Made you look.

No, we are not being sued by Google, but instead are co-finalists with the big G in Mashable’s Open Web Awards for the Search and Social Search category. And, according to the guys over at Mashable, we may be outpacing Google in public voting. If you’d like to help us, you can find the voting widget about 150 pixels to the right. See it? Vote. Please. I’ll buy you a beer.

Avvo has been a big topic of discussion on the Network morning shows. Two consumer experts are telling the world that Avvo is a great place for free legal advice. Here are links to the (latest :-)) Good Morning America and Fox Morning Show segments.

Thank you to Pat Powell (Powell Financial Group) and Jennifer Jolley (ABC’s View from the Bay)!! We love that you love Avvo!!!

Mark

Madonna and Guy Ritchie have agreed on a quickie divorce. Reportedly, Ritchie has agreed not to make a claim for the 50% of Madonn’s fortune that she accumulated during their eight-year marriage. They have also agreed on shared custody for Rocco (8) and David (3). Ritchie is represented by Helen Ward and Madge is represented by Fiona Shackleton (of McCartney/Mills fame).

Japanese Millionaire and aspiring space traveler Daisuke Enomoto has filed suit against Virginia-based Space Adventures, a firm that made its name brokering deals with the Russian space agency to put half a dozen “space tourists” in orbit for fees of $20 million or more. Enomoto claims he spent $21M and was denied space travel but offered no refund. Space Adventures claims that his $21M was nonrefundable and that travel was denied to Mr. Enomomto for medical reasons. Enomoto sought to travel in space dressed as the anime character, Char Aznable. Space Adventures is represented by John Villa and Enomoto by Willcox & Savage, PC and White & Case LLP.

Louisa C. Tuck, a teacher’s aide at D’Ippolito Elementary School had a former life as Crystal Gunns, an adult entertainment star. Though the Vineand Board of Education President Frank Giordano feels that Ms. Tuck ought to be fired, Frank DiDomenico, an associate solicitor for the school board noted, “It’s a constitutional privilege of free expression. She’s employed by the school district, but that doesn’t take away her constitutional rights.”

Avvo is the world’s largest online legal directory.

There, I said it. Although my Australian Mum always told me to be humble, it’s time to let that cat out of the bag.

“How dare you make such a claim?” queries the dusty old legal publisher who believes that no new-fangled up-start can be larger than those established directories of the 19th century. Well, no matter how you slice it, Avvo is the largest: Avvo offers more lawyers, more lawyer ratings and more lawyer reviews than any other site on Planet Earth. Here is the relevant data:

While we are humbled by the growth Avvo has seen to date, we also realize that we still have many, many miles to travel. Stay tuned for much more to come.

Data Sources

Growth rate based on session data from Compete over the past 6 months.
Martindale Lawyer Count
Lawyers.com Lawyer Count
Superlawyers based on 5% of roughly 800,000 licensed US lawyers.
MH/Lawyers.com Rated Lawyers
MH/Lawyers.com Reviewed Lawyers: The link shows the Press Releases from MH announcing lawyers with reviews. The total count of lawyers is 2,065; each with a maximum of 3 reviews/attorney.

You may recall me writing about my now affianced friend who is serving with the JAG Corps in Iraq. I was recently forwarded an email from his betrothed (and fellow JAG Corps member) on how she spent Veterans Day in Iraq.

Family,

On Veterans’ Day, I got the unique opportunity to accompany Brigadier General Grimsley, our Deputy Commander, on a convoy to east Baghdad. We visited three different sites in Baghdad. It was a very memorable day.

On Monday, an car bomb exploded outside a popular restaurant. The restaurant was located in a section of town that has seen little violence recently. As people gathered, the insurgents detonated two more anti-personnel bombs. These are typically bombs filled with nails and spikes intended to maim and kill as many people as possible.

