Archive for June, 2007

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Motion to Dismiss Class Action Complaint

June 28th, 2007 by Mark Britton, CEO

This afternoon we filed our motion to dismiss the case of Browne v. Avvo. It is lengthy, but in summary it cites extensive case law which supports the notion that this case should have never been filed in the first place. I won’t spend too much time on this because we need to stay focused on what really matters here i.e., getting consumers information and guidance to help them choose the right lawyer. I have also pasted below a copy of the press release that we issued upon filing the motion to dismiss.

Be well.

Mark

CITING RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH, AVVO FILES MOTION TO DISMISS CLASS ACTION COMPLAINT FILED BY SEATTLE ATTORNEYS

Suit Brought by Lawyers Unhappy with Avvo Ratings “Utterly Without Merit”

SEATTLE June 28, 2007 Stating that its publication of attorney disciplinary information and its own and others’ opinions are protected by the First Amendment, Avvo, Inc., the only website that rates and profiles every lawyer, today filed a motion asking the United States District Court in Seattle to dismiss with prejudice the Class Action Complaint filed June 14, 2007, by two Seattle lawyers unhappy about their Avvo Ratings.

“This suit is utterly without merit,” said Avvo CEO Mark Britton, a 15-year attorney and former general counsel of Expedia, Inc. “This is an attempt to censor the opinions of Avvo, clients, and even other lawyers. The Internet is making it possible for many different types of opinions to be heard none of them perfect, but all of them valuable. And, because these attorneys may not like opinions being rendered about them, they have filed this lawsuit a mere nine days after Avvo’s launch – in an attempt to bomb all of us back to the Stone Age.”

As detailed in the complaint, the Avvo site (www.avvo.com), which offers free information and guidance to help consumers choose the right attorney, states numerous times that Avvo’s ratings are merely opinions regarding attorneys’ qualifications and a good place for consumers to start their research.

“Americans have the constitutional right to rate everything from restaurants, beers, books, and movies to colleges, law schools, architecture, and airlines,” said Bruce E.H. Johnson, partner, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, and Avvo’s counsel. “Lawyers routinely exercise their right to rate judges. It’s a wonderment these particular lawyers seem to believe that Americans shouldn’t rate them.”

Noting cases involving the California Bar Association, Martindale Hubbell, Esquire Publishing and The El Paso Times in which opinions about attorneys constituted protected speech, Avvo’s Motion to Dismiss cites extensive case law protecting media outlets’ First Amendment rights and rebuts the allegations in the Class Action Complaint. That complaint, filed in U.S. District Court on June 14, was initiated by Seattle attorney John Henry Browne whose Avvo Rating exposed a recent disciplinary action he received from the Washington State Bar Association.

About Avvo

Avvo is a lawyer search website that rates and profiles every attorney to help consumers find the right lawyer. The free site includes the Avvo Rating, disciplinary sanctions and client ratings. Avvo also gives every attorney a free online profile and an opportunity to give and receive peer endorsements. Founded in early 2006, Avvo is privately held, with funding from private investors, Benchmark Capital and Ignition Partners. For more information, visit www.avvo.com.

###

Media Contacts:

Avvo, Inc. Minou Nguyen (206.779.4559) or Paula Gottlob (206.281.5389); pr@avvo.com

Posted in Avvo News, Mark Britton Posts | 1 Comment »

Avvo – under the cover

June 27th, 2007 by Sendi Widjaja, CTO

It’s been a little over 3 weeks since Avvo has launched and I’m happy to say that our site has been up and stable throughout this period and able to handle the initial traffic spike. I would like to take this opportunity to shed some light on how we’ve built Avvo.

Avvo is built from ground up mostly using the latest open source technologies; we are primarily Ruby on Rails shop running on top LAM (Linux, Apache, MySQL).

I want to thank the communities for providing such wonderful products. Without them, we could not build our site as quickly and effectively as we have. And of course, over time, we will contribute to the communities and help them grow.

Cheers!
Sendi Widjaja, VP of Development

Posted in Avvo Geeks, Avvo News | 2 Comments »

You Talk; We Listen Changes to the Avvo Rating

June 26th, 2007 by Mark Britton, CEO

Hang on everyone this is going to be a long one . . .

