Avvo exists to help consumers who are lost when faced with choosing a lawyer. But, I think it is worth asking why they are so lost, or why it’s easier to find information and opinion on health providers and restaurants than it is on lawyers. Scott Greenfield’s post Good Questions Coming from the Avvo Debate has an interesting discussion on the pros and cons of the different ways that people choose lawyers, but few others have addressed the topic. To shed some light on the issue, I’d like to share some of the results from a recent Ipsos survey that we sponsored:
* Only 17% of American adults say it is easy to research detailed information about attorneys
* Only 17% of American adults say they are very confident in their ability to choose the right attorney
* Over the past two years, 25 million Americans were faced with a situation in which they considered hiring an attorney, but they didn’t because they didn’t know how to choose one.
Clearly the status quo isn’t working, and these numbers are not good for consumers or attorneys. There’s no simple explanation, but in my opinion, here are some of the reasons:
* Consumers approach the decision of choosing a lawyer with a general apprehension towards the legal industry. In a recent Gallup survey asking consumers about their perceptions of various industries, the legal industry came up fourth from last. (What’s interesting, however, is that our Ipsos survey showed that only 12% of consumers who actually used a lawyer were dissatisfied with the service they received. So there is a serious gap between perception and reality when it comes to working with lawyers).
* For many years, the Yellow Pages were the most frequently used source for finding a lawyer, behind only personal referrals. Yellow Pages ads may tell consumers about a lawyer’s years of experience and possibly some awards, but how many include a lawyer’s disciplinary history, or comments from former clients? In short, there hasn’t been a source of information that shows the good and, if relevant, the not-so-good, about a lawyer.
* Over the past few years, more and more consumers are doing their research on the Internet. However, while the Internet makes it possible to find information on virtually any subject you can think of, that doesn’t hold true for researching lawyers. One big reason for this appears to be that of the approximately 400,000 solo practitioners in the U.S. today, a whopping 60% still do not have a web site according to a recent ABA study.
I think these three things contribute greatly to consumers being lost when choosing a lawyer. The general apprehension of consumers towards lawyers, the reliance on the Yellow Pages ads, and the large number of lawyers without a presence on the Internet they all combine to leave consumers in a world of hurt
