New Web site rates every Florida lawyer

Scott Barancik, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Sunday, April 20, 2008

Story Tools Initializing... Contact the editor Print this story Comment on this story Social Bookmarking

ADVERTISEMENT Loading Video...

You're in a bind: sued for divorce, wobbling on the edge of bankruptcy, busted for breaking into a bakery one night for a cruller fix. You need a good lawyer, or maybe three. Where do you go?

If you're like most people, you ask friends and relatives for referrals. You scan the Yellow Pages to see who sprang for a full-page ad. (Lawyers bought $1.2-billion of phone-book ads last year, according to the Yellow Pages Association.) Or you jot down the name of that fellow who advertises on local bus-stop benches.

Scientific? Hardly. A Seattle lawyer says he has a better idea: Avvo.com.

Launched last summer in nine states and Washington, D.C., the Web site debuted in Florida this month. Its ambitious plan: to publish numerical ratings on every single — that's more than 70,000 — Sunshine State lawyers, whether the lawyers like it or not.

Users can sort through hundreds of local lawyers' profiles using a variety of criteria — legal specialty, disciplinary record, customer reviews, rating — or simply verify the credentials of one attorney, all for free. Lawyers can pad their bare-bones, automated profiles at no cost.

"We may not be the first kid on the block, but we're the first that really has the consumer in mind," CEO Mark Britton, 41, said.

Indeed, it's a crowded marketplace. Competitors include Best Lawyers in America, Leading American Attorneys, Times sister publication Florida Trend's Legal Elite, Florida Super Lawyers, Law and Leading Attorneys, and the grandparent of them all, Martindale-Hubbell's rating service. Passing judgment on people who litigate for a living is risky, too. Avvo — short for avvocato, the Italian word for lawyer — was only 10 days old last year when two Seattle attorneys sued, claiming their ratings were inaccurate.

This January, the Florida Bar's advertising committee voted unanimously to prohibit attorneys here from advertising their Avvo ratings, ethics counsel Elizabeth Clark Tarbert said. It reversed that decision this month.

But Britton and his brood — 22 staffers in Seattle, plus contractors in China and India — say their product is different. Avvo evaluates all lawyers, not just the top tier. Attorneys can ignore it, but they can't opt out. It rates lawyers anywhere from 1.0 (extreme caution) to 10 (superb) using an "unbiased," secret mathematical model that weighs many factors, including law school attended, years of practice, disciplinary history, peer endorsements, published articles, awards, leadership roles and recognition from competing services, such as Best Lawyers. Clients can post comments, too, though the rating system ignores them.

Don't like your rating? Fill in the blanks on your profile. Still don't like it? That doesn't mean it's inaccurate, said Britton, whose resume includes a stint as general counsel at Expedia.com.

Avvo has its weaknesses. The service excludes board certification from its ratings formula because not all state Bar associations offer it. It rates virtually all lawyers 5.0 (average) or above unless they've been strongly disciplined by their state Bar. It favors lawyers who seed their profiles with point-earning biographical facts and effectively punishes those who don't. So far, the vast majority of Florida lawyers have no numeric rating at all on Avvo, due to the paucity of information collected.

Bill McBride, a Tampa lawyer who built Holland & Knight into one of the nation's largest law firms and won the Democratic nomination during Florida's 2002 gubernatorial race, isn't bitter about scoring an 8.2 (excellent) Avvo rating. "There's a lot of lawyers that are better than I, and I look up to them," he said.

But Avvo's biggest challenge may be getting lawyers and consumers to pay attention. Cynthia Sass, a Tampa labor lawyer who is rated a 10, hadn't heard of Avvo, though she joked that it appears "totally accurate."

McBride, 63, said he probably won't bother feathering his profile.

"Some lawyers will campaign and ask their friends to recommend them or rate them," he said. "but among the lawyers in the generation I came along with, that would really be frowned on."

Scott Barancik can be reached at barancik@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8751.

Loading comments...

 

New Web site rates every Florida lawyer

To Email *
Personal Message
Your Name *
Your Email *
 

 

Click me for a different validation code

Validation Code *
  Send me a copy
   

 

 

 

* Indicates a required field

Privacy Policy (Opens in new window)