Ah . . . Valentine’s Day.  It’s never been my favorite holiday, and fortunately I have a wife who agrees.  I am a much bigger believer in random acts of romance and, even more simply, just being an attentive husband.  I can’t help but feel that simple things like spending time with my wife because I want to spend time with her carry more weight than a glittery box of chocolates, but that’s just me.

ANYWAY, I’m guessing that you didn’t dial-in today for relational advice.  Still, I want to add a little data to support the idea that maybe Valentine’s Day is not all that it’s cracked up to be:

First is the “Valentine’s Day Spike.”  For some time, we have noticed that divorce inquiries on Avvo spike right around Valentine’s Day.  So we decided to run the numbers:  Over the last two years, on average, we have seen a 40% spike in the number of requests for divorce lawyers around Valentine’s Day, compared to the previous six months.  It sounds crazy, but it clearly relates to lovers being disappointed by Valentine’s Day.  In addition to the lawyers in the release, I chatted with Jerome Wisselman from Wisselman Harounian & Associates PC in Great Neck, NY about the phenomenon, and he explained it as follows: “It’s a delayed reaction to the holidays.  Things really slow down during the holidays as people tend to delay big decisions – like a divorce – during the holidays.  This leads to pent up demand, and after the holiday passes unhappily married people feel freer – perhaps less guilty — and take action.”

Next, an (ahem) interesting website made its debut today.  It’s called “My Ex-Wife is Crazy” and you can find it at www.myexwifeiscrazy.com.  In short it is a place for ex-husbands who are still working through some divorce issues to rant.  We know the person behind the website (he’s based in Seattle), but he won’t let us disclose his identity.  Maybe most importantly, he is using the Avvo API to help his users find the right lawyer, if they need one.

Finally, we get some crazy questions, but this recent one left us all a bit slack-jawed in the office:

Q: My husband and I got married on a whim last month in Vegas. It was a huge mistake. It turns out my husband tricked me into eating a powerful aphrodisiac called “Soup #5″ at an Asian restaurant shortly before we got married. I’m convinced this soup impaired my judgment. Is this grounds for annulment?

View answer

But, alas, all is not lost.  You can always marry a lawyer (I did).  If you think your perfect mate may be a lawyer, Avvo’s “How to Date a Lawyer” guide uncovers the best places to meet single lawyers and reveals eleven crucial tips for having a relationship with one.  Enjoy!

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! 

Mark

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 . . .

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

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

As we head into 2011 (yes, 2011), I wanted to thank you for making 2010 such a great year for Avvo.  Not only did we launch our doctor rating product, we watched our lawyer-participation numbers grow significantly, with 60,000+ lawyers now actively participating and 2,000+ advertising on Avvo.  These are big numbers for a three-year-old company, and we could not have done it without you.  Whether you advertise with Avvo, answer questions, post legal guides, endorse your peers, or all of the above, thank you.  Thank you for your passion in helping your community, and kudos for being smart about building your online presence.   As I have said many times, “You can either be a smart Internet marketer or work for one in five years . . .” 

On that note, as always, please make sure that your Avvo Profile is as up-to-date as possible, as we will once again be pushing through our annual updates to the Avvo Rating on December 31^st.  These updates are due to community feedback and other global refinements to the Avvo Rating that we save until the end of the year.  The more up-to-date and robust your profile is, the less chance these changes will have a negative impact on your rating.

Here’s to a prosperous 2011 for all!

Regards,

Mark

On Friday, I had the pleasure of being on CNBC’s “Power Lunch.”  The topic was online, user-generated reviews of doctors, lawyers and others.  I was paired with the CEO of Medical Justice, Jeffrey Segal.  As loyal readers of the Avvo Blog may recall, we have never been a big fan of those Medical Justice agreements that attempt to restrict patients from leaving negative online reviews regarding their doctor.  We dislike them so much, we blogged about them twice. :-)   (See “Stone Age Thinking . . . No Opinions Unless I Like Them” and “Doctors Trying to Silence Patients”)

The interview focused on how websites can work to ensure the legitimacy of user-generated reviews, and Avvo was there to speak to best-practices.  And, while repetitive for some, I think these best-practices are worth repeating because I sincerely see Avvo as the gold-standard in client and patient reviews. 

