Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 5:33 PM

I would like to provide you with information on AVVO to update your blog.

I just rated a lawyer who did wonderful work for me and the rating was declined as not acceptable under AVVO’s “community standards.”  My clients have tried to rate me and their rating[s] have been declined.

AVVO gave me 1 star without knowing anything about me except that I had been disciplined for political activities during the farm crisis in 1986.  The discipline originated in Timbuktu and Xanadu was required to reciprocate.  The discipline in Timbuktu is over 20 years old, longer than either Mark Britton, AVVO’s founder, and Joshua King, AVVO’s in-house counsel, have even been practicing law.

I am attaching my CV for your information.

I look forward to sharing my research into AVVO with you. This organization claimed freedom of speech to avoid a damages claim at its inception.  There is now overwhelming information that AVVO libels lawyers and its secret “community standards”  prevent client ratings.  The ratings of Britton and King are from cronies.  These men have never litigated a single case as far as I can tell.

Thank you for assisting in the exposure of this scam organization.

Anonymous

P.S.  I have a telephone conference scheduled with AVVO’s general counsel Joshua King next week.  I refused to even talk to customer service.  I will keep you advised.

Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 11:58 AM

I will be talking AVVO’s general counsel, Joshua King, tomorrow.  He is rated by his own company as 10:  Superb.  I will send you a complete posting for your blog after that.  You have my permission to post my recent e-mail to your blog and I would like to send you another posting after the discussions with Joshua King.  I am forwarding an e-mail discussion with one of my clients, who is a paralegal and an IRS-EA.  You might find it interesting.  I have deleted her name from the correspondence.

Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 12:05 PM

Thanks so much, XXX!  Yours is one of 8 known reviews that was actually accepted by the system.  Most were rejected due to their internal “community standards” which are amazingly vague.  You will love this.  AVVO claims to be subjective, but the system rejects client ratings that are not objective.  They won class action lawsuit early in their existence claiming First Amendment rights because the federal court judge gave them a pass on being “subjective” and expressing their “opinion.”  Now, let’s get this straight:  they are “subjective” but client ratings must be “objective.”

Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 2:45 PM

My legal assistant listened to the telephone conference between me and Attorney Joshua King and myself today.  He is also a computer programming expert and knows how algorithms are created.  It appears that Mr. King and Attorney Mark Britton created the algorithm based upon how they would rate themselves.  Please note that Mr. King is rated 10 and Mr. Britton is rated 9.5 on their subjective rating system’s algorithm.

Many fascinating admissions were made by Attorney King.   Suffice it to say for now that AVVO started out with a subjective rating system.  This was admitted in a U.S. District Court action in the Western District of Washington. See complete decision on link:
http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/washington/wawdce/2:2007cv00920/144356/18/0.html.

Attorneys King and Britton imposed their subjective system on all other attorneys objectively.  Some of what Mr. King told me is outright hilarious.  He certainly does not deserve his self-created rating of 10.  Among other things, his admissions clearly demonstrate both fraud and reckless disregard for the truth.

Anonymous

In summary, Avvo asks attorneys to “claim” their attorney profile by completing a profile much like that on LinkedIn or Facebook.  However, unlike any other online networking site, which permits you to cancel your membership and erase your information, Avvo doesn’t permit this.  Once an attorney “claims” their profile, they’re stuck; it can’t be “unclaimed.”

Yesterday, I received two emails from an attorney in another state who wishes to remain anonymous (without substantially editing, I combined the two emails into one:

Mr. Krugel,

I’m an attorney in Timbuktu. After claiming my AVVO profile, I immediately realized that this company is running a scam.  I did some internet searches and came up with your website.  After an attorney gave me an endorsement, I rated a mere 6.4 by some arbitrary computer algorithm. I than realized that attorneys with 10/10′s basically circle-jerk each other with endorsements to get those high ratings. I don’t know enough attorney’s who have claimed their profile to have them endorse me, and I can’t in good conscious subject other unknowing lawyers to claim their profile and endure computer generated defamation. Have you figured out any way to unclaim a profile and/or get rid of their arbitrary rankings? I’m trying to figure out how to get rid of this artificially low rating without being unethical.

Eventually I can foresee other lawyers bringing a new lawsuit on different grounds against the company.   Their 1-10 ranking system seems arbitrary, and goes beyond mere opinion because a computer is assigning the number.   AVVO isn’t going into the legal community and asking other lawyers and judges about individual attorneys.  They give you a low rating and then it’s up to you to “recruit” people onto AVVO to endorse you. The whole thing seems wrong.

The “scam” aspect referred to is new to me, but it appears that they’re correct.  Furthermore, Avvo’s system is biased against solo and small firm attorneys because completing a profile on Avvo, including obtaining testimonials, takes many hours.  If you don’t put the hours into this endeavor, your attorney score (rating) remains low.  Solos and small firms don’t have the overhead to handle this.  Larger firms can have their administrative staff, clerks, paralegals, etc., do this work for them.

Also, we have to solicit the testimonials, but based on my understanding of AVVO’s system, the people providing these testimonials have to create some sort of an account and provide AVVO with personal information.  This was one of my motivations for creating my own “Client Testimonials” page.

