Looking for Lawyers in all the Wrong Places?
posted by Frank Pasquale
I’m usually at a loss when friends and acquaintances ask me for a lawyer to deal with their car accidents or neighborhood nuisances. I just don’t happen to know that many people in those practice areas. But now I can at least refer them to some online services:
[O]nline services like Nolo.com and Lawyers.com [and Avvo.com] make it easier to be an informed consumer. At the same time, states have passed rules designed to curb some of the more outrageous attorney advertisements, though free-speech groups (and some law firms) oppose the movement.
Of course, as Eric Goldman observes, caveat emptor:
[T]he first generation of Avvo isn’t very confidence-inspiring. The distillation of attorneys into a single numerical rating is inherently fraught with peril, and the media has picked up on numerous examples where the ratings are out of sync with common sense. . . . . [T]he numerical ratings look much more like a work-in-progress than a finished product, and I sure hope consumers aren’t actually relying on the numerical ratings.
But Goldman believes sites like Avvo may improve over time.
July 23, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Posted in: Law Practice
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Responses (3)
Susan Cartier Liebel - July 23, 2007 at 7:04 pm
You should be going right to your alumni office and finding out which graduates are serving these very practice areas (preferably those in their own firms) so you can be a valued resource for both your students and those friends, colleagues and others who see you as a such. Don’t have them rely on rating systems which are fraught with misinformation and gamesmanship.
Conrad Saam - July 23, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Frank – many thanks for the post on Avvo. Since launch, we’ve added a variety of features to make the site increasingly useful and relevant to consumers (and lawyers, like yourself who may serve as a reference for consumers). You now have my email address, I’d be interested in hearing your stories of how you’ve used Avvo, or suggestions for features.
-Conrad from Avvo
Abulifia - July 30, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Avvo.com isn’t worth the time. I submitted a review for an atty warning others *not* to use him because he is crooked and incompetent. I even had to file a complaint against him with the State Bar, but Avvo never published that review. In fact, if you bother to search *any* atty review on their site, you will only find *glowing* reviews. What good is the site if it censors reality? Avvo is substandard, IMO. Don’t bother using it unless you want to read nothing but sugary goodness. Their atty profiles are not accurate representations of reality.
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