Martindale-Hubbell continues slide: Starts charging lawyers for 'Coveted Rating' service
In the noble tradition of law firm 'pay for play' rating services, Martindale-Hubbell will only continue to display a lawyer's rating in print or online if a lawyer pays 50 bucks per year.
Here's the unsolicited email one lawyer recently got from Martindale.
Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings - 2nd Notice
We recently notified you of an annual $50 administration fee associated with the maintenance and upkeep of your Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings listing displayed throughout the Martindale-Hubbell Legal Network.
While we assume this nominal fee remains unpaid through an oversight, you should know that if it not paid by 11/01/07, your rating will no longer be displayed in our online and print resources. This would not eliminate your coveted rating; however it would exclude your rating from being seen by over 1 million that reference Martindale-Hubbell when evaluating and selecting a legal resource...
Slick deal. What used to be free now costs $50. If Martindale rates 200,000 lawyers, that's potential $10 million in incremental revenue.
Martindale calls it a processing fee. We've rated you, but that rating cannot be displayed on the Web or in print until we get your $50. Looks like legal extortion to me. We're the bible of lawyer ratings, we'll rate you, but no one sees the rating till you fork over a 50 spot.
If Edmunds started charging car manufacturers for each car, new and used, they rated, it would an obvious a conflict of interest. How could you charge someone a fee when you claiming to do an impartial rating? You can't.
You think Martindale will keep rating the lawyers who don't pay them $50? As you know there's 'administration [costs] associated with the maintenance and upkeep of your Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings.'
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And this is a surprise? Witness the recent upset in New Jersey (and perhaps elsewhere) over Martindale's competitor, the publisher of "Super Lawyers." The good news is that, as online marketing of law firms expands, the commercial rating services become increasingly irrelevant. Whether through websites or blogs, we all have the power to tell prospective clients exactly what they need to know in order to decide whether they want to work with us. My firm has had a Martindale listing and I recall just one client inquiry in the last year identified as coming from M-H. On the other hand, we generate multiple inquiries per week from our NJ Employment Law Blog.
Equally to the point is the economics of doing business with L-N. Over the years they have bought up some of the good, entrepreneurial legal software suppliers such as PCLaw, TimeMatters, and CaseSoft (all of which I use). Just one man's opinion, but as best I can tell, not much has changed under the ownership of L-N except that prices have increased. So it's no wonder that they're now trying to turn a profit directly on the rating service, too.
Sounds like the CV lawyers have a nice upside. If I were rated "CV," (or even "BV") I'd pay them $50 to NOT display that. So, for free, the low rating plunges.
So now everyone rated on Martindale-Hubbell will be AV rated. Which, to the outside observer, will look sort of silly. People will think that EVERYONE gets an AV rating. When, in fact, only people with a high rating will pay for inclusion.
Seems like a great way to destroy their credibility, doesn't it?
This comment relates to Kevin's post, as well as a post on the Avvo Blog, and F. Steinberg's comments. The utter contempt that this move displays on the part of MH for its users is ... well, predictable. Why the hell not? Lexis and Thomson are a duopoly and for over 100 years have decided how much you pay for information. We as lawyers are positively at their mercy. You should have heard the screams of agony in the CaseSoft chat room on Yahoo! when Lexis told us they were buying CaseSoft. There was no love for Lexis, that's for sure.
Recently though, I've started seeing a little hope. A little. See, web 2.0, SaaS, and SOA may catch on with enough lawyers or service providers to give us a real choice for the first time in ... well, ever. The movement towards control of our own research is young and the tools are in their infancy (Loislaw, Fastlaw, etc.) but it's gaining momentum and stands to get a lot faster as more of us catch on.
But yeah, Martindale has never shown itself to be anything but an expensive waste. Prove me wrong and I'll gladly concede. I could always be wrong - but I'm not.
I'm a BV rated lawyer and this is great. I won't pay, I go off the listing, and nobody knows that I'm rated "substandard" on MH.
A lawyer has always been able to ask Martindale not to display his rating, I believe.
This is complete bull. I just got this letter now from M-H and I don't know whether to pay or not. I think I will not pay and just continue claiming (truthfully, I think!?) that I'm AV.