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Avvo to disrupt Martindale-Hubbell’s ratings system

By Kevin O’Keefe
March 1, 2008

Avvo Martindale HubbellThat’s the word from an article in Internet Law and Strategy running at law.com this weekend. From the author, Joseph Campos, Chair of the Corporate/Securities Law Group at Stanislaw Ashbaugh in Seattle:

Since 1868, Martindale-Hubbell has provided the largest library of lawyer and law firm profiles and ratings. Law firms across the country reflexively and dutifully subscribe to the company’s hardbound volumes, placing them prominently in their libraries, confident they have taken the most obvious step to ensure clients looking for legal representation will find them. Just as important to such firms is Martindale-Hubbell’s peer review and rating system, touted by the company as an objective measure of a lawyer’s ethics and abilities. Receiving a peer review rating is a singularly egocentric moment for a lawyer, suggesting he or she had ‘arrived’ in a professional sense…….Today’s Web 2.0 business models have completed the paradigm shift by eliminating the barriers to global publication and distribution of client opinions. Companies such as Avvo.com now give clients, as well as lawyers, the power to publish opinions about lawyers easily, instantly and without cost, in a medium that reaches a global audience. Harnessing the concept of ‘collective intelligence,’ there is now a totality of information about a lawyer available. Consumers can easily search for a lawyer and read what other lawyers and clients think about that lawyer. Lawyers are able to provide far more information about themselves, their practices and their experience than has ever been possible before. Some features provide a way for lawyers to communicate and interact directly with the public and showcase their understanding of the law and legal issues.

The new paradigm is: clients and lawyers rating lawyers for the benefits of clients and lawyers. As with all change, this new paradigm creates a great deal of fear and uncertainty among lawyers, who are by training risk-averse…….A collection of hardbound volumes cannot generate the sort of interactivity and real-world information about lawyers and law firms that is experienced, contributed and compiled on Avvo every day. Information about lawyers is being shared by those who have first-hand experience, resulting in a searchable database of information that is accessible to prospective clients around the country and the world. If information is power, then Avvo effectively shifts the balance of power away from lawyers and law firms to clients, prospective clients and every other user of its Web site.

Campos’ firm, a 20 lawyer commercial litigation and corporate securities boutique, is embracing the Avvo concept.

A comment about a lawyer posted on Avvo has the potential to reach a global audience, whereas the letter of gratitude sent to a law firm requires action on the part of the firm to publicize it. We decided to take advantage of the opportunity. We now display ‘Avvo badges’ on our Web site profiles of each of our lawyers, which link directly to each lawyer’s profile on Avvo. Rather than fear what clients have to say about us, we embraced the possibilities created by empowering clients to weigh in directly on their experience working with a lawyer or law firm.

And clients of the law firm are using Avvo to the benefit of future clients and the firm.

Though certainly not true in every case…, clients will often post comments on the Avvo Web site shortly after the conclusion of a particular matter. Such comments generally provide considerable detail about the specific matter handled by their lawyer and their overall experience. When a client posts a review about a lawyer, Avvo’s system asks how long ago the client used the lawyer’s services. This kind of information is an invaluable tool for prospective clients seeking to gauge the most recent experience others have had with a particular lawyer. Not surprisingly, one of the more common uses of Avvo by clients is vetting word of mouth referrals.

And it’s not only smaller firms embracing Avvo. Davis Wright Tremaine, an AmLaw 200 international law firm, claimed the Avvo Profiles of all 225 lawyers in their Seattle and Bellevue offices.

The Avvo concept is here to stay. Consumers of legal services who can get online reviews on dishwashers are going to demand, through their behavior, that comments about lawyers be freely available. Whether comments come from other lawyers or clients, the information is just too valuable.

Martindale-Hubbell has been suppressing this concept for years. They want a monopoly on lawyer ratings. Money to made there. Plus when you’re charging law firms 10’s and 100’s of thousands of dollars to display their lawyers in a directory, you don’t want law firm customers walking when they don’t like what another lawyer or consumer has said.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. Martindale-Hubbell dismissed Google as a force in clients finding lawyers. Now their own studies find Google is viewed as an important source in locating counsel by almost 20% of corporate counsel. And Google didn’t exist 8 years ago.

Avvo does have the staying power issue. Though VC backed, significant revenue generation will be necessary at some point. There’s money via sponsorships, premium listings, and services, but will it be enough, and will it come soon enough.

And there’s always the question whether LexisNexis will pay to just put a concept like Avvo’s on the shelf. Though that’s a little harder today with web based systems costing so little to develop and user generated content from all over continuing to flourish.

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