Since we launched Avvo (a mere 21 days ago), we have been gratified by much of the response: Over 100,000 people have visited the site, more than 2,500 lawyers have claimed their profiles, and equally large numbers have offered peer endorsements or client ratings. We are building something that has clearly struck a chord with both consumers and lawyers.

Another thing working well is the “you talk; we listen” approach that we offered on launch of our beta. We knew in launching our beta that the wisdom of the user community could help us make Avvo easier to understand and more intuitive; so thank you everyone for your comments. We have already made changes to the site in response to your comments, and we will continue to so which leads me to the purpose of this post.

One part of the beta that has been generating a fair number of questions is our Avvo Rating in those cases where we have only an attorney’s public licensing records. I have personally talked to a lot of lawyers about it

Posted in Avvo News, Mark Britton Posts | 7 Comments »

Over 100,000 People Have Seen Avvo

June 26th, 2007 by Conrad Saam, Marketing

As of last weekend, Avvo has had over 100,000 unique visitors!

Posted in Avvo News | No Comments »

Lost

June 25th, 2007 by Paul Bloom

Avvo exists to help consumers who are lost when faced with choosing a lawyer. But, I think it is worth asking why they are so lost, or why it’s easier to find information and opinion on health providers and restaurants than it is on lawyers. Scott Greenfield’s post Good Questions Coming from the Avvo Debate has an interesting discussion on the pros and cons of the different ways that people choose lawyers, but few others have addressed the topic. To shed some light on the issue, I’d like to share some of the results from a recent Ipsos survey that we sponsored:

* Only 17% of American adults say it is easy to research detailed information about attorneys
* Only 17% of American adults say they are very confident in their ability to choose the right attorney
* Over the past two years, 25 million Americans were faced with a situation in which they considered hiring an attorney, but they didn’t because they didn’t know how to choose one.

Clearly the status quo isn’t working, and these numbers are not good for consumers or attorneys. There’s no simple explanation, but in my opinion, here are some of the reasons:

* Consumers approach the decision of choosing a lawyer with a general apprehension towards the legal industry. In a recent Gallup survey asking consumers about their perceptions of various industries, the legal industry came up fourth from last. (What’s interesting, however, is that our Ipsos survey showed that only 12% of consumers who actually used a lawyer were dissatisfied with the service they received. So there is a serious gap between perception and reality when it comes to working with lawyers).
* For many years, the Yellow Pages were the most frequently used source for finding a lawyer, behind only personal referrals. Yellow Pages ads may tell consumers about a lawyer’s years of experience and possibly some awards, but how many include a lawyer’s disciplinary history, or comments from former clients? In short, there hasn’t been a source of information that shows the good and, if relevant, the not-so-good, about a lawyer.
* Over the past few years, more and more consumers are doing their research on the Internet. However, while the Internet makes it possible to find information on virtually any subject you can think of, that doesn’t hold true for researching lawyers. One big reason for this appears to be that of the approximately 400,000 solo practitioners in the U.S. today, a whopping 60% still do not have a web site according to a recent ABA study.

I think these three things contribute greatly to consumers being lost when choosing a lawyer. The general apprehension of consumers towards lawyers, the reliance on the Yellow Pages ads, and the large number of lawyers without a presence on the Internet they all combine to leave consumers in a world of hurt

Posted in How to Choose a Lawyer | 6 Comments »

Seattle Web 2.0 Startup Traffic Rankings

June 22nd, 2007 by Justin Chan, Avvo Development Team

I’m a daily reader of John Cook’s venture blog over at the Seattle PI. One of the recent posts details how a reader,
Marcelo Calbucci of Sampa, ranked all Seattle Web 2.0 startups by Alexa ranking. I thought this was fascinating so I wrote a version that updates daily.

The script looks for companies which have enough traffic to get an Alexa ranking. The “Alexa 30d” column is a rolling 30 day average of that ranking. The “change” columns reflect the changes from the last time the page was updated. Since this page will update daily, the columns effectively mean “change from the day before”.