The general wanted to visit the site and talk to individuals in the area. It took about 40 minutes to get there. We traveled by HUMVEE. It was really fun wearing the head sets in the truck, listening to young 18-19 years olds talking about life, war, and relationships. They are so young and have gone through so much already. They all miss their families and are missing out on the last vestiges of their childhood. They’ve definitely been forced to grow up too soon.

When we arrived at the site of the blast, there were flies everywhere. The local government had not been able to clean the area yet. Therefore, the flies were still feeding on the debris, which was composed of human material. We talked to many local leaders and the National Police Commissioner. I cannot disclose anything that was discussed, but it is interesting to witness the corroboration of Americans and Iraqis to suppress the violence and share intelligence.

After the blast site, I accompanied the general to the opening of a bridge. There are 13 bridges across the Tigris. This was the final bridge to be opened. It was closed in 2006 by the general himself when he was a colonel. The bridge connects Adamiyah (a Sunni neighborhood) and Kadamiya (a Shiite neighborhood). The violence between the two sides was so intense that they had to completely close the bridge.

This bridge was also the site of a horrible accident. Pilgrims crossing the bridge heard a rumor that there was a suicide bomber in their midst. Over a 1000+ jumped from the bridge to their deaths. Here is a link describing the bridge opening.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27657227/

The Sunnis marched from their side of the bridge and the Shiites marched from their side of the bridge. They met in the middle, slaughtered a few sheep in the middle of the bridge, put their hands in the blood, and shook hands. They sang some portions of the Koran. The top Iraqi General, General Abud, was present, as well, as the Governor of Baghdad. We took a back seat role. It’s good. They really didn’t want us to participate. It was “their thing.” Huge step for the people of Baghdad.

As interesting as it was, I am glad we left because the sniper threat was very high. When I wasn’t on the bridge, I was crouched behind a smelly falafel stand. :)

After the bridge opening, we went to a JSS– a “joint security station.” This is a very small post where we live with Iraqi soldiers. If you’ve heard of a MiTT team (a military transition team), that’s who typically lives at the JSS. A JSS can be anything. Sometimes it is a church, warehouse, barn, bunker, etc. The one I visited was an old house. The living conditions are horrible for these soldiers. Most of them sleep on plywood. A few of the officers had cots. They don’t have showers. They convoy once a week to a bigger installation to shower. They have port-o-johns and eat Meals-Ready-to-Eat (MREs). It’s rough.

At the JSS, we watched the Son’s of Iraq come in and receive their paychecks. You may have read about the Son’s of Iraq (SOIs) or the “Awakening.” These people started as local volunteers that were sick and tired of Al Qaida threatening them in their neighborhoods. They took up arms and began to protect their homes and the critical infrastructure in their area (power plants, markets, schools). After a while, we decided to hire them to supplement the Iraqi Security Forces. However, now we are trying to transition them from our payroll to the government of Iraq’s payroll. This is the first month of transition. We are all keeping our fingers crossed.

I review ALL of these contracts (12,000 of them). It is the bane of my existence. So, it was kind of cool to get to see these guys and watch them get paid.

All in all, the day was amazing. It was nice to be part of the “fight” for once instead of sitting in front of a computer screen. I will be going on an air mission soon, but I don’t know when and don’t have many details. I do get to fire the 50 Cal machine gun on the Blackhawk though (ha, ha JBW!!!).

So that was my Veteran’s Day. Hope you are all well.

The venerable U.S. News & World Report “Best Law School” ratings have been the subject of loads of acrimony of late – with schools dismissing the ratings on one hand while making changes to their admissions policies to help bolster the ratings on the other.

We’ve suffered our share of slings and arrows here at Avvo when it comes to ratings, so to U.S. News we say: We feel your pain. In fact, we’d like to help.

