Back in November, I wrote an article for the Huffington Post entitled, “Health Care, Commerce and Kevin Bacon” which focused on the Constitutional challenge to the Affordable Health Care for America Act (often referred to as the “Healthcare Bill” or, for those less enamored of universal healthcare, “Obamacare”) by 20 State Attorney Generals.  In that article, I speculated that the AGs were on shaky ground, as follows:

“I am no constitutional scholar; but it appears the state AGs have a couple of problems: First, “acts of omission” — where someone acts by not acting — are well established in the legal field. For example, if you sat back and watched someone drown when you could have saved them, everyone would agree that you have acted by not acting and should probably be punished for it.

Second, the Commerce Clause over the years has greatly expanded from the limited language drafted by James Madison 223 years ago. I think of the Commerce Clause as the Constitutional equivalent of the trivia game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” Even if you are not a Footloose fan (everybody cut, everybody cut . . .), you have probably heard of the game where someone names an actor and another person has to link him or her to Kevin Bacon within six steps using the actor’s various film roles.

As for the Commerce Clause version of SDKB (hey, if a health care law has a fancy acronym, then so should any game involving Kevin Bacon), it seems that depending on how the political winds are blowing, a court could come up with a way to link just about any activity to interstate commerce in six steps or less. For example, in a similar time (the depression) involving similarly sweeping legislation (the New Deal’s Agricultural Adjustment Act), the Supreme Court held that, if you grow wheat on your own land and even for your own consumption, your wheat farming activity could affect interstate commerce by affecting the demand and thus price for wheat.

So, how the AG’s Commerce Clause arguments fare depends on whether the assigned federal judge in Florida leans more towards James Madison or Kevin Bacon.”

Well, I’ll be possum in a gator parade*.  Federal Judge Roger Vinson of the Northern District of Florida not only overturned the Heathcare Bill’s individual mandate but went on to strike the entire law on Constitutional grounds.  According to Judge Vison, “ . . . the individual mandate and the remaining provisions are all inextricably bound together in purpose and must stand or fall as a single unit.”

Wow.  Obviously, Judge Vinson and his clerks did not read my HuffPo article or we would be reading an entirely different ruling on this matter (please note sarcasm).  Still, my speculation may come to fruition as this sure-to-be-appealed opinion works its way through the judicial (and political) system.  We are in the first inning of a very long public policy ballgame.  Better grab some peanuts – this is going to be interesting.

Mark

*I have no idea what this means, but it felt sufficiently Southern to express my surprise.  If anyone finds this accurate or witty, I would like to expressly claim all copyright at this time.  I can see the t-shirts already . . .

Here at Avvo, we make every effort to make it easier for consumers everywhere to find the right doctor or lawyer. It’s with that goal in mind that we offer partnerships and syndication opportunities to everything from Boomerator, an advice network for Baby Boomers, to Topix, a hyperlocal news and information provider. We’re excited about the partnerships we’ve built, but we’ve only scratched the surface of what can be done with the data we’ve collected on Avvo. It’s for that reason that I’m proud to introduce the Avvo API.

The Avvo API provides a way for developers to build their own sites and applications on top of the information contained on Avvo. Whether it’s showing a list of doctors who specialize in a medical condition your users are researching, to creating a map of the places in the U.S. with the best health care (as measured by Avvo Rating, of course!), you’ll be able to use the Avvo API to help you build it.

Excited to try it out? We’ve provided documentation at api.avvo.com. When you’re ready to get started, you can contact us to get access to the API. From api.avvo.com, you can get all the information and examples you need to use the API in your own apps. Write code in Ruby? We’ve built a wrapper around the API to get you up and running as quickly as possible. The code is hosted on github (where you can also see examples), and it can be installed by running:

gem install avvo_api

So browse the documentation, take a look at the examples, contact us if you need help, and build something cool!

“Avvo’s link is as good as [a link from] a shoe store.” – Mark Astarita

I recently had an interesting debate on Solosez with Attorney, Mark Astarita, regarding the value of the link coming from an Avvo profile to a professional’s website.  During the discussion, it became clear to me that while people may know that “links” are important, there is limited understanding of how they impact search results.

First, some background.  The search engines use the quantity and quality of links pointing to a given website or page to determine how that page should rank.  For example, there are literally millions of pages about Divorce – search engines rely heavily on the number and quality of links pointing to any given page about Divorce when determining how well each page should rank for the search query “Divorce”.  Not all links are created equal, and while there are a myriad different factors, here are three of the most important:

• Anchor text – the words in the actual link.  Anchor text that matches a specific query helps the page rank for that query.  In this link example:  divorce, the word “divorce” is the anchor text and that link will help (although just a tiny bit) Avvo’s page for divorce to rank for queries around “divorce”.
• Quality of links – links from highly authoritative domains (like the Wall Street Journal) are more valuable than links from less authoritative domains (like www.ConradIsAwesome.com).  Domain authority is often described using the 1-10 logarithmic scale from Google called Page Rank.  Additionally, the relevance of the referring domain is important – so that a link to a doctor’s site from the American Medical Association is more valuable than a link for that doctor’s site from a shoe store (from our example above.)
• Domain Diversity – the number of different domains linking to a given page is valuable.  Simply put, 1 link on 10 different domains confers more authority than 10 links on 1 domain.