• Avvo has strict Community Guidelines for its reviews, requiring that every review be factual, without personal attacks, etc.  We reject 35% of our reviews for violating these guidelines.
• Avvo requires every reviewer to register with the site.  As a consequence, Avvo does not have anonymous reviews.  While we may not disclose reviewers identities on the site, Avvo knows who they are and how to contact them.  This helps on the front end to ensure our reviews are legitimate; and it helps on the back-end if a doctor or lawyer disputes a review (see below).
• We have proprietary software that looks at every client and patient review once submitted.  You would be shocked at the silly things people do when attempting to leave fake reviews.  It is easy to train a computer to look for these silly things and flag it for Avvo Customer Care.
• We have a HUMAN look at EVERY review before it goes up.  That is why we ask to have 48 hours before we post a review.  This is expensive and takes a lot of time, but it is truly worth it.
• We have a process where we work with doctors and lawyers and their reviewers in the event that the professional disputes a review.  In a nutshell, once the professional contacts us, we remove the disputed review and contact the reviewer (because, unlike most sites, we have contact info for the reviewer).   If the reviewer does not respond, the review comes down.  If the reviewer wants to maintain the review, we will repost it.  However, often the reviewer will want to modify the review before we repost it based on reflection, the professional’s feedback, etc.
• Finally, doctors and lawyers can respond to any review – positive or negative – right on the site.  We put the response right under the patient or client review.  In particularly, this gives the professional the chance to address negative reviews thoughtfully and professionally, turning a potential negative into a positive.

Thanks again to CNBC for having Avvo on the show and recognizing our commitment to reviewing excellence.

Be Reviewed!

Mark

Someone get me a neck brace because, sadly, L. Joe David is swerving all over the legal road.  For those who just joined, L. Joe (not to be confused with J. Lo) sued us a couple of weeks ago alleging we defamed him.  Even though he had twice been found guilty of willfully refusing to pay court-ordered child support, failing to appear for his court dates and willfully obstructing the Florida Bar’s disciplinary process, L. Joe still felt our Avvo Rating of 3.7 “Caution” was not warranted.  As confusing as that may sound, wait: it gets better.

Only weeks after filing his original complaint, Larry Joe is suddenly feeling that maybe Avvo isn’t defaming him, but rather we are now invading his privacy and violating the Florida adverting rules.  And, possibly best of all, L. Joe is still complaining about things like Avvo getting his address wrong.  I wonder if he has ever sued because Burger King forgot to hold the lettuce. 

 You can read L. Joe’s latest legal masterpiece here. 

 Mark

p.s.  You can read Avvo’s press release here.

Let’s face it:  Lawyers don’t love us if they have a history of behaving badly.  We knew this would be the case when we launched Avvo, and it is still the case today.  Not surprisingly, these lawyers (in legal parlance, “sanctioned lawyers”) fear the transparency that Avvo offers and they attempt to snuff it.  Now, usually they just threaten to take us to court.  However, every now and then they actually sue.

Yep, that’s right . . . another sanctioned lawyer has sued Avvo.  When I say “another,” you may recall that nine days after we launched Avvo (yes nine days) a sanctioned lawyer named John Henry Browne sued us for, in his view, misleading Washington consumers.  Interestingly, he asked for damages for himself rather than the aggrieved consumers, but that’s another story.  Fortunately, a federal judge saw Mr. Browne’s complaint for what it was and threw it out on a Motion to Dismiss.

Our current plaintiff, Joe Davis has filed a similarly misguided complaint.  It is a 25-page manifesto presumably intended to bully Avvo (you can see it here).  Sadly, not a word of it speaks to the real issue: that Mr. Davis was sanctioned by the Florida State Bar in 2007 and he doesn’t want you to know about it.  And I get it — Mr. Davis has had some serious problems involving child support payments and failing to appear for court dates – so much so that he was twice convicted and spent eight days in the pokey (you can read more about it here).  He was also found to have willfully obstructed the Florida Bar’s disciplinary process relating to these matters.  I wouldn’t want people to know about these things either.

