I would not suggest  reciprocating links to start get your google local listings in order and submit to every local placement site. Go for citations more than links at this point try to work on social media.  Don't be in a rush to build links it could hurt you.

Just about every site when you search google that offers backlinks for money you should avoid.......  Try local news sites and sites like Patch

I have so far put it in the main content & in the header both seem to work fine

If I am not mistaken it really depends on what users are searching

if they are only searching lawyers names than just find a structure that looks pretty and has the lawyer name in it.

But if there is any traffic data that points that people search the city or phone number along with the lawyer name than it might be wise to have that in the url structure

also ever thought of using subdomains? havent seen that in a lawyer directory yet but some of the major article sites switched to subdomains

Activity is important but google does not use GA to determine the activity more than likely your CTR off of google and social activity.

I think compete is just a best guess....

its really cheap to use a cdn like amazon rather than do it yourself

i Have 15 locations I have basically done the same thing on all of them but only a few show reviews from other sites.

I would make sure all info is exactly the same phone, name, address, etc...

I would also try to get more google reviews if google sees reviews are relevant to your type of business they may go look for some on the web.

I have noticed the more work I do on my google places the more they tend to try different stuff with my places

Eli