As links became so effective in helping sites rank, some SEOs started abusing opportunities to create links.  For example, blog comments became full of spammy links for Viagra and gambling.  In order to counteract this, most sites with user generated content (like Avvo) now attach a “no follow” command to links.  This command tells the search engines to remove the SEO value of that link.  While almost all of the Avvo links have this no follow command, the link to a lawyer’s website doesn’t and therefore provides SEO value.

If you’d like a cursory review of how your site performs from a link perspective, you can use a tool from seomoz called Open Site Explorer which highlights anchor text, link quality and domain diversity in their reporting.  (You’ll get limited data with their free access.)  The free results for Avvo’s homepage are below.

What this means for a lawyer or doctor’s website:

The link from your profile on Avvo can really boost your site’s SEO authority.  While you can’t customize the anchor text, you do increase your site’s authority by getting a link from a highly authoritative (high Page Rank) and highly relevant (Avvo is focused exclusively on legal and medical content) website.  This is particularly valuable for a recently created professional website that has a very limited domain diversity profile.  Additionally, if you are a large law firm or hospital Avvo can generate hundreds or even thousands of links to your site, one from each of your professionals’ profile page, albeit from the same domain.

You can learn more about domain diversity in the following great articles:

• Domain Diversity Key Metric for High Search Engine Rankings (great description of the theory from Natural Search Blog)
• Get the Domain Diversity You Want (from SEOmoz)
• Link Valuation Domain Diversity (from Law Firm SEO Blog by Gyi Tsakalakis)

After you’ve claimed your profile get some tips for improving your Avvo Rating and attracting potential patients. In this video, we’ll walk you through the profile and highlight the most important types of information to include in each section. Still have questions? Feel free to contact us, we’re happy to help!

As part of our effort to make it easier for consumers everywhere to access Avvo’s legal resources, we are now partnering with Boomerater, a fast-growing online advice network for Baby Boomers. Boomerater users can now access the Avvo legal directory within the site itself. For example, a Boomerater user in Boston looking for advice on getting remarried can easily click over to an Avvo-powered page of lawyers who can help them with a prenuptial.

Boomerater did a really nice job integrating the Avvo directory, and is the latest site to use Avvo’s API to easily access and republish Avvo data. Please reach out to me directly if you have any questions about how the Avvo API works.

Avvo participant Beverly wrote in to offer Avvo lawyers hugs.  Here they come everyone.  What a great way to start the week.  :-)

“Hello…I just wanted to take the time to praise the attorneys who participate on your site. I have been spared hours of research and stress with their freely given quick responses to questions I have asked. I’d give them a hug is I could; thumbs up just doesn’t seem to be enough.

Therefore, I also give +10 for your site. It is to the point without garbage ads, easy to understand, and easy to use. The only difficulty I had was finding how to contact you to let you know. You all should be very proud of yourselves.

Thank you very much.”

Thank you for the kind words, Beverly.  And thank you to every attorney who participates in Avvo and makes it such a special place.  I would like to hug you too . . .

Mark

Recently one of my clients and I were going over his Avvo profile together.  We were working on updates to his profile, and of course, the Avvo Rating came into play.  I made a few suggestions – adding new Awards, updating Associations and Work Experience, and of course, getting those ever-valuable Peer Endorsements and Client Reviews.  My client stopped me here and said, “That’s why I like Avvo so much.  Anyone can get on here and write about me, so people trust it.”

When you look for a babysitter, you’re not going to trust just anyone.  You can interview the top candidate from any nanny agency, selecting applicants based off of education, experience, or date of CPR Certification.  But the best resume in the world won’t make your decision for you.  You’ll want to ask your friends, neighbors, and family members who they trust – how their own kiddos’ sitter behaves and interacts with them and their children.  You’ll want to know, from someone in your position, what you can expect and who you can trust.

The legal world can be complex, daunting, and difficult for non-lawyers to navigate.  But the basic premise of word-of-mouth is still the strongest advertising campaign out there.  Your prospective clients will review your profile, your practice areas, and your Avvo Rating.  But our studies show that the most important part of the Avvo Profile to your prospective clients is the client review section.

So how can you make the most out of old-fashioned word-of-mouth marketing while online?  Sign in to your Avvo Profile, and select the “Edit My Profile” tab.  Scroll down to the “References” section, and just beneath the “Client Reviews” heading, select “Request.”  This will prompt you to send a basic, fully customizable email to your past and current clients, inviting them to view your Avvo Profile and review your legal services.

These client reviews will be read by our Customer Care team, and, when approved, posted in the References section of your Profile.  If you’re an Avvo Pro member, you can hand-select client reviews to feature in your Profile Introduction for even more visibility.

You’ve worked hard to build a practice worth sharing.  Use Client Reviews to let your legal expertise speak for itself.