But that is not how the modern informational age works.  Thanks in large part to the informational behemoths like Google and Microsoft, all sorts of information that was once locked away is being digitized and democratized for consumers.  What once may have taken a trip to the courthouse or a public information request is now a simple Google search away.  Those that have something to hide hate this.  Those that don’t range from ecstatic to indifferent.

But here’s the kicker:  Wherever you fall on this spectrum is irrelevant, because it’s not about you.  It’s about those consumers who are buying your products and services.  They have a right to know the good and the bad, and increasingly they demand to see it.  Sites like Yelp, Zillow, TripAdvisor and Avvo have not prospered simply out of the ether.  They have prospered because they give consumers more information and better guidance than they have ever had access to before.  In specific regard to Davis v. Avvo, while consumers have a right to know all of the highlights of Mr. Davis’ resume (which he dutifully shares here), they also have a right to know of his misconduct.

As I have said many times before, we are shining a flashlight in dark places.  Not surprisingly, some are more comfortable in the dark.

Avvo issued a press release regarding this lawsuit today.  You can find it here:  “Avvo Sued By Another Sanctioned Lawyer .”  Thanks to everyone who has already offered their support.  We look forward to a speedy resolution to this deceptive lawsuit and all of the silliness it brings.

Mark

[Note:  Updated at 9:01 a.m. 8/31/10 based on comment below]

Recently, the Lawyerist had a short but interesting article on lawyers using video chat to communicate with clients (“Is Video Conferencing Part of Your Practice”).  Now, just mentioning “video chat” and “clients” in the same sentence will make many lawyers crumple their noses into a risk-averse mess.  “It is so impersonal,” they say (forgetting they use the telephone) or “I (or my clients) don’t really know how to use it,” or “I’m a lawyer, not an Internet-obsessed teenager.”  These and similar arguments are probably what caused the Lawyerist to call this the more-sophisticated “video conferencing” rather than “video chat.”

On some level all of these arguments have merit.  However, the reality is that, as the 15-35 set becomes the core of our consuming public, video chat among everyone – personal or professional – will be commonplace.  And lawyers are not immune.  Even today, I would much rather pull up Skype to meet with my lawyer on a face-to-face issue rather than driving all the way over to her office, parking, etc. (or paying her by the hour to do the same).  Even if we need to review a document together, nothing prevents us from looking at different digital copies at the same time.

Not to hurt anyone’s feelings, but I don’t really need to see my attorneys’ faces on a regular basis (except the ones I socialize with).  I know what they look like and what their offices look like.  We can handle every important matter over the phone, and never am I put off that I haven’t seen their corporeal being for months, if not years.   To the contrary, it appeals to my tightwad nature.  If I’m not seeing my lawyers, they are probably not charging me.

All of that being said, I appreciate it when one of my attorneys reaches out and says, “We haven’t seen each other for awhile.  Let’s grab lunch.”  Or, “Mind if I stop by for 15 minutes to shoot the breeze?”  While I don’t *need* them to do this, I appreciate that they are reaching out and inherently telling me that I am important to them.  And, maybe part of that appreciation stems from the fact that I know they don’t have the time to do this for all their clients, lest they forget to practice law.

So let’s accept the following:

• Most clients are similar to me and like lawyers to unexpectedly reach out and throw them some non-billable love now and then. 
• You can’t be reaching out to all of your clients all of the time.  And, if you have a regional, national or international practice, forget about it.
• Even for important matters, digital communication is more efficient than in-person meetings. 

