A new Seattle start-up is promising to help you out in choosing the right lawyer next time you need to mix it up with the complex legal system. Avvo has launched a public beta of their Web site to provide you free ratings and profiles of legal hounds in your area.
Avvo, which currently covers lawyers in Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington, rates lawyers based upon the “Avvo Rating,” or how well a lawyer might be able to represent a client. The rating is apparently based upon “a proprietary mathematical model applied equally to each lawyer to analyze information Avvo has about them, including their experience, disciplinary sanctions and professional achievements.”
Avvo apparently draws upon a wide variety of sources to create all of these lawyer profiles, visiting state courts, bar associations and lawyers’ Web sites to collect its data. Users of the site will also be able to submit ratings of their experiences with a lawyer, while lawyers themselves will be able to endorse one another and update information on their online profiles to give potential clients more of a sense of that lawyer’s background.
Originally posted on June 5, 2007 @ 5:16 pm
Though I have a 10.0 rating on Avvo (the highest), I think it would be a shame for someone to use this site (at least at this point) for anything more than for coming up with a few quick names. I say this because I know of countless absolutely first rate lawyers with 6s and 7s. The best trial lawyer in our state has a 9. I just don’t think numbers alone can do it.
Steve Berman (he of the high rating and brutal ability to win) is now going after this most horrid of ventures. How could they possibly not see that applying such a subjective and coercive system to professionals (especially lawyers of all people) would lead to nothing but difficulty? Easy – blinded by ad dollars.
They are finished.