A third criticism of Avvo concerns how their system allows anyone to write a "client review" of an attorney. This makes many lawyers extremely uncomfortable, as it creates the possibility of information appearing on the profile that is completely out of the lawyer's control. Everyone knows that people who are angry or dissatisfied in some way are far more likely to post a comment about a lawyer than someone who was pleased with the services they received. Thus, many lawyers fear that one dissatisfied client could post a negative review that would hurt the attorney's image when the criticism may not be fair.
Even worse, since there is no mechanism to ensure that the person posting a comment is really a client, someone who was not even represented by the lawyer (such as the opposing party in a lawsuit) could post a negative review. Avvo does not provide a way to have such reviews removed if the comment makes it past their approval system. Thus, lawyers worry that one person could wreak havoc to their otherwise good profile. While Avvo says that client reviews are not factored into a lawyer's professional ranking in their algorithm, the presence of a severely negative client review may easily outweigh any numerical score.
Avvo Director Conrad Saam says that Avvo actually rejects about 30% of the client reviews that are posted to the site. Each client review is manually reviewed to ensure that it complies with their community guidelines, and they do not approve reviews that are primarily personal attacks or which come from people who are not a client. While this will likely filter out some of the purely malicious posts, a clever complainer could certainly figure out how to work their way around that system.
Praise for Avvo
Despite the criticisms of Avvo, they have quickly grown into one of the top services for finding information about lawyers, and this would not have happened without the participation of thousands of attorneys across the country. In particular, Avvo has been praised for providing a level of transparency in the legal profession that has not previously existed. For example, if a lawyer has been disciplined by the state bar association, that information is posted prominently on the lawyer's profile. Not surprisingly, this has generated great anger and even some failed lawsuits from previously-disciplined lawyers, but most members of the general public would consider this information to be relevant in evaluating a lawyer's credentials. Additionally, if a lawyer has a habit of taking money from clients without doing any meaningful work, those clients can now make their complaints publicly known very easily. And if the lawyer has answered questions posted to the Avvo site, those answers are linked from his or her Avvo profile so that people can see the kind of advice typically given out by the attorney.
More important to the lawyers actively using Avvo is the amount of business it can generate for their law practices. A search for the names of many attorneys will bring that attorney's Avvo profile up on the first page of Google, so the search engine optimization (SEO) value of their system is very high. Some lawyers like having their profiles on a site that has so many consumers looking for information about attorneys, particularly those lawyers who have received a high Avvo ranking. Other lawyers are discovering that responding to legal questions posted on the Avvo website is a great way to get new clients calling or emailing their offices.
Attorney Ronald Burdge said he is aware of some of the negative comments about Avvo, but that he has "nothing but good things to say" about it. Burdge says that when he does seminars on marketing, he tells lawyers "they need to be on Avvo and they need to be active with Avvo and they need to be using Avvo." While he acknowledges there is some risk, Burge believes this is true of anything online today. Avvo presents too great of an opportunity to make people aware of their rights, and in the process of helping people you can pick up new clients too.
My personal experience of answering free legal questions on Avvo as an experiment for this article confirmed that it worked for me as a way to generate new business. I was able to land several new clients within just a couple of days, and I also referred a couple of cases to other lawyers too. Having made several thousand dollars within a few days from merely answering a few questions online on Avvo, one can understand why I would recommend it as a way to find new clients. However, I spoke to other lawyers who have provided substantive answers to many questions without gaining a single client, so whether or not the Q & A process will work for all attorneys is unclear. What is clear is that Avvo provides the opportunity for attorneys to interact with potential clients who have specific legal questions or are in need of specific legal services, and that interaction creates at least the possibility of that question turning into a fee-generating client. It has not worked for some lawyers, but many other lawyers are pleased with the results they have achieved.
For more information on the praises some attorneys have for Avvo, see 5 Reasons Lawyers Love Avvo. For more about the criticisms of Avvo, see 5 Reasons Lawyers Hate Avvo. And to share your own opinion of Avvo or to see what other lawyers have to say about it, visit our User Reviews of Avvo.