The Industry Standard is reporting that EDF Ventures, based in Ann Arbor, has subpoenaed The Funded in order to identify who left a negative comment about them on The Funded’s website. Presumably, EDF intends to use this information to pursue a defamation claim against the negative commenter.

Sorry EDF, but this is a pretty silly move. Is your skin really that thin? Do you really think this is the first negative thing someone has said about EDF? I mean, if you are doing ANYTHING meaningful, some people are going to love you and some are going to hate you. Think of Google and Microsoft as two prime examples huge camps of people love to worship and hate each of these companies all at the same time.

With your lawsuit, you have succeeded in thousands of entrepreneurs who would have never seen your negative review (take me for example) now (1) knowing that at least one entrepreneur believes that EDF is “to be avoided unless you are desperate” and (2) wondering why you are so worried about a negative review being out there. If you have a great reputation including a number of competing positive reviews on The Funded – people will simply dismiss this reviewer as a kook (or at a minimum someone who EDF spurned by declining to fund them).

Moreover, are you really going to sue the reviewer? While you may be able to bully the reviewer into removing the comment, there is a decent chance that the entrepreneur or someone like the Electronic Frontier Foundation will take on this case and make you prove that entrepreneurs should NOT avoid you unless desperate. This would simply be an ongoing advertisement regarding the negative commentary. You would also need to prove that the negative review actually damaged you. These are tall mountains to climb.

At a minimum, EDS, I hope you found your lawyer using Avvo. In addition to the Avvo Rating, we have great client reviews that you would find immensely helpful.

Be well (and transparent).

Mark

Today’s New York Times has an excellent article on a topic that frequently crops up in Avvo Answers, when are children old enough to be left home by themselves? As the NYT article explains, most states do not specify an age but leave it to parents to decide. A notable exceptions is Maryland – where it is illegal to leave a child under 8 without a babysitter who is at least 13. Safe Kids USA, a DC-based nonprofit views the age of 12 as a milestone. According to Alan Korns, the Safe Kids USA Director of Public Policy / General Counsel, “Children under age 12 don’t have the cognitive ability to recognize risk and, just as important, don’t have the cognitive maturity to react to the risk or accident once it happens.” He added that additional concerns are raised when multiple children are left alone: “That concern is heightened when there are other children in the home. So many injuries and deaths can be prevented by appropriate, active adult supervision.”

Avvo simultaneously ventures into Razorback and Gopher country. You might ask what these two states have in common, and based on my limited research (i.e., one Google search) it appears absolutely nothing. Normally, we like to launch states together that have at least something in common, particularly geography, to increase the chance of press coverage. But that is surely not the case here. Still, both states were ready to go, so there was no use holding them back.

So whether you hail from the great white north or real hot south, take a spin through our new states. Here are the top Avvo-rated lawyers in both states:

Top Arkansas Lawyers
Top Minnesota Lawyers

For the Arkansas and Minnesota lawyers out there, please send us your feedback. We love to receive it and it helps us improve the product. Before contacting us however, please claim your Avvo Profile, answer at least 100 questions in Avvo Answers, and submit at least 10 Legal Guides. Just joking sort of.

Faithfully serving both Yanks and Rebs . . .

Mark

The New York Times recently published an article about a soon to be published study that found that in a majority of cases, plaintiffs would have been better off settling rather than going to trial. The study, to be published in the September issue of the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, encompasses 2,054 cases in California that went to trial from 2002 to 2005. Among the more provocative findings in the study are the following:

• Plaintiffs with contingency fee arrangements made poorer decisions about going to trial
• On average, getting it wrong cost plaintiffs about $43,000; For defendants, who were less often wrong about going to trial, the cost was much greater: $1.1 million

1. How is this guy broke? Ed McMahon was sued for failing to pay $275,168 in fees to divorce attorney Norman Solvay. McMahon, famous for his Johnny Carson introductions, hired Solavay to represent his daughter, Linda Schmerge, in a “matrimonial matter” said Solovay’s lawyer, Michael Shanker. Looks like he needs someone to come to his door with a giant check

After Mark’s flame mail post, (and at the risk of being entirely self-serving) I would like to share an email that was sent to our Customer Service Team:

You are awesome and I am so grateful for you and avvo. You have no idea how much you are helping every day people who can not afford a lawyer. I think so highly of lawyers now and it is all because of you and AVVO. Keep up the good work.
Thank you
Tina

It was in the 20th century that I last represented clients in private practice. So, you can imagine my surprise when this “client review” was recently submitted for my Avvo Profile:

