Susan Carier Liebel is correct when she states that this new Avvo rating system represents nothing but a type of FICO score for lawyers.
I am already feeling the pinch. Lawyers and people are scheming to get on top. I am receiving tons of emails from other lawyers stating if I will get on and rate them highly, they will do the same for me. But, what if I do not deserve a high rating? What if they do not deserve high rating? It is gaming pure and simple. Be member of Who's Who or your lose. In Texas we are fighting with the Super Lawyer designation where law firms, and especially Big Law, complain that they do not want to spend