In her post “Martindale follows Avvo’s lead“, Carolyn Elefant writes about Martindale’s new client review feature. It’s hard to say whether or not Martindale was influenced directly by Avvo’s client ratings, though it’s flattering to think we had some impact.

What is clear is that this is yet another indication of the impact the Internet is having on industry after industry. What started out merely as the ability for anyone to express an opinion about a service or product, is evolving into an expectation that these opinions are available. If they aren’t, then consumers will go elsewhere to get their information. And while Martindale’s feature seems to me somewhere between a “testimonial” and a client review — according to Elephant’s blog, law firms can “hand-pick” clients to participate — this is certainly a sign that consumers of legal services are demanding more transparency than they have seen in the past.

Can user generated content be trusted? The answer to this is perhaps less important if you’re viewing videos on YouTube, photos on Flikr, or sharing updates with friends on Facebook. However, when it comes to medical or legal matters, the question takes on a different level of importance.

The Economist recently published an interesting article entitled Health 2.0 (subscription may be required). In it, they cite a Jupiter study that more than 20% of American internet users have created some soft of health-related content. More significantly, in my opinion, they point to research by the Pew Internet & American Life Project that the upside of health-related UGC outweighs the risks, stating that 1/3 of the people who have looked for health information online say they or people they know have been significantly helped by what they found, while only three percent reported that online advice had caused serious harm. Perhaps more telling, only six percent of the content in the epilepsy-support group on the website Braintalk was factually wrong, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal.

We at Avvo believe that user generated content, such as client ratings and peer endorsements, are valuable to help consumers make an informed decision when choosing a lawyer. And while reviewing user generated content is only one of several steps consumers should take when selecting a lawyer, it’s encouraging to see that research is validating the overall quality of user generated content being published on the web.

By now you may have heard about the lawsuit filed by Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers against God, for causing “fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues” and more. If you aren’t up to speed on this, you can enjoy the AP Story about it. Mr. Chambers was trying to make a point about frivolous lawsuits and the fact that anyone could be sued for pretty much anything. Well, not that God needs a lawyer, but if he did he might be familiar with the following attorneys:

Arthur Angel
Jesus Cadena
Moses Lebovits
Mohammed Bidar
William Priest Jr.
Abraham Brown

Mark and I spent a few days last week at the American Bar Association Annual Meeting in San Francisco–an intimate gathering of our 9,000 closest friends. We headed down mostly to get a sense for the top-of-mind issues lawyers are talking about, and to meet some of the folks from the ABA. It turned out to be a valuable and eye-opening trip.

In addition to enjoying some excellent Chinese food at Hunan Home, we had the opportunity to chat with several past, current, and future leaders of the ABA. Bob Hirshon, one of Avvo’s legal advisors and former ABA president, hosted a great dinner at The Slanted Door, including Laura Farber and Brian Mendelez (both former presidents of the Young Lawyers Division), Michael Bedke, Bob’s son Jason, and several others.

We also met with several leaders from the Law Practice Management section, including Micah Buchdahl (who gave an excellent presentation on web marketing), Walter Karnstein, and Larry Smith.

We had a great conversation with Will Hornsby, staff attorney at the ABA, regarding bar rules on advertising and how they have evolved since the landmark Bates v. Arizona decision. This was a pretty hot topic of discussion, with some very insightful comments during the Ethics in Advertising panel from Micah, Susan Kay, Rodney Smolla.

One of the more interesting discussions I had was with Jeffrey Aresty, who has been working to establish an Internet Bar whose purpose is “to address issues associated with the practice of law in cyberspace and with harmonizing laws internationally that affect human rights starting with privacy, identity theft and e-commerce, and other issues that may emerge as globalization and virtual practices advance”. Talk about a big vision.

While researching Avvo, consumers told us unequivocally that they wanted the ability to read what former clients had to say about their experiences with specific lawyers. Some in the legal community, however, questioned whether client ratings would really be useful to consumers. After all, wouldn’t only dissatisfied clients take the time to submit a rating? And do consumers really know if they should be satisfied with a lawyer’s work? Won’t clients that “lose” their case be dissatisfied, even if the lawyer represented their case well?

At least those were some of the assumptions.

Six weeks after our launch, consumers have submitted over 1,500 client ratings to Avvo. And 80% of them are positive. The number doesn’t surprise me, as it is in line with the findings from an Ipsos survey that we commissioned – namely, that only 12% of consumers surveyed were not satisfied with their lawyer’s performance. But it may surprise those who assumed that the ratio of positive to negative ratings would be reversed. Here are a couple of examples (click on the Client Ratings tab on each profile):

http://www.avvo.com/attorneys/92008-ca-randall-walton-305156.html

http://www.avvo.com/attorneys/95032-ca-j-peironnet-285977.html

There are a couple of points to take away from this. First: perception and reality can be worlds apart, particularly regarding relatively new and unfamiliar technologies. Second: lawyers who embrace the Internet – including new features like client ratings — as a marketing vehicle have a lot to gain. Every lawyer knows that a client referral is the most powerful way to attract new clients, and client ratings enable those referrals to be broadcast to the world. Particularly for solos and small-firm lawyers, there may be no more powerful marketing tool available to them.

On a related note…we’ve been asked if we post every client rating we receive. Our policy is to post every client rating submitted, unless in our opinion it:
• Includes profanity or other offensive language
• Appears to be a personal attack rather than a comment on professional skills
• Includes serious accusations that are not supported by specific facts
• Has the appearance of not being submitted by an actual client

To date we have declined to post a relatively small percentage of those submitted to us, which I think reflects that most consumers want to provide meaningful and helpful information to others who are looking for an attorney.

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve had the opportunity to participate in podcasts with some well-known legal bloggers.

Last week Mark spent around 90 minutes on Denise Howell’s This Week in Law podcast, with other guests Ernie Svenson, Dennis Kennedy and Mazyar Hadayat.

This week, both Mark and I chatted with J. Craig Williams and Robert Ambrogi on their Lawyer 2 Lawyer podcast.

If you’re interested in learning more about Avvo, the reasons for creating the website, and our thinking on some of the issues that have been raised since we launched in early June, I think you’ll enjoy both programs.

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…so much so that 25 million of them decided to avoid the process altogether.

Surely there are other factors, but my sense is that currently these are some of the biggest drivers. I’m sure there are other perspectives on this issue, and I’d love to hear both lawyers’ and non-lawyers thoughts on why consumers remain so lost in making this very important decision.

Some attorneys have voiced concerns on needing a credit card in order to claim their profile.  Now, given the number of lawyers who have already claimed their profile, it appears that more people are comfortable with the credit card verification than not.  Still, for everyone that may be concerned, I want to make sure that we are all on the same page. 

We use the credit card solely as part of our verification process.  We then store a randomly encrypted card number so we can flag if someone tries to claim multiple profiles – like a hacker bot.  But we cannot read or even retrieve the credit card number once it is encrypted.   Because we use the credit card just for verification, we do NOT: 

• Charge money to your card
• Run a credit check
• Sell any card information to third parties
• Store the card number 

The credit card company will put a temporary $1.00 “hold” on your card (required by the credit card company as part of the card verification), though this will disappear typically within 24 hours. You won’t be charged and Avvo doesn’t receive any payment. 

We implemented this credit card verification procedure to help keep every lawyer’s profile secure, and I think it is the most responsible thing we can do for right now. Still, we are looking into alternative ways for lawyers to claim a profile. 

Mark did a radio interview last week with the talk show host and estate planning attorney Bob Pittman.  Bob really likes the product and, on the show, he said that he likes the credit card verification process.   

Any thoughts from other attorneys out there?