Interesting Blog Comment
Attorney Fred Korkosz of Albany, New York, offered some interesting comments yesterday to my post entitled, “Defending Avvo’s Right to Provide Information and Guidance to Consumers.” The problem is that my post is 9 months old and Fred’s comments were buried under 56 others. So, I wanted to republish Fred’s thoughts here, both to give them a better forum and to publicly thank Frank for his support.
I am an attorney who actually received a fairly high rating from AVVO. I think some points need to be considered.
1. Public disciplinary records of attorneys are just that; public. The fact that AVVO has data mined this information and organized it in an easy-to-access manner should offend no one. It simply makes it easier for potential clients to do the research that they should do but otherwise might not. Not all disciplinary actions necessarily reflect on how attorneys will represent their clients; but the information should be available and considred by potential clients.
2. Since the amount of control that may be exercised by attorneys over their listings is limited, the concerns about advertising are somewhat less compelling than they would be if attorneys could anonymously make postings that boost their ratings.
3. It is true that no ratings systems is a perfect way to evaluate how an attorney will perform. However the existing ratings systems (i.e. Martindale-Hubbel, which has provided AV ratings for a few years) are not necessarily any better than AVVOs system; although the MH system does not really provide for the negative information that AVVO does, it is also voluntary on the attorneys’ part to participate. I do not know how some of the “best attorneys” publications operate, in particular, whether or not they are revenue based. It appears that AVVO is seeking to base some of its ratings on public performance records. That, of course can be difficult; some attorneys, for example, assigned criminal defense attorneys and some immigration attorneys may only appear in reported cases that were hopeless to begin with; if they were sucsessful, the case may never have made it up to the level where a decision was reported. I can certainly appreciate the sentiments of attorneys who may be in that situation, but I believe that the AVVO system is better than boards that allow anonymous postings about attorneys as the only indication of performance; those can be skewed by attorneys themselves building themselves up, a few disgruntled and irrational clients (who typically would be the most inclined to make posts!), and possibly even competitors.
-Fred Korkosz
Well said. Thanks again Fred!
March 28th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Fred added some additional comments to this post (on the old post), and knowing that no one will see them there, I will republish them here. My response comments are below in brackets.
2 Follow up comments:
1. I was not actually replying only to the last post, but trying to leave a general comment. However, since I apparently resurrected an old thread, I will comment here.
2. After reviewing the AVVO posts, I noticed that some attorneys who I happen to know have disciplinary histories were listed has not having any such histories. I assume that is due to technical issues in picking up the histories from the case reporters, and it will eventually work out on its own.
[If the bar tells us that someone has been sanctioned, we will have it. If the bar does not tell us, we will not. I don't know the New York specifics, but in some states like WA for example some types of discipline are removed from the attorneys bar records over time. It may be that the bar has erased these from the disciplined attorneys' records. If it is more recent discipline, yes, we should get it the next time we collect data from New York.]
3. Ironically, it appears that most of the lawyers receiving the highest ratings on AVVO are also ones who are generally respected by people “in the know” as being good attorneys in terms of overall quality of service. Some of the higher rated attorneys practice in specialties that I have no dealings with, so I would not know anything about them. Some of the lawyers who are rated good or average may not have as many published decisions to their credit. But still, I think that AVVO seems to be more realistic in its ratings than some other listings.
[I agree Fred. One can attack the edge cases, but the Avvo Rating is solid. And, as you point out, the rating is not always rosy. In my opinion, this is really the beef with the Avvo Rating, bc attorneys do not like to be (or even have the potential to be) rated poorly.]
-Fred Korkosz
[Thanks again for your thoughts, Fred. We appreciate your support]