It was June 14, 2007, and it was a dark day. I had just spent months getting Avvo up and running, raising money and doing media interviews — all the while trying to be a good father to my three little boys and to be at least present for my ever-understanding wife. But nothing added to the fatigue more than two Washington lawyers who did not like their respective Avvo Ratings and decided to file a class action complaint against Avvo and seemingly spread the word in every direction that Avvo was corrupt.
It just wasn’t right; and, after all the information and guidance we were offering consumers, I couldn’t believe that someone would allege that we were now deceiving them. I needed a light.
Enter the light: I walked into Davis Wright Tremaine late in the afternoon and had a seat in Bruce Johnson’s office. Bruce was a classmate of one of our advisors, Stanford law professor, Deborah Rhode, and he is also known as one of the best First Amendment lawyers in the country. “Have a seat,” he said. I crumpled in compliance. Steve Rummage joined us as well. I had never met either of these gentlemen, so after working through the Seattle one-degree of separation game, Bruce asked me to tell my story. And, so I began, from the top. For almost an hour, I told them about the history of Avvo, all the research we had done, how the Avvo Rating was constructed, why this case didn’t make any sense, etc., etc. I became very emotional I cared too much about Team Avvo and our mission to see everything torn down in this way.
After my monologue, Bruce looked at me, stroked his beard for a long while and said, “You have a great story. You will win this case.”
He was right.
Today, Judge Lasnik of the Western District of Washington dismissed the class action complaint in Browne v. Avvo. As I have said many times before, this is a case that never should have been filed. It was aimed at chilling and censoring the opinions of Avvo, consumers and even other lawyers. So preposterous was the case that I don’t need to give it any more ink here. Simply read Judge Lasnik’s decision - it sums up the preposterousness better than I ever could.
Thank you to Jim Savitt, who did the early work on this case and, in addition to Deborah Rhode, introduced me to the folks at Davis Wright Tremaine. Thank you to DWT’s Bruce Johnson, Steve Rummage and Ambika Doran who clearly knocked the ball out of the park. And, finally, thank you to Team Avvo. Rather than being distracted by all of this silliness, they stepped up and continued to build amazing new features like Avvo Answers and Track Record. Speaking of Track Record, you can see Bruce Johnson’s posting regarding Browne v. Avvo. Feel free to comment on it, even if you were plaintiffs’ counsel.
Ratings. Guidance. The Right Lawyer.
Now let’s get back to business.
Mark
