Coverage of Another Sanctioned Lawyer Sues Avvo
Last week Avvo was sued by Sanctioned Attorney, Larry Joe Davis, whose Avvo Rating reflects a Florida Bar sanction for failing to pay child support, failing to show up to court dates (twice) and obstructing the Bar’s disciplinary process. The resulting coverage by bloggers, the press and resulting twitterstorm has been fairly interesting.
From the ABA Journal
“Davis acknowledges the First Amendment is likely to be an issue in his libel claim, but he says he believes he’s a private figure. Even if a judge finds otherwise, Davis believes Avvo was reckless in handling his information. He also says the First Amendment won’t protect Avvo from claims of unauthorized use of likeness or unfair trade practices.”
From Above The Law:
“Unfortunately for Larry Joe Davis, he does not have a good number (a 3.7 out of 10). He is angry about it and, like any good American, expressed his anger in the form of a lawsuit. Larry Joe’s rambling 21-page complaint, which he of course filed pro se, makes him the latest of several plaintiffs to take a shot at Avvo, the Zagat-esque rating website for the legal industry. I haven’t read the other complaints, but I’m still sure his is the worst of the group.It reads like a Jack Kerouac novel, jumping around and running together, making it harder to follow than a screenplay-style blog post.”
From Consumer Affairs:
“If that wasn’t bad enough, the client told Davis that she called him “because he was the lowest rated employment lawyer” on Avvo.com, and none of the other lawyers had answered her call. The client thought that Davis, “being a poorly ranked lawyer, might answer her call (i.e. she assumed that [Davis] would be desperate for employment law clients).”
From Courthouse News
“Davis says he does not challenge Avvo’s subjective opinions, but its misrepresentations of facts and material omissions of “so-called public information.”
From California Personal Injury Blog
“Davis’ complaint appears bogus for a few important reasons. First, he was, in fact, sanctioned by the Florida State Bar, so their assessment was hardly false or misleading. Thus, asking the judge to censor this information would amount to little more than a violation of the company’s free speech protection.”
From Simple Justice:
“If I had to take a wild guess about such things, I would tend to go with Avvo. My experience is that they aren’t out to wreak havoc with the legal world, upon which they depend for their bread and butter.”
From TechDirt:
“Avvo hit back in a blog post highlighting some history that the lawyer in question, Joe Davis, probably doesn’t want to generate any more attention (such as being “twice convicted and spent eight days in the pokey”) and suggesting that it’s the desire to hide this info that is the real reason behind the lawsuit.”
From a TechFlash interview:
“As I have said many times before, we are shining a flashlight in dark places,” said Britton. “Not surprisingly, some are more comfortable in the dark.”
Finally – if you’d like to get into the vastly opinions on Avvo, from scathing critiques to the glowing support, dig into some of the comments on these posts.