Clearly, the Internet is revolutionizing the way that the consumer population interfaces with healthcare professionals.  It’s also altering the way the lay community absorbs and digests medical information and trends.  No other generation has had access to the absolute plethora of health information, diagnostic material and clinical definitions – all at the click of a button – the way that today’s “patient” does.  While this is both a blessing and a curse, it is indisputable that the healthcare information paradigm has been permanently changed.  The result?  The general populace has become “liberated” from their doctors.  Patients are enjoying a false sense of empowerment as they “believe” that they can replace the counsel and clinical evaluation of a personal physician with the almighty medical “think” that permeates the Web.   This element of the digitized healthcare environment is not only questionable, it is downright unsafe to patients.  And, it’s also wholly threatening to the role of the local doctor.  Consumers are directly at risk of improperly “self-diagnosing,” instead of relying on the knowledge, experience and credibility of a real, credentialed practitioner – and doctors are at risk of losing their practice’s patient base.

So, how can something such as the Internet which is “so good” in terms of the information retrieval that it makes possible, also be “so bad” for the medical community that it threatens physician reputations and livelihood?

The equation is complicated – and there are valid reasons for the medical community to be both thankful for and fearful of the Internet.  The digital revolution has made possible wonderful and very necessary advancements in healthcare administration, research, and patient care protocols.  Doctors can more easily track and peer-share the latest medical breakthroughs, efficiently access and control patient record-keeping and file management, and ensure more accurate prescription writing – just to mention a few of the obvious and huge benefits of the online influence.  These developments have clearly streamlined and measurably improved critical aspects of healthcare and clinical management.  On the flipside, physicians have good reason to fear that patients will shift loyalty from their local MD to “WebMD.”

The balance lies at the mid-point – by putting patients in touch with credible resources to find the right doctors and have access to these trusted physicians through online forums such as this one in order to obtain an informed clinical perspective.   Like anything in technology or business related to major social change, “moderation is a good thing.”  Too much unfiltered and unqualified information in laymen’s hands can be dangerous, and it is absolutely critical that doctors align with resources online that follow high, defensible standards and offer the appropriate channels for patient-doctor relationship building, peer reviewing, networking and, ultimately, marketing.   

Doctors need to wage nothing short of a public relations campaign to reinforce their rightful and respected central role in the diagnostic and clinical stratosphere.  Patients have too many reasons in today’s complex healthcare climate to lose respect for their physicians — unexplained high-pricing, unreimbursed insurance claims, conflicting clinical opinions, overly easy access to medical information “presented” as believable when it isn’t,  are only a few examples.  

Doctors need to actively give consumers a reason to think otherwise by tapping reliable, controlled resources to dialog directly with prospective patients and provide the actual clinic guidance to accompany the information that patients are seeking on their own.

Avvo challenges physicians to rethink their own role and evaluate whether they are going to let the Internet hijack respect for their profession. Those who are complacent will only have themselves to answer to – because the digital revolution won’t wait long for them to rethink the way they manage the online dynamic and move to a place of proactive responsibility.

Mark

I’d like to invite you to the world’s best legal technology conference, Avvocating – Advanced Online Marketing Training for Lawyers – May 19-20 in Orlando.  This is unlike any legal conference you’ve ever been to, providing attorneys with direct exposure to the individuals shaping the future of technology. Learn advanced online marketing tactics from technology giants like Facebook, Microsoft, Google, LinkedIn, Avvo and Apple.  Attendees will walk away packed with cutting edge information on the hottest tools, techniques and technologies to drive their business success.

What You Will Get

• Roll-up your sleeves, hands on tactics you can implement immediately.
• Advanced product demonstrations of the hottest technologies directly from companies including Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft.
• Usable tactics to proactively manage your Online Reputation.
• Sophisticated ability to manage online marketing yourself or get the most out of consultants.

What You Won’t Get

• Thinly veiled legal industry vendor pitches.
• Ivory tower prognostications about the Internet.
• Social media gurus showing off their twitter follower count.

I look forward to meeting you in person, May 19 and 20.  Save $100 by booking before March.  Sign up and learn more here.

-Conrad

This Thursday at 1PM ET/10AM PT, we’re pleased to kick off our 2011 Legal Marketing Webinars with guest host, Kendall Coffey.

Former Southern District of Florida U.S. Attorney, a prominent legal commentator and currently partner at Coffey Burlington in Miami, Kendall will discuss how lawyers can best navigate today’s media landscape to maximize exposure or minimize publicity, to best help their case.

Kendall represented Al Gore in the 2000 election recount and the family of Elian Gonzalez, among many other high profile litigants.  His new book – Spinning the Law: Trying Cases in the Court of Public Opinion (Prometheus Books, 2010 — with an introduction by Alan Dershowitz) provides unique insight on the role of media spin the American justice system.

Lawyers who attend this webinar will learn:

• Why freedom of the press undermines the right to a fair trial.
• Techniques for reducing the devastating impact of pretrial publicity.
• How the cases of the 2000 election recount and Elian Gonzalez illustrate the power of a strong media message.
• How the trial of O.J. Simpson sparked a media revolution.
• Why defense lawyers are the “underdogs” of the justice system and how you can change that.
• Key media tactics used by the defense in the high-profile cases against Scott Peterson, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jackson and Martha Stewart.

We hope you can join us – sign up here!