If you accept each or even most of these assumptions, then what is the next-best-thing to stopping by?  If it were letters, we wouldn’t have the phone.  If it were the phone, we wouldn’t have the Internet or video chat.  The fact is, video is exponentially growing in popularity because it is the next best thing to being there.  With very little investment, both parties get real time, face-to-face communication.  No one needs to commute, clean their office, boil a pot of coffee, whatever.  You simply turn from your email, phone call or meeting, and with a few clicks your client (or your lawyer) is sitting there.  When you are done, no need to walk anyone to the door or engage in idle chitchat while waiting for the elevator.  A simple “thanks for the time” and click of the mouse will do.  Best of all, the enterprising lawyer will be able to do many more video visits than they could ever do in person – especially if their client is thousands of miles away. 

While video chat may not be a necessity for your practice today, it will be tomorrow.  And the more that you can utilize it today — especially with tech-savvy clients – the better off you will be both in time and quality of client contact.

Video killed the radio star.

Mark

Many restaurants (especially those attempting to charge a premium for their services) require waiters to take your order without writing anything down.  This is typically accompanied by clasped hands and a soft “of course” with each order.  While this is elegant and impressive, in my experience the memorizing waiter forgets some detail of my table’s order roughly half the time.  This leads to a sotto voce drive-by with a mumble of “Was that a Caesar salad, sir?” or “That was medium on the steak correct?” 

Partly because I was a waiter once, and partly because the waiters don’t make the rules, I always politely reply that it was “mixed, not Caesar” or “medium rare, not medium.”  Still, on the inside, I am a bit miffed.  I think, “How hard could it be to write it down?”  I’m all for elegance and cool memorization tricks, but when the waiter is back two minutes later with questions, the aura lifts.

Being an associate in a law firm is a lot like being a waiter (and consecutively a cook as well).  You are constantly taking orders from multiple partners and clients, and you are supposed to take all of those orders back to your closet-sized office and mix them into a delicious legal bisque.  Whether it is an offering document or a motion to dismiss, your ability to get all of these orders right is a trick.  And if you fail to remember or understand these orders, clients and superiors will seldom be quietly miffed. They will be downright hostile.

So, how does one best avoid such hostilities?  Write it down.  Write down everything that is important regarding the order you are taking.  Don’t be panicked or in a hurry.  Calmly take notes, ask questions and make sure you understand the essence of every requested ingredient.  For me, I carry a spiral-bound notebook with me everywhere I go in the office.  This pad is critical for a couple of reasons:  First, in many Avvo meetings, I am tasked with multiple follow-up items.  In a fast-paced environment like Avvo or a law firm or corporation, the tasks quickly stack-up each day and my or anyone else’s ability to remember the increasing to-do list is close to impossible.  Studies show that your short-term memory can typically store seven or so items for roughly 15 to 30 seconds without certain memorization tools.  If you are like me, you can store half the items for half the time.

Second, short-term memory aside, I see writing things down as a sign of respect and efficiency.  On the respect side, whether it is a client, employee or superior, writing things down says “I am listening to you, I respect this task and I intend to get it done correctly.”  Just go back to a client for the same information a couple of times and surely they will wonder whether they are getting the respect they deserve.  On the efficiency side, for an organization to run efficiently, people cannot constantly be guessing at instructions or asking others to repeat themselves.  I am reminded of Kevin Kline in the still-fabulous movie, “A Fish Called Wanda.”  Kevin, playing the role of new-age philosophical idiot “Otto,” responded to most important instructions with “What was the middle part?”

Whether you are an associate, paralegal, partner or CEO, don’t be Otto.

Especially for associates, partners seldom have the time or patience to revisit instructions/issues which are probably simple to them and completely foreign to you.  In my old firms, I would often have a tough time getting a partner’s time for additional information, as they were making requests from other time zones and expected the perfect answer on their desks when they arrived from their red-eye in the morning.  There is no worse feeling than being a younger lawyer, sitting at your desk, and thinking, “I’m not sure what [insert powerful partner’s name] is asking, but I can’t go ask her again.”  It’s an even worse feeling if you know the task is not hard, but you just can’t remember all of the facts, issues or requests that the partner laid-out in his drive-by assignment shooting.

So, write it down and save yourself some stress and increase your efficiency and competency.  With your orders solidly recorded and defined, you can then go back to your office, put on your chef’s hat and enjoy adding just the right ingredients to your bisque.

Mark