Feel free to bookmark this page to check up on how Avvo and other Seattle companies are growing on a daily basis! And if I missed a company (that is a startup in Seattle with enough traffic to get an Alexa rank), please leave me a comment and I’ll add it when I get a chance.

- Justin, Avvo Development Team

Last updated: 2011-04-06 04:02:23

Rank Company Alexa 30d Change Rank change
 
1 Zillow 703 +0 +0
2 SEOmoz 980 +0 +0
3 Picnik 988 +0 +0
4 FEEDJIT 1372 +0 +0
5 I Can Has Cheezburger? 2012 +0 +0
6 Urban Spoon 2449 +0 +0
7 Redfin 2476 +0 +0
8 Wetpaint 2618 +0 +0
9 ActiveRain 3090 +0 +0
10 PayScale 4006 +0 +0
11 Faves (ex-BlueDot) 4120 +0 +0
12 LiveMocha 4418 +0 +0
13 BuddyTV 4776 +0 +0
14 43 Things (Robot Co-op) 6428 +0 +0
15 Avvo 6906 +0 +0
16 iLike 7557 +0 +0
17 CarDomain 8734 +0 +0
18 ProgrammableWeb 10343 +0 +0
19 QuestionPro (Survey Analytics) 11093 +0 +0
20 Smilebox 11862 -85 +0
21 SWiK 12932 +0 +0
22 RealSelf 13160 +0 +0
23 SmartSheet 13328 +0 +0
24 Popshops 15005 +0 +0
25 Biznik 15605 +0 +0
26 Ohloh 16388 +0 +0
27 ImageKind 20487 +0 +0
28 Menuism 22150 +0 +0
29 RescueTime 22380 +0 +0
30 Whrrl (Pelago) 24390 +0 +0
31 Cozi 25054 +0 +0
32 nuTsie.com (Melodeo) 27367 +0 +0
33 BigOven 27974 +0 +0
34 EVRI 30133 +0 +0
35 Estately 30840 +0 +0
36 LandWatch (SecondSpace) 34496 +0 +0
37 bluekai 40335 +0 +0
38 Walk Score 41788 +0 +0
39 AdReady 42675 +0 +0
40 Wishpot 43704 +0 +0
41 TeachStreet 43856 +0 +0
42 IdeaScale 45885 +0 +0
43 Visible.net 48455 +0 +0
44 Diffen 48500 +0 +0
45 Investment Yogi 50347 +0 +0
46 Earth Class Mail 52964 +0 +0
47 Eyejot 54242 +0 +0
48 MerchantOS 56627 +0 +0
49 Bag Borrow or Steal 62250 +0 +0
50 Trumba 64364 +0 +0
51 Micropoll (Survey Analytics) 66820 +0 +0
52 EyeFetch 70072 +0 +0
53 Jobster 70834 +0 +0
54 LiquidPlanner 72137 +0 +0
55 Yapta 74867 +0 +0
56 You Just Get Me 91053 +0 +0
57 Pikaba 91906 +0 +0
58 PeepCode 97020 +0 +0
59 Survey Analytics 97262 +0 +0
60 Broadband Sports 98997 +0 +0
61 CultureMob 101335 +0 +0
62 Jambool 103410 +0 +0
63 CheckOutMyCards 104259 +0 +0
64 Delve (ex-Pluggd) 104919 +0 +0
65 LexBlog 105517 +0 +0
66 Jott Networks 113503 +0 +0
67 Just Cause 116507 +0 +0
68 Konnects 116694 +0 +0
69 Patents.com 125158 +0 +0
70 Mercent 133439 +0 +0
71 Thrift Books 135794 +0 +0
72 43 Places (Robot Co-op) 135843 +0 +0
73 Localism 152683 +0 +0
74 Visible Technologies 153988 +0 +0
75 WidgetBucks 154585 +0 +0
76 Survey Console (Survey Analytics) 168442 +0 +0
