No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

    Pity poor Mark Britton. He thought he had a pretty good idea and would help the public out as well. His idea was a public website where users could find information about attorneys, express their opinions about the attorneys, and even rate the attorneys. The ratings would include information that was publicly available, input from consumers, from the lawyers themselves, and from their peers.
    "I thought there should be someplace for people to go and get consumer-friendly advice about choosing a lawyer," said Britton, when I interviewed him recently. "I thought there had to be a better resource than the Yellow Pages."
    So Britton created something called Avvo, to meet the need he saw in the market.
    Many lawyers however, rather than greeting Avvo as a great marketing opportunity, immediately screamed in outrage. Their main complaint seemed to be a lack of objectivity in the standards of why an attorney was rated highly, or not. In fact, two Washington lawyers filed a class action suit against Avvo in June of last year. The class action complaint was dismissed in December. The key passage in the Court's decision, upheld Avvo's contention that the opinions expressed on the website were protected by the First Amendment:

"Defendants assert that the opinions expressed through the rating system, (i.e., that attorney X is a 3.5 and/or that an attorney with a higher rating is better able to handle a particular case than an attorney with a lower rating), are absolutely protected by the First Amendment and cannot serve as the basis for liability under state law. The Court agrees."

    After many months of hard work and money-raising, Britton was going to be able to stay in business without the threat of hundreds of lawsuits.
    "I had a lot of arrows sticking out of my back," Britton says of his site's initial reception by attorneys.
    Dallas attorney Robert Kraft is one who thinks Avvo can be a boon to the public.
    "As a lawyer who now has a perfect 10.0 Avvo rating, I certainly don't want to say anything bad about the site," said Kraft. "I believe the initial fear and concern from the legal community had to do with the "mystery" behind the Avvo rating system. There is a degree of guesswork involved when rating lawyers based on easily-available public data. But for those lawyers willing to take just a few minutes to verify their Avvo profile, and perhaps to supplement the information already online, the concerns seem to fade.
    "I do think this is a helpful site for the public. The biggest problems I foresee are lawyers who might 'embellish' their resumes, and former clients who might post unfair and biased negative opinions about lawyers. If Avvo can find a way to combat these two potential areas of abuse, I wish the company great success."

Comments

[Yellow Pages guy]

My sense is that the Avvo idea - a smart yellow pages / local search for lawyers will eventually prevail. Reputation scores are with us to stay, whether its a blog comment or an eBay seller rating. Lawyers may delay but can't forestall the inevitable.

[Robert Logan]

Martindale has similar issues. Lawyers can fudge their resumes and unhappy opposing counsel can trash a rating.

[shalini]

Hi Mark, I am the new Legal Community Manager for Avvo. Thanks for noting the marketing opportunity we are providing to lawyers. Also, glad to see that someone else appreciates Introducing the Hardline by Terence Trent D'Arby.

[Rick Zwetsch]

I agree with YellowPagesGuy that smart local vertical search is here to stay. It's one thing to look in the YP for someone to repair your lawnmower or fix the busted bathroom pipe. It's another all together to research licensed and certified professionals where laser focused knowledge, experience, trust, client touch skills and valid client/peer recommendations could be the difference between making the right choice and potentially making a choice from which recovery might be a lifelong challenge.

I don't believe the IYPs are doing either very well but that's a whole other topic for some other time.

I believe there are powerful ways to get around the challenges faced by Avvo and others. These are the cornerstones of a high value niche vertical I've built that will address the needs of "all" advisors not just attorneys. A couple of hints: MARKETING and EDUCATION. On BOTH sides of the fence!