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June 16, 2007

Simon Fodden

Avvo

Check out Avvo, the recently launched website that rates (U.S.) lawyers. [hat tip: Rob Hyndman] Aimed at non-corporate consumers, Avvo rates lawyers on the basis of:

their number of years in practice, disciplinary sanctions, and professional achievements. The data comes from multiple sources, including state bar associations, court records, lawyer websites, and information lawyers provide to Avvo. We have created a mathematical model that considers this information and calculates a score on a ten-point scale.

Rob Hyndman tells us that 10 days after launch Avvo was made the defendant in a class action brought by and on behalf of… lawyers. He has links to some of the defendant's documents in the suit.

Avvo launched with a modest scope, it would seem: I tried to find a lawyer to help me with "brain injury" in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Boston, Massachusets, and was told in both cases that the state in question hadn't been brought into the system yet. So I went to the big one and searched in NY, NY. Avvo found me three lawyers: a 7.6er, a 6.5er and an as yet unrated one. When I drilled down to the details for the high ranker, I found that he'd never been disciplined and that there was only one other piece of information available to me about him: it's been 51 years since he's been licensed in NY state.

Simon Fodden is the founder of Slaw. He taught law at Osgoode Hall Law School for more than 30 years before he retired to focus on writing, publishing, and IT and law.
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2 Comments on “Avvo”

  1. Albany Lawyer on Avvo says:
    June 21, 2007 at 10:40 pm

    I did my own analysis of Avvo on my blog ( http://albany-lawyer.blogspot.com/2007/06/avvo-lawsuit-over-attorney-rating.html ), looking at our local lawyers including myself, and then checked what happened when I registered – my ratings went up!

  2. Bob Nicholson says:
    June 25, 2007 at 11:02 am

    My company, Ratingz Inc, operates a lawyer review site, http://www.lawyerratingz.com , which takes a different approach to the rating and review business. Unlike avvo, we don't attemt to be a comprehensive directory, nor do we employ algrithms to compute ratings. We simple act as a spublic forum where peole can post informaiton and opinions.

    This simple approach has proven very successful for previous sites that were launched by our company foudner, John Swapceinski. For example, RateMyProfessos.com (John's frist site) has over 6 million reviews, and was probably user by many of your readers while in college.

    We believe strongly that online reviews sites are goign to serve a very importand function over time, and that people will consult review sites before hiring a professional, just as they do before making a major prduct purchase.

    For more abut review sites, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Review_site

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