You Talk; We Listen Changes to the Avvo Rating
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
June 26th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Nice job, guys. I knew things had changed, but wasn’t sure how that would play out.This explanation was good and lucid. Thanks for that.
Look like you charted a middle course between rating everyone and rating nobody. You could have de-listed lawyers altogether if they did not claim their profiles or keep them updated (that’s what I would have considered doing). But by reducing the kinds and the amount of the information published about such lawyers instead of taking them off the site altogether I think you make a fair compromise.
My point is that maybe participants in the system should be rewarded not only for their peer and client recognition but for their willingness to be transparent. After all the site will only work with honest participation by both lawyers and prospective clients. I hope you were thinking along the same lines.
June 27th, 2007 at 7:48 am
“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.”
I think you have to be a little cautious with such numbers. According to Avvo’s counts it has nearly 652,000 attorneys in its system from the states it’s thus far covered (Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington). This figure includes duplications due to attorneys licensed in multiple states. According to the ABA , the number of active attorneys resident in these states in 2006 is just a little over 600,000 (out of a total US count of nearly 1,117,000). Using the latter head count, this means not quite .42 percent of the attorneys in your system have claimed their profiles.
Regarding the visitor count of 100,000 over 21 days, a good deal of this is certainly due to the controversial nature of Avvo and the initial splash. I think a far more important data point is how many of these visits are due to attorneys claiming their profiles and consumers using the system. What is known is just 2.5 percent of those visitors (I assume these are unique visitors) were attorneys claiming their profiles.
Only time will tell to what extent Avvo is accepted by the legal community and public.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Great post. I love the idea of the service and expect to use it when I need legal counsel. It’s not surprising that the legal profession would rail against being scrutinized even though this information is publicly available.
I’m rooting for those that can keep us from going back to the stone ages!
June 29th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Mark, Mark, Mark, no one is trying to bomb you back to the Stone Age. (Though I think a few people would like to see you get your own disciplinary notice.) I don’t think anyone is objecting to you providing ACCURATE, objective and publicly available information about attorneys. Fine, put my admit date on your website. List disciplinary notices. Great. Allow attorneys to add more information. But don’t try to give us a ranking. What you’re trying to do is similar to giving scores to Mozart and the Beatles. Like with music, so many things go into making a great lawyer, some of them exceedingly difficult to quantify. And great lawyers come in many different forms, each great for its own reason and appropriate for a certain type of client. A lawyer that is a perfect fit for one client may be a lousy fit for another. Your rating system is based on the premise that you can say that a lawyer who scores a 10 (and practices in the appropriate field and location) will be better than a lawyer who scores a 6 (in the same field and location) FOR EVERY SINGLE CLIENT (who needs a lawyer in that field and location). That premise is ridiculous. THAT is why lawyers are objecting. We are saying that we are not better or worse than our colleagues, but merely DIFFERENT. A suggestion for a MAJOR change in your website that actually might work. Allow attorneys to input more information about the way they actually practice law. For example, do they prefer extremely litigious cases or those that will settle without much fight? Do they like a client who is very involved in their case, or a client who will leave the lawyer to do his/her job on his/her own? Do they prefer plaintiffs or defendants? Then ask the clients to indicate their preferences in these categories and make a suggestion based on that information. Maybe even prompt the lawyers to write a bit about what sets them apart from others, what makes them tick. This is going to seem silly, but try modeling it a bit after online dating services, because that’s what you’re really doing — trying to determine whether client and lawyer will be compatible. Sure, there is another element to it, the lawyer’s experience and skill. But that’s not all there is.
June 29th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
I can not figure out why attorneys are objecting to this site. Sure it ranks, ok some people are not ranked correctly however the truth in America is that we are all trying to find ways to succeed and Avvo rewards those who work hardest. As my Dad used to say, cream rises to the top. In fairness to AVVO they also say that the rankings are not the only way to figure out how to find a lawyer. It is a starting point not the end point. It helps you identify good and even really good lawyers and helps you to stay away from the dangerous ones. It does not tell you which one is best for you, but instead helps you to narrow your search.
I am sorry but there are a lot of lawyers who should be ranking ten but haven’t taken the time to add to their profiles. That is not Avvo’s fault but the attorney who is not keeping track of what is happening to his name and reputation thanks to the advent of the internet.
Further, anybody who will hire an attorney only because of a ranking is out of their minds. However, Avvo gives lawyers who work hard and are recognized by their peers and work a chance to be found without having to hire a publicist or pander to the press or worse take out crazy ads.
The Avvo rating is no real difference than the old Martindale Hubbel rating, it is just easier for most people to use, and understand.
Get over it. Avvo is here, more will follow. Attorneys need to catch up with the paradigm and stop fighting progress or they will be eating the dust of collegues who get with the new technology and work to stay on top.
June 30th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
“The Avvo rating is no real difference than the old Martindale Hubbel rating, it is just easier for most people to use, and understand” – The Lawyer Dude
This is quite a claim. In fact, Avvo and Martindale Hubble differ in very significant ways. MH returns an alphabetized list of attorneys for a specific practice area/location, whereas Avvo returns attorneys listed by Avvo ranking or “best match” (depending on the user’s specification) for ALL attorneys in their system (a group reduced from the original universe because of complaints). In MH a user can specify a return of “featured” Peer Review Rated Only attorneys – meaning Peer Review Rated attorneys who have paid to have their rating featured – but relatively few attorneys participate in this service, and again the results are alphabetized. Finally, MH does not provide a numerical measure of legal ability, a dubious proposition if there ever was one.
In short, MH does not present users with anything even remotely approaching Avvo’s rating/ranking system.
In addition, and just as important, Avvo’s target audience is the public at large, whom the Avvo system is presented to as an “objective and unbiased” method for ranking attorneys (though you wouldn’t know this from the fine print in Avvo’s lengthy legal disclaimer that few visitors will be likely to stumble across). Very, very few consumers have ever heard of Martindale Hubble, and fewer still use it as a method for finding an attorney.
Let’s not kid ourselves, Avvo, whether your love it or hate it, is an entirely different creature from anything that’s preceded it.
July 2nd, 2007 at 7:45 am
“In addition, and just as important, Avvo’s target audience is the public at large… Very, very few consumers have ever heard of Martindale Hubble, and fewer still use it as a method for finding an attorney.”
To me, this statement is equivalent to saying:
“It’s OK for the trade to have access to special information as long as it’s opaque, hidden or difficult for consumers to interpret, but when it’s made more transparent and easier to use for consumers, it’s bad.”
I disagree. Some tradeoffs and yes even “dumbing down” sometimes needs to be done to information to make it more accessible to consumers. Some of the finest-resolution data can be made more course in such ways, but the net effect can be very positive for consumers *and* suppliers.