My main beef with Avvo though is the fact that they won’t let me and other attorneys “unclaim” our profiles.  Personally, I could care less that they have me listed on their site, I just don’t want it indicated that I “claimed” my profile, when in fact, I disavow it and Avvo’s system.

Besides taking an extraordinary amount of time to complete a profile, and besides not being able to cancel an account (i.e., “unclaim” a profile), I’ve discovered another issue with Avvo’s online lawyer rating system.

When a lawyer is in the back-end of the platform, just filling out their profile, the system shows you how complete your profile is.  For example, my profile is 30% complete.  My current ranking is 6.3 out of 10, which according to Avvo is “good.”

So, my “good” rating is to some unknown extent based on my profile being less than 1/3 complete.  I don’t know what my rating would be if I took the time and effort to complete my profile, and I’m not going to tell you how long it took just to complete less than 1/3 of my profile.  However, I’ve yet to see a valid reason to spend the extra hours to complete my profile (which I can’t “unclaim”).

But here’s the real issue:  On an attorney’s “Public Profile” page, the page displayed to the public, Avvo doesn’t show to what extent the profile is completed.  So, a visitor to the site (a prospective client) doesn’t know that my “good” rating, or any attorney’s rating, may be a reflection of a partially or fully completed profile.  Consequently, this leads me to restate my finding that Avvo’s system is defective.

Hopefully, Avvo will update their technology and system and get it right (or close to right–how about 30% right :-) ).

At first glance, the site looks interesting, useful and credible.  The same as many other online consumer, ratings, networking and other business related sites.  I enjoy these sites, use them and believe that they have valuable things to offer.  However, as I delved deeper into Avvo’s rating system, I discovered substantial issues and came to the realization that although the concept of publicly rating attorneys and other professionals is a great idea, in terms of execution, Avvo is really lacking.  Maybe it’s because the technology is still in its infancy.

My biggest concern, and I’ve already discussed this with Avvo’s customer support (see below emails between CS and me), is that I believe Avvo is medium to large firm friendly; it’s biased against solo practitioners and small firms.

More specifically, I think that because Avvo’s interface is very time consuming to use, it’s better geared towards firms that have the resources to devote to providing all of the information required and obtaining peer and client references (peer references from their own firm’s employees?).  Information requested by Avvo includes a credit card number, even though the site is free.  This aspect strikes me as odd, although it’s not a deal breaker.  Moreover, attorney peers who want to leave an endorsement for another attorney, like me, have to sign up for Avvo (i.e., what Avvo calls “claiming your profile) and provide the credit card information, again, even though Avvo is free (except for all of the time and effort to complete a profile).

There’s another huge difference between Avvo and other online networking and business sites.  Once a profile is “claimed” by an attorney (i.e., once an attorney joins Avvo) that attorney can’t quit/leave.  You’re stuck.

Below is an email exchange I had with an Avvo customer service representative, over the course of a few days.  It’s easy to read and follow.  Although she identified herself by name, I’ve removed her name.

Hi Charles,

Thank you for contacting Avvo.  Profiles on Avvo.com cannot be deleted
entirely.  The information in a lawyer profile is pulled from public
records and publicly available information. Now that you have claimed
your profile it cannot be un-claimed.

If you are concerned that public information we share on our website is
incorrect, please contact your state’s association directly.  Once the
information is updated in the public record, we can update it on Avvo.

Warm Regards,
Name Deleted
Avvo Customer Care

—–Original Message—–
From: cak1@charlesakrugel.com [mailto:cak1@charlesakrugel.com]
Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 9:49 AM
To: Avvo Customer Care
Subject: Support Request: Cancelling/Un-claiming Profile/Account

Name: Charles Krugel
Email: cak1@charlesakrugel.com
Phone:
Subject Cancelling/Un-claiming Profile/Account

Message:
Hi,

I’d like to cancel my membership and un-claim my profile.  How do I do
that?

Thanks,

Charles Krugel

My concern isn’t about the information available. My concern is that your website is disadvantaged against smaller firms and solo practitioners. Consider the following:

* I’ve asked some colleagues, small firm & solo practitioner, to provide endorsements. Some won’t because they find your site objectionable. Others won’t because they don’t want to feel committed to “claiming” their profile and providing credit card info., and taking up their time with needless red tape. Larger firms won’t have the same problem. They can provide a corporate credit card no. and give each other endorsements.

* It takes a lot more time and energy for a small firm & solo practitioner to complete a profile than it does a larger firm. They can devote people to fill out such a profile. It’s taking me too long and too much hassle to do yours.

I don’t care if you keep my profile up on your site or not. I just don’t want it to indicate that I’ve “claimed” it, and I want all of the info. that I added including my photo removed. Once you’ve made your site more small firm and solo practitioner friendly, maybe I’ll change my mind. In the meantime, I don’t wish to affiliate myself with your site.

I hope that you don’t plan to ignore my request or tell me that you can’t permit me to unclaim my profile as I’d hate to see something like this needlessly escalate into something bigger. I’ll wait up to 3 business days for your response, then I’ll respond accordingly.

Thanks,

Charles Krugel