77 Dreambox Learning 173627 +0 +0
78 BrandVerity 176382 +0 +0
79 Pixsy 177305 +0 +0
80 GlobalScholar.com 180645 +0 +0
81 Pathable 192324 +0 +0
82 Lists Of Bests (Robot Co-Op) 193426 +0 +0
83 Healia 215202 +0 +0
84 Skytap 247125 +0 +0
85 HolidayGolightly 251799 +0 +0
86 Nearlyweds 268910 +0 +0
87 Dashwire 297939 +0 +0
88 Zipwhip 304686 +0 +0
89 Shiftboard 309686 +0 +0
90 GoTime 323788 +0 +0
91 NewsCloud 326564 +0 +0
92 MyGameBuilder 335106 +0 +0
93 Trailfire 347123 +0 +0
94 All Consuming (Robot Co-Op) 362129 +0 +0
95 MixPo 367173 +0 +0
96 MyTypes 386250 +0 +0
97 Treemo 390876 +0 +0
98 Tatango 396324 +0 +0
99 Frugal Mechanic 405689 +0 +0
100 SlideShow.com 412287 +0 +0
101 WiFi.com 435729 +0 +0
102 SimplifyThis 436541 +0 +0
103 Sweat365 453255 +0 +0
104 Peppers and Pollywogs 462381 +0 +0
105 Chatterous 465048 +0 +0
106 SNAPforSeniors 477588 +0 +0
107 Catch the Best 513759 +0 +0
108 nPost 519287 +0 +0
109 Sampa 528998 +0 +0
110 ClearStay.com 532369 +0 +0
111 Instacalc 569806 +0 +0
112 Jamglue 575572 +0 +0
113 CondoCompare 578104 +0 +0
114 Limeade 584948 +0 +0
115 ResortScape (SecondSpace) 629959 +0 +0
116 FlowPlay 687286 +0 +0
117 Pelago 699711 +0 +0
118 eTalkup 700252 +0 +0
119 ActiveWords 723236 +0 +0
120 PageForest 738573 +0 +0
121 HomeSavvi (ex-AlphabetLane) 743142 +0 +0
122 Medio Systems 763638 +0 +0
123 Zoji 764916 +0 +0
124 Atomic Moguls 788818 +0 +1
125 InfiniteHoops 872908 +0 +1
126 Rails Kits 881646 +0 +1
127 PilotOutlook 889683 +0 +1
128 Etelos 898453 +0 +1
129 Inrix 941408 +0 +1
130 Apptio 1008905 +0 +1
131 Zumobi 1033359 +0 +1
132 Lilipip 1067225 +0 +1
133 Identity.net 1130188 +0 +1
134 Linebuzz 1183298 +0 +1
135 TripHub 1194282 +0 +1
136 inCampus 1231886 +0 +1
137 mPoria 1262143 -1307 +1
138 Alerts.com 1290760 +0 +1
139 Phrogram 1301429 +0 +1
140 Jackson Fish Market 1311749 +0 +1
141 GarageBand.com 1387586 +0 +1
142 ExtraHop Networks 1388490 +0 +1
143 43 People (Robot Co-Op) 1394625 +0 +1
144 TuneyFish 1440646 +0 +1
145 Formotus 1473492 +0 +1
146 cumul.us 1528662 +0 +1
147 Entertonement 1535947 +0 +1
148 Spoken 1618358 +0 +1
149 Luminotes 1637572 +0 +1
150 InsideTrip 1703749 +0 +1
151 YourSports 1859364 +0 +1
152 eyealike 1894764 +0 +1
153 Joint Contact 1949358 +0 +1
154 Trusera 1974293 +0 +1
155 Wishlisting 2044446 +0 +1
156 ContactPro (Survey Analytics) 2216655 +0 +1
157 Openomy 2237229 +0 +2
158 FeedWhip 2257659 +0 +2
159 PokerPlayersSocialNetwork 2404832 +0 +2
160 Conenza 2405875 +0 +2
