service searches within a city than to piling up reviews.

How many reviews does it take to show up?

Less than in most categories Rankwise has studied. Across 609 tracked appearances with review data, counts range from 1 to 872, with a median of 70. Of those 609, 78 appearances (13%) belong to firms with fewer than 20 reviews, 165 (27%) sit in the 20–49 band, and 366 (60%) carry 50 or more.

N = 609 appearances where review counts were available. Source: Google Maps search results, generated 2026-07-08/09.

That 13% under-20 share is notably higher than the 1% Rankwise measured running the identical methodology on Metro Vancouver's veterinary Map Pack the same week — a direct sign that the lawyer category's entry floor, on review count alone, sits lower than some other local-service categories Rankwise tracks.

Does the review floor hold the same in every city?

No — it varies sharply. Looking only at the #1 position in each of the 216 searches (213 returned one), 32 — 15% — went to a firm with fewer than 30 reviews. That share is not evenly spread: in Port Moody and Richmond, 5 of 12 #1 spots (42%) went to a sub-30-review firm; in Chilliwack, 4 of 12 (33%); in Burnaby, 3 of 12 (25%). At the other end, Vancouver, West Vancouver, North Vancouver, Coquitlam, and Pitt Meadows recorded zero — every #1 spot in those five cities belonged to a firm with 30 or more reviews, and the average #1 review count in Vancouver and North Vancouver ran well over 270.

N = 213 #1-position results (of 216 searches). Source: Google Maps search results, per-city search location, generated 2026-07-08/09.

The two ends of this range aren't close. A search run from Port Moody or Richmond has better-than-coin-flip odds of surfacing a #1 result under 30 reviews; the same search run from Vancouver, North Vancouver, or West Vancouver has not returned one at all in this dataset.

4. What this means for a firm weighing its own Map Pack position

• The lawyer category's review floor is lower than some other local-service categories Rankwise tracks. 13% of tracked appearances carry fewer than 20 reviews, well above the 1% Rankwise measured in the veterinary Map Pack using the identical method. A firm without a deep review history isn't starting as far behind here as it would in a more saturated category.
• City matters more than the citywide average suggests. A firm's odds of contesting a #1 spot under a low review count run from roughly 1-in-2 (Port Moody, Richmond) down to effectively zero (Vancouver, West Vancouver, North Vancouver, Coquitlam, Pitt Meadows) in this dataset. Where a firm is located changes the shape of the market it's actually competing in.
• Frequency tracks with breadth of service coverage, not review volume. The six firms appearing most often aren't the six with the most reviews — Centra Lawyers LLP leads on appearances (15/216) while topping out at 58 reviews, well below Bahar M. Law Corporation's 269. Showing up across multiple practice-area searches in one city looks more consistently linked to frequent appearance than review count alone.
• A rating above roughly 4.5 is close to universal among firms that appear more than once. Rating alone won't separate a firm from the rest of a crowded field; the data here doesn't show it functioning as a differentiator at this frequency level.

5. Limitations

This is a snapshot taken 2026-07-08 to 2026-07-09, not a trend line — Map Pack positions shift over time, and this data says nothing about how stable any of these rankings are since. There is no click, call, or retained-client data attached to any of these appearances; appearing in the Map Pack is not the same as being retained, and this study makes no claim about which. This study makes no before/after comparison and can't say whether any firm's position is rising, falling, or holding steady. City-level sample sizes are small — each city carries roughly 11–12 tracked #1 results — so the city breakdown in §3 should be read as directional, not as a precise ranking of city difficulty. 233 distinct firms appear across the full dataset; most appear only once, so the named-firm patterns above reflect a small, high-visibility slice of a much longer tail. This study makes no claim about the quality, competence, or suitability of any firm named — appearance in a Map Pack search result is a visibility measure, not an endorsement.

6. What Rankwise tracks from here

Rankwise Lab studies how local businesses show up on Google Maps across a range of local-service categories in Metro Vancouver — this is one entry in that ongoing series. Future pulls on this same keyword set will show whether the review floor identified here holds, whether the city-level split narrows, and whether the same pattern shows up in categories outside law. If you want to see how your own business and category look on Google right now, book a 15-minute visibility check at rankwise.ca/audit.

References

1. Google Maps search results (public), collected via SerpAPI, per-city search location, generated 2026-07-08 to 2026-07-09.
2. Data source: the Rankwise Lab market-study dataset (12 lawyer service terms × 18 Metro Vancouver cities, collected via SerpAPI from public Google Maps results), 216 keyword snapshots, 233 distinct firms.
3. City attribution taken directly from each row's own search-location field (the city the query was run from), not inferred from listing address text.
4. Review counts and ratings reflect values at time of snapshot and are subject to normal Google review-volatility over time.
5. This study covers a regulated profession (law); findings are market observations only and do not constitute advertising claims, outcome guarantees, or professional endorsements of any named firm.