“I just found my public profile on this internet site and am shocked at the complete lack of ethical standards this man seems to have. Everyone out these, PLEASE BE WARNED because it is very possible that you are in the same situation if you are an inactive member of a state bar or have let memebership lapse (because you don’t practice/live there anymore). Under the “Experience” tab, for one state it says I am “Not Eligible to Practice Law” in that state. In reality, I am an INACTIVE member of a state bar since I no longer live in that state, but continue to pay annual membership dues as an inactive member. I wanted to keep the option open to move back there one day without retaking the bar exam in that state so have chosed to remain inactive rather than completely giving up my membership to that state bar. I actually just sent a few hundred dollars this week for my annual inactive membership dues. Everyone who is in a similar situation, please be warned that if you are inactive in a state bar, Mark might be saying to everyone out there that you are “Not Eligible to Practice Law” in that state, which I think is defamation, particularly given that the ONLY explanation given is disciplinary reasons (of which I have NONE). I am, in fact, eligible to practice law in that state the second I pick up the phone and change my membership status to “active.” For another state, it says that I am “Suspended,” when in fact I just let my membership in that state lapse because it is DC and I can easily waive back in at any time I want. Since I don’t live there and they don’t require a bar exam to waive in, I saw no reason to continue to pay dues and so told the DC bar that I was going to let my membership lapse. This is very common. When you no longer practice law in a state, you stop paying dues to indicate that you are no longer a member. This is not exactly the idea that “suspended” communicates to someone doing random search on your profile. If anyone out there has let their membership lapse because they’ve moved from a state, be warned that Mark may have you posted as “Suspended.” Don’t worry, though, since the little bubble clarifies that it could be for “disciplinary reasons.” Thanks Mark. We really appreciate that. I will remove this review when he removes my profile. This man is causing headaches for many many people out there and his practices are ethically questionable. Actually, I have no question about the ethical nature of this website. It’s ethically void.”

While I appreciate the time this reviewer put into the elegant prose above, we will not be posting this as a client review. Why not? Avvo’s policy on client reviews has always been clear:

• We will not post client reviews that contain serious accusations that are not supported by specific facts.
• We will not post client reviews that have the appearance of not being submitted by an actual client

In order to remain consistent regarding this policy, we are also deleting this previously submitted “client review” that we had left on my profile for over a year:

“I used Mr. Britton’s website to investigate lawyers. His use of disciplinary information extracted from the WSBA web site to provide numerical recommendations is ethically questionable. It is ethical to provide objective information, such as the existence of a disciplinary matter and the date on which it occurred. To use such a matter to give advice, such as “use extreme caution”, is not ethical. Mr. Britton does not know the lawyer about whom he is giving advice, and he does not know the person to whom he is giving advice. Until Mr. Britton reforms his practice to provide objective information only, and to refrain from giving advice about persons he has never met to persons he has never met, he can not be regarded as a trustworthy attorney. I pledge to delete this review when the above reforms are instituted.”

I wanted our readers to see each of these “client reviews” because we are happy to take feedback – it is what we have repeatedly asked for. However, it is equally important that the growing number of attorneys using Avvo feel comfortable that our client reviews are managed according to clear and consistently followed guidelines. So hey – if I represented you in the past, feel free to leave a client review on my profile. Otherwise, please email me your suggestions. I love to read them and will always respond when they are constructive.

Thanks!

Mark

Today’s New York Times has a story on David Galenson, an economist at the University of Chicago, who unhesitatingly answers that the greatest work of the 20th Centure is a Picasso painting. Which one? You have to read the article. Galenson has developed a statistical approach to rating art. As you can imagine, he is quite controversial. Reminds me of a certain Seattle startup you all might have heard of *clears throat*.

When Business Week was searching for top foreclosure attorneys in the United States for their article, “Demand Surges on Foreclosure Sites”, they turned to Avvo. In an article published this past Wednesday, Business Week partnered with Avvo to feature some of the best foreclosure lawyers across the United States. The top Avvo-rated foreclosure lawyers in the U.S. are the following (in alphabetical order):

• Eric Appleton
• Robert S. Bernstein
• James Cure
• David Leen
• David Leibowitz
• Steven H. Mezer
• Joseph Moldovan
• Paul Riffel
• Stephen W. Sather
• Jonathan Stein
• Mervin Waage

Congratulations to All!

1. Diahn Williams Mcgrath, New York, NY

2. Okorie Okorocha, Los Angeles, CA

3. Roni Deutch, North Highlands, CA

4. Thuong-Tri Nguyen, Renton, WA

5. John M. Kaman, San Francisco, CA

6. Jon Michael Zimmerman, Seattle, WA

7. Stuart Jonas Reich, New York, NY

8. Elizabeth Rankin Powell, Tacoma, WA

9. William C. Head, Atlanta, GA

10. David Leibowitz, Waukegan, IL