Comments on: This Solo Has No Problem With Avvo

By: SHG

SHG — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 11:16:09 +0000

“bless his prolific heart and fast typing fingers.”
Aw, shucks.

By: SHG

SHG — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 11:16:00 +0000

“bless his prolific heart and fast typing fingers.”
Aw, shucks.

By: Susan Cartier Liebel

Susan Cartier Liebel — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 09:47:18 +0000

If everyone is starting to concur the ratings is the least important feature yet the most antagonistic…maybe it’s time to just get rid of it. If they won’t, they have to deal with the backlash. And Scott Greenfield (bless his prolific heart and fast typing fingers) has an earlier enlightening piece on his interview with ‘salesman’ Paul Bloom.
http://blog.simplejustice.us/2007/06/27/avvo-my-chat-with-paul.aspx
They admit they are not perfect, their ratings are not perfect with numerous disclaimers. But we also know the potential client is NOT going to see that and this rating will be digitzed in perpetuity branding lawyers.
So, again, if everyone is supposedly going to give this proprietary fatally flawed ranking little weight and it is not the thrust of the site, nice little bios are…toss the rating system.
Toss it, let lawyers opt out, put in place a system to verify comments and repudiate comments, do not harm new solos or young lawyers with language other than ‘practicing less than two years, professional information is still being gathered’…..I might just be OK with that.
Maybe.

By: Susan Cartier Liebel

Susan Cartier Liebel — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 09:47:00 +0000

By: Kevin

Kevin — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 09:15:16 +0000

Agree Carolyn that ratings is the least important feature of the site. Maybe that PR team of Avoo lead with ratings to garner publicity for the website, which onviously worked.
I’m a little surprised as well that solo and small firm lawyers would rally against. As a group, they are very pro empowering consumer which is at the heart of Avvo’s mission.
I’ve been trough some of the lawyer profiles at Avvo. They’re really rather nice, presenting in comforting manner the type of info I’d like to see if I needed a lawyer. That type of info has been absent at Martindale’s lawyers.com site, bar sites (except for Columbus Bar Association), and lawyer websites themselves.
The market place abhores a vacuum. Avvo is filling it.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 09:15:00 +0000

By: Dave C.

Dave C. — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 06:51:52 +0000

Apparently AVVO plans to make its money by serving pay-per-click ads for tax attorney Roni Deutch…the same Roni Deutch that advertises nationally on late night television. Yuck. And I doubt those ads are converting very well.
I give AVVO 12-18 months before it joins the TechCrunch Deadpool.
ps. Roni Deutch looks like Medusa in her pay-per-click ad photo.

By: Dave C.

Dave C. — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 06:51:00 +0000

By: Carolyn Elefant

Carolyn Elefant — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 06:41:10 +0000

Susan,
Thanks for your comment. Of course, you are not unreasonable, I think this is one of those topics where reasonable minds differ.
I guess, I like others, I am resigned to the fact that there will always be rankings systems, and in an information age, there will always be companies that aggregate information for profit (after all, look at Google!) because that’s a service that many people desire. We solos have survived and thrived nonetheless, even as services like “mylawyer.com” and other early ventures did not. Maybe Avvo will help consumers choose lawyers, maybe it won’t – but if we do our job educating clients, I’m confident that they’ll accord services like Avvo the weight they do (or don’t) deserve.

By: Carolyn Elefant

Carolyn Elefant — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 06:41:00 +0000