Avvo Releases New Q&A Features for Lawyers and Doctors
Over the past few weeks, we’ve launched a series of changes to improve our Q&A product. Already the largest free legal and health question and answer forum on the web – receiving more than 50,000 contributions each month – these changes are designed to make it easier for doctors and lawyers to be notified when new questions are asked, improve the efficiency of answering questions and provide a mechanism for conversation to occur.
Immediate question notifications
We have had strong feedback from lawyers and doctors for e-mail notifications as soon as question is asked. So, we’ve extended all of our subscriptions to offer two types of frequency:
- Immediate — as soon as a question is asked in your subscription, we send you an e-mail. Use this option if you want to be among the first to know.
- Daily digest — we’ll roll up all questions asked in subscription into a single daily e-mail. Use this option if you want to limit the number of e-mails Avvo sends to you.
To sign up, pull down the “My Avvo” menu in the top right corner, choose “Subscriptions”, and select “Immediate e-mail”.
Answer disclaimer
We’ve noticed many doctors and lawyers copying and pasting a custom disclaimer to each of their answers. We’ve decided to save you the step. Now, you can store this disclaimer with Avvo, and we’ll add it to all new answers going forward. Here is what it looks like:
There are two ways to use this:
Option 1: The next time you’re answering a question, look for this bit of UI:
Once you set it on one question, it’ll be there for every answer. You can always edit it, as you need to.
Option 2: Pull down the “My Avvo” menu in the top right corner, choose “Account Settings”, and look for the “Answer Disclaimer” section.
Answer question by e-mail
If you sign up for immediate notifications, you have the added advantage of being able to answer the question by simply replying to the e-mail. We’ll automatically append any disclaimer (see above) you have on your account, attribute the answer to you, and assign any points due towards contribution levels. Just click reply and type up an answer — we’ll do the rest.
Improved answer voting
We’ve made a few changes here. We have decided to change our interface from a thumbs up/down to an arrow indication. These votes will then determine sort order of answers in the display. To minimize gaming, we’ve decided to require the user be registered on Avvo to participate in voting. And, we’ve started putting a face behind the vote, if you are a professional.
Answer comments
We’ve introduced comments on answers. This allows a discussion to occur for any given answer without providing a new answer. Since launch, we’re seeing it as a way for users to thank the attorneys and doctors for providing great advice. As well, we’re seeing additional follow-up details provided about the specific situation the asker is dealing with. And, finally, we’re seeing professionals discuss the finer points of an answer:
So, that’s it for now. Try them out and send any feedback our way. We’re always listening.
April 23rd, 2011 at 9:25 pm
I like the lawyer voting on answers. One problem I have noticed is that lawyers from other jurisdictions (usually ones who are trying to answer a large number of questions) sometimes give bad advice because they don’t know the quirky things that exist in Pennsylvania. For example, most civil judgments are not subject to wage attachment and property held by a husband and wife cannot usually be levied for a judgment against one of them.
Wrong answers need to be corrected.
CLT
April 25th, 2011 at 12:32 pm
I definitely like the feature of lawyers voting on other lawyers’ answers – I think it can be a useful indicator for lay questioners that the answer they got is (or is not) respected by other professionals.
What I don’t like, and what I don’t think is particularly useful, is identifying the voting lawyers by name and face. It creates a sort of social stigma disincentive to voting down bad (or even terrible) answers; and a potential incentive to vote up bad answers. I think this feature should be turned off. I think the fact that a registered, logged-in lawyer voted on something should be enough, and the vote should remain anonymous. Questioners and Answerers would still have the knowledge that other lawyers think the answer is good or bad, and voting attorneys would be protected from potential retribution (good or bad) from the lawyers on whose answers they’ve voted.
April 25th, 2011 at 1:52 pm
[...] begun to integrate the service with social media. I’m indifferent to the social media integration but am leery of the Q&A service. Do lawyers really want to be answering legal questions from strangers on the [...]