Comments on Consumer legal site Avvo to launch tomorrow? | Real Lawyers Have Blogs

elefant@myshingle.com (Carolyn Elefant) — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 16:02:16 -0800

I am very curious about this company. However, even though they have a stellar board, there's no one on it (from what I can tell) who has ever actually worked as a lawyer serving consumer populations. From what I can tell, consumers want answers to legal questions, but they also want to be able to find lawyers for their particular problem easily - and they're finding them on Google or other search engines, and not through intermediary services. But, we'll see...

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin OKeefe) — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 17:22:34 -0800

Have the same concern Carolyn and raised that with some of the brain trust at Avvo.

How do know what it feels like to be an abused spouse who's had their credit cards cut in half and been kicked out of the house when you have never represented such a person as lawyer? As a lawyer, it's hard to know, but I would think impossible to know if one had only done just large law firm law or studied the law.

Also, how do you know how to interact online with consumers and small business people asking legal questions if you have never done it. Having been a community leader in the law community at AOL and having answered hundreds, if not thousands, of those people's questions at AOL, I developed a good feel for it.

It's these assets that my team and I had that made me valuable to Martindale-Hubbell when they acquired Prairielaw.com, a virtual law community. (note, I am no longer affiliated with Martindale or LexisNexis)

But I know AVVO will be more innovative than Martindale and will not sit on their hands in leveraging technology. So as you say, we'll see...

wiredgc@allmail.net (John) — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 18:13:05 -0800

Good Thoughts; I saw your posts after mine and updated accordingly:

http://www.wiredgc.com/2007/06/05/avvo-thyself/

You don't raise $14 million rating lawyers for consumers. I think the beta is really still stealth mode for something much bigger. One thing you can bet is that Martindale and FindLaw are probably looking at Avvo rather intently right now...

firm@harrismoure.com (China Law Blog) — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 01:10:14 -0800

I have real doubts about this site. The best trial lawyer in this state has a 9. Countless top lawyers have 6s and 7s. I just don't think its algorithims (or any algorithims for that matter) can really do justice to something as complicated as rating a lawyer. How is this any better than Martindale.

And lest anyone think this is sour grapes, I feel compelled to note that I got a 10.0 (the highest rating).

jkdkjd@msn.com (Vern) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:35:02 -0800

How do you subjectively rate an attorney on a web site? You don't. Thankfully Steve Berman recognized this and this joke of a venture will soon be torched.

dfjkl@yahoo.com (Pat) — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:20:19 -0800

Steve Berman 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 - ad dollars.

They are finished.