161 Yodio 2562518 +0 +2
162 Askablogr 2569779 +0 +2
163 PrestoGifto 2642749 +0 +2
164 ZoeCity 2707787 +0 +2
165 Swaggle 2848875 +0 +2
166 Beyond Wine & Cheese 2899198 +0 +2
167 Others Online 2928166 +0 +2
168 ReelTime 3014837 +0 +2
169 SportsUltra 3179507 +0 +2
170 iMedExchange 3185660 +0 +2
171 FinancialJoe 3294724 +0 +3
172 Style du Jour 3404491 +0 +3
173 Napera (ex-Altus Networks) 3529834 +0 +3
174 SecondSpace 3602763 +0 +3
175 PhoneMyPhone (KeenScreen) 3635888 +0 +3
176 Cocktail builder 3677282 +0 +3
177 MobIncentive 3717246 +0 +3
178 TrustedWord 3742764 +0 +3
179 GotVoice 3807837 +0 +3
180 TagCow 3900083 +0 +3
181 Paperspine 4222935 +0 +3
182 Ripl 4239626 +0 +3
183 TalentSpring 4283432 +0 +3
184 The Secret Ingredients 4380275 +0 +3
185 Digital Railroad 4417275 +0 +3
186 PixPulse 4533673 +0 +3
187 Consupo.com 4561142 +0 +3
188 HomeMovie 4706834 +0 +3
189 Jookster 4789323 +0 +3
190 3rd I Designs 5024633 +0 +3
191 Trendi 5406707 +0 +3
192 Tesly 5425075 +0 +3
193 VholdR 5438869 +0 +3
194 Foranu 5535747 +0 +3
195 Bus Monster 5786509 +0 +3
196 Crush or Flush (IceBreaker) 6206348 +0 +3
197 I Has a Hotdog 6245208 +0 +3
198 Bevy 6326956 +0 +3
199 SynerG Software 6375943 +0 +3
200 Pundit Kitchen 6421821 +0 +3
201 They’re Beautiful (Jackson Fish Market) 6456168 +0 +3
202 Noonhat 6614729 +0 +3
203 Movaya 7111883 +0 +3
204 ClickEats 7665104 +0 +3
205 GoSleepGo.com 7771640 +0 +3
206 Carbon Grove 8263476 +0 +3
207 YouSport 8282157 +0 +3
208 CalendarData.com 8309663 +0 +3
209 BigScreen Live 8554376 +0 +3
210 EmptySpaceAds (KeenScreen) 8559952 +0 +3
211 GeoJoey 8637429 +0 +3
212 Knouen 8741737 +0 +3
213 Scriptovia 8851646 +0 +3
214 Minecode 8901948 +0 +3
215 Elmore City Dance Club 9109618 +0 +3
216 Mpire 9206789 +0 +3
217 goChongo 9376871 +0 +3
218 Silverlight Nuggets 10198310 +0 +3
219 CampusChai 10788311 +0 +3
220 Waggle Labs 11638126 +0 +3
221 Postacrime 11793005 +0 +3
222 Phrasetrain 12411513 +0 +3
223 Jakoba 12625595 +0 +3
224 Positive Motion 12950790 +0 +3
225 HyBlue 13518371 +0 +3
226 NECODO 13568035 +0 +3
227 PhoneSherpa 13607731 +0 +3
228 Bioscreencast 13769094 +0 +3
229 Versionate 13878211 +0 +3
230 Audiosocket 14033098 +0 +3
231 UberSquare 14108094 +0 +3
232 Likewise 14214594 +0 +3
233 Mindsite 14500226 +0 +3
234 PhotoSleeve 14762224 +0 +3
235 Spottago 15616662 +0 +3
236 AudioFuse 15743298 +0 +3
237 GridNetworks 17129368 +0 +3
238 KeenScreen 17243626 +0 +3
239 Icebreaker 17787010 +0 +3
240 Experticity 18556164 +0 +3
