Avvo went live relying on 7-month old information for WA State. My office had notified the state bar that it had moved, but this was not reflected on my Avvo profile. Avvo admittedly is using a Beta system, which still lacks functionality, such as the ability to merge multiple profiles. If you look at jobs at Avvo you will see that they are seeking IT developers, and of course, advertising/marketing personnel!

Since I do not oppose a well-designed effort to educate the public about selecting a lawyer, I reluctantly entered my information into Avvo, surprised that I had to enter a personal credit card number to do so. As promised, my score did increase. However, my name did not appear on the search result list for my practice area even though my score was higher than many on the result list and it was a greater percentage of my practice than for others on the list. Only after I asked Avvo about this, did my name suddenly appear in the search results. This makes me highly skeptical of the technology and the assumptions behind Avvo.

Avvo has placed a priority on attempting to make profits before fully vetting a product upon which livelihoods are at stake. Again, I find this highly unprofessional given the “legal expertise” behind Avvo. Avvo needs to quickly fix this bugs and make their ratings system and search results transparent to both the public and the lawyers whom they claim to “objectively” rate.