Categories
. Legal ethics

A short update on Avvo ratings

You may recall, a while back, that I kvetched a bit here about my belief that Avvo’s rating system was less than a bona fide system.  The primary focus of my argument centered on Avvo’s decision to assign numerical ratings to some lawyers even though those lawyers have never claimed their profiles.  I then spent […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

An open letter to Avvo

Dear Mark or Josh or Dan (or others at Avvo): I am a lawyer of little relative influence but I know you are likely familiar with me because I have, time and time again here on my small platform written about the travails your business model is enduring as state after state issues ethics opinions warning […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

More fuel for the advertising rule reform fire.

So, I’m getting a very wonderful opportunity to participate in a debate about lawyer advertising in November in Nashville at The Advocates’ Society annual meeting.  A throng of lovely Canadian attorneys will be traveling to our state capital for a two-day meeting. I say all of this for two reasons: Reason the first – today […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Does Avvo provide a bona fide lawyer rating?

A number of folks have already written about how New York has dealt another setback for Avvo Legal Services in the form of NY State Bar Ethics Op. 1132 which found that New York lawyers could not participate in Avvo Legal Services because payment of Avvo’s marketing fee amounts to payment for recommendation of services […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Virginia’s revised lawyer advertising rules – big win for APRL’s effort to streamline the advertising rules

[In the interest of full disclosure for those who might be new here, I am presently a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (APRL).] For those who aren’t new here, you know full well my personal opinion on lawyer advertising and what the ethics rules should and should […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Dear ABA – Embrace reform of the lawyer advertising rules. Please.

I have written in the past about the APRL white papers providing the rationale for, and data supporting the need to, reform the way lawyer advertising is regulated in the United States by state bar entities.  You can read those prior posts here and here if you are so inclined. Jayne Reardon, the Executive Director […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Yet another lawyer marketing network joins the fray.

It is often jokingly said that “you learn something new every day.”  I kind of like to think that I learn more than one new thing every day, but results fluctuate.  Last week, in connection with reading about the launch of a new legal marketing network that combines Martindale-Hubbell (which is also behind www.lawyers.com) and […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Friday follow-up – more proof that it’s risky for lawyers to work with Avvo Legal Services

I’ve written about this topic several times (some might say probably too many times) now, but here is the first example of people who — unlike me — actually matter reaching a very familiar sounding set of conclusions about something that quite obviously is the Avvo Legal Services program. South Carolina put out an advisory […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

Traps for the Unwary – Avvo Legal Services Comes to Tennessee

I’ve written previously about the maelstrom of issues presented by Avvo’s expansion from its original core business as a lawyer rating service into new things such as Avvo Legal Services — an arrangement where it makes clients, who will have already paid Avvo for the legal services they want, available directly to lawyers to perform […]

Categories
. Legal ethics

APRL’s supplemental advertising overhaul proposal

Back in June 2015, I dedicated a post here to praising APRL’s proposal to streamline ethics rules imposing outdated restrictions on lawyer advertising.  A proposal that recognizes that lots of states currently have advertising restrictions on the books that could not survive a constitutional challenge and that aren’t really even being sought to be enforced and […]