241 iCultur 18637161 +0 +3
242 Instant Journalist 18752166 +0 +3
243 Smart Desktop 19105775 +0 +3
244 OwnYourPhone 19232214 +0 +3
245 MergeLab 19924223 +0 +3
246 YOUbeQB 20216428 +0 +3
247 Transmutable 20471059 +0 +3
248 PerkyPoll 20967911 +0 +3
249 SnapTune 21568059 +0 +3
250 Fremont Forward 21750515 +0 +3
251 Should Do This (Robot Co-Op) 22227328 +0 +3
252 Down2night 22268031 +0 +3
253 Social Compass 22381837 +0 +3
254 XoomPad 22637229 +0 +3
255 Athleon 22854774 +0 +3
256 Metafos 22915930 +0 +3
257 GoGoMo 23203482 +0 +3
258 Human Proxy 24548022 +0 +3
259 SilverBits 26392165 +0 +3
260 EfuRa 28501105 +0 +3
261 DigWorks 28868992 +0 +3
262 SongSlide 99999999 +0 +16
263 EVOLanding 99999999 +0 +8
264 Super Oyester 99999999 +0 +9
265 Symcell 99999999 +0 +29
266 freeIDENTITYprotect 99999999 +0 +10
267 Entering Startup 99999999 +0 +1
268 Frigy 99999999 +0 +17
269 Digini 99999999 +0 +0
270 Fyreball 99999999 +0 +17
271 GimmeNow 99999999 +0 +18
272 Crowdify 99999999 +0 +0
273 SiteScout 99999999 -97778659 -115
274 CoolToors 99999999 +0 +0
275 Collab-O-Matic 99999999 +0 +0
276 SaneShopping (ClayValet) 99999999 +0 +23
277 TravellingWave 99999999 +0 +0
278 Robot Co-op (43 Things) 99999999 -99232861 -154
279 i-booze.com 99999999 +0 +23
280 ClearSky Systems 99999999 +0 +0
281 ClayValet 99999999 +0 +0
282 Chromed 99999999 +0 +0
283 CellTell 99999999 +0 +0
284 Cdigix 99999999 +0 +0
285 Inluu 99999999 +0 +20
286 CareerMesh 99999999 +0 +0
287 RealityAllStarz 99999999 +0 +19
288 Vertical Panel (Survey Analytics) 99999999 +0 +0
289 Goose Networks 99999999 +0 +15
290 VideoMailz 99999999 +0 +0
291 Invitastic (Jackson Fish Market) 99999999 -96720803 -118
292 iProtest 99999999 +0 +15
293 VoxPixel 99999999 +0 +0
294 Property Cricket 99999999 +0 -2
295 izzyMe 99999999 +0 +13
296 Joingle 99999999 +0 -1
297 BlogRize 99999999 +0 +0
298 Blist 99999999 +0 +0
299 Poll Stacks 99999999 +0 -32
300 Kantrak 99999999 +0 -9
301 ListenToYourWife 99999999 +0 -35
302 MarketOutsider.com 99999999 +0 -32
303 Beet Inc. 99999999 +0 +0
304 Minebox 99999999 +0 -25
305 N2uitive 99999999 +0 -40
306 networkText 99999999 +0 -10
307 Overcast Media 99999999 +0 +10
308 NimbleBee 99999999 +0 -8
309 Zeebits 99999999 +0 +0
310 Zeenami 99999999 +0 +0
311 Appature 99999999 +0 +0
312 Ameritocracy 99999999 +0 +0
313 adUup 99999999 +0 +0
314 Accelerated Pictures 99999999 +0 +0
315 ZooDango 99999999 +0 +0
316 Zumende 99999999 +0 +0
317 Ontela 99999999 +0 -16