Avvo recently launched law school rankings, based on the average Avvo Rating attained by graduates of each school. It’s an imperfect system, of course – Avvo only has profiles for 85% or so of all U.S. attorneys, and we don’t have law school information for all of those lawyers. There are also some geographic disparities, driven by the fact that: a) not every state provides us with law school data; b) Avvo doesn’t have data on any attorneys for certain states; and c) the early adoption of Avvo by lawyers in the state of Washington causes some inflation in the rankings of schools with a high percentage of graduates in the state (you’re welcome, Gonzaga, Seattle University and UW).

Despite all of this, Avvo’s law school ratings track remarkably well with those of US News. Of the top 20 schools rated by that magazine, 17 are also in Avvo’s top 20. Of the three that are missing, two are “on the bubble” and only one, Washington University in St. Louis, is not even within the top 50 schools on Avvo. The unfortunate exclusion of WU is largely due to that fact that a certain Midwestern state continues to stonewall our request for records and we’ve just been too busy to press the issue.

So, to US News we say: We’ve got your back. Next time someone says your ratings are off-the-mark, just tell them the Avvo Rating makes your case.

We’ve had a very busy office this week. Justin’s iPhone app, Last Call was finally released by Apple and got picked up by a ton of sites, including Gizmodo and Wired. We released Avvo’s Law School Rankings, of 493 law schools, which was quickly picked up by the ABA Journal. Twitter and Solosez were abuzz with Avvo news, including Kevin O’Keefe’s post about a lawyer who has landed 50 clients through Avvo. Stay tuned, more to come next week . . .

Law isn’t the only profession that could use a healthy dose of transparency. The story of a Seattle girl who suffered a botched surgery illustrates why it’s important to give consumers easy access to information about doctors as well.

The Seattle PI reports that in 2005, Dr. Thomas Laney, then practicing in Seattle, performed a breast reduction on a girl who’s now eighteen. The girl was a student athlete and required the breast reduction for purely medical reasons. Dr. Laney allegedly mutilated her breasts so badly that the girl now cannot bring herself to share a bathroom or date.

As it turns out, the girl’s ordeal might have been prevented had she known more about her doctor. According to reports, Dr. Laney is an oral surgeon with no residency or fellowship in plastic surgery, he’s been sued for medical malpractice multiple times, and he’s been admonished by the state of Washington as well. State medical and dental boards also partially blamed him for the death of a man on whom he performed facial work.

Dr. Laney’s lawyer, Steve Fitzer, is arguing that all plastic surgery comes with risk, which the girl and her parents consented to. The girl’s parents contend their consent was not effective because they were not aware of Dr. Laney’s background.

Cases like this show the importance of empowering people to make informed decisions when hiring professionals. Maybe if this girl and her family had more access to breast reduction reviews, malpractice history and state disciplinary records, things would have turned out differently.

When you have a team of extraordinarily talented developers, sometimes they just can’t keep themselves from developing.

Case in point: Avvo’s new iPhone app “Last Call.”

Even though we didn’t have an iPhone app in the development budget, our development team went off in their spare time and built a prototype anyway. Once it was far enough along, they came to us and said, “Isn’t this cool? Can we have part of the budget to finish it?”

How could we say no. It was as though our development team had sketched the Mona Lisa and were simply asking to fill in the colors. Their prototype was full of too much genius to deny.

Well, their Mona Lisa is now finished, and we call her “Last Call.” Our press release is here; but, in a nutshell, Last Call is a *free* application that allows you to:

– Log your alcohol consumption as you drink.
– Monitor your estimated blood-alcohol level in real time.
– Find nearby taxi services if your blood-alcohol level is too high.
– Contact top Avvo-rated DUI attorneys if you need one.

What is great about Last Call is how easy it is to use. When you are out for a drink, you simply enter your weight and gender, and then log each of your drinks from an extensive menu. Last Call then estimates your real time blood alcohol content and alerts you if you are above the legal limit. And, possibly best of all, if you are above the limit, Last Call helps you find a taxi an Avvo top-rated DUI lawyer with the push of a button.

You have to try it out. Click here to get your free download of Avvo Last Call.

Mark

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