Posted in Avvo Geeks, Avvo News | 17 Comments »

Visa…Mastercard…Discover

June 17th, 2007 by Paul Bloom

Some attorneys have voiced concerns on needing a credit card in order to claim their profile. Now, given the number of lawyers who have already claimed their profile, it appears that more people are comfortable with the credit card verification than not. Still, for everyone that may be concerned, I want to make sure that we are all on the same page.

Posted in Avvo News, User Experience | 1 Comment »

Defending Avvo’s Right to Provide Information and Guidance to Consumers

June 14th, 2007 by Mark Britton, CEO

I would like to respond to the class action lawsuit filed against Avvo today.

Avvo.com is designed to give consumers information and guidance to choose the right attorney. There is very little guidance available for most consumers of legal services, and Avvo seeks to fill that gap by obtaining information about lawyers and presenting it in a way that consumers can readily understand and use. Some lawyers will not like this in particular those who have disciplinary actions in their backgrounds that will now be presented for their potential clients to see. But we at Avvo believe that disciplinary actions and sanctions are very important”and that consumers have a right to know about them. Part of what Avvo is doing is taking a great big flashlight and shining it into places that have been forever dark to consumers.

We believe that Mr. Browne’s lawsuit is an effort to make sure these places stay dark, an effort to turn off that flashlight. This lawsuit is an effort to censor and to chill Avvo’s analysis, commentary and opinion in order to protect attorneys who have disciplinary actions in their backgrounds. It seems to reflect a belief, on behalf of the lawyers bringing this lawsuit, that the First Amendment doesn’t apply to the dissemination of opinions and information about them.

Among all that Avvo’s beta version offers consumers, the Avvo Rating has clearly taken the spotlight. We consulted hundreds of attorneys and thousands of consumers in prioritizing the criteria to generate the Avvo Rating, and we stand behind it. However, the Avvo Rating is only one element of what Avvo offers to consumers. The site also brings together profile information for every attorney in the states we cover, including years of experience and disciplinary sanctions. Consumers can submit ratings and reviews of attorneys they have worked with, and lawyers can update their profiles and submit endorsements of other lawyers.

We are doing something different and we have supporters and detractors. It may take some time for some to get their arms around the benefits that Avvo offers. However, in just nine days after launch, over 1,800 lawyers have already claimed their profiles and provided consumers with valuable information regarding their experience. Consumers have submitted over 800 client ratings and lawyers have submitted over 1,100 endorsements for other lawyers. We think making all of this information and the opinions that go with it available to consumers is in everyone’s best interest.

Mark Britton
CEO
Avvo, Inc.

Posted in Avvo News, Mark Britton Posts | 64 Comments »

4th Grade Spelling Bee

June 14th, 2007 by Mark Britton, CEO

One comment that caught my eye was that of David C. Mason in response to my post “Launch Update + Comments on Avvo Rating.”
David wrote:

“Despite your front page claim, your site doesn’t appear to analyze the attorney supplied data in any objective manner. As long as these folks place as many lines in as many of the fields as possible, their score gets adjusted upward. I can put “4th grade spelling bee” in the award section or Island of the Blue Dolphins Book Report in the speaking engagement and your program will accept it and adjust the score.”

Thank you for your post, David. I understand how you could reach this conclusion at this early stage of our product, but it is incorrect. As such, I want to make sure that everyone understands how our profile scoring works for this kind of data.

When lawyers claim their profiles, we ask them to supply entries that demonstrate their recognition from the legal industry. In requesting this, we are expecting that people will not put in random items just to inflate their Avvo Rating. Based on this expectation, the model’s scoring system temporarily credits certain “unknown” information with points pending review of the submission.

Allow me to explain: When someone uploads an award, for example, our system tries to find that award in our database. If the system finds the award, the system immediately gives the award the number of points assigned to that award under our scoring guidelines. If the system does not find the award, it is marked as “unknown” and the system immediately gives the award the minimum number of points that any award can receive. This “unknown” award is then forwarded to a team that reviews the award and assigns a value to it according to our scoring guidelines. If the “unknown” award in our example is worth more points than the minimum, additional points are assigned to the lawyer’s Avvo Rating. If the “unknown” award is not worth any points like David’s spelling bee or some other award that is not relevant to the lawyer’s body of work – then the assigned points are subtracted from the lawyer’s Avvo Rating.

So, theoretically, a lawyer could come into the site, claim his or her profile and fill it with a bunch of silly entries in order to inflate the Avvo Rating. But, this inflation is short-lived because it will go away when we map this new and unknown data.

I don’t expect this to be a big issue, because attorneys better than anyone understand the issues here. Still, I wanted to make sure that I responded to David’s post to ensure that everyone understands our scoring procedures.

Mark

Posted in Avvo News, Mark Britton Posts | 2 Comments »

Avvo – The site that Phở built

June 11th, 2007 by Ben VandenBos, Software Design Engineer

On a lighter note…

I would like to personally thank PhoCyclo for making this site possible. Without this restaurant there is absolutely no way we could have had enough sodium… err phở in our systems to get this thing out the door.

I tip my hat to you, PhoCyclo.

Posted in Avvo Geeks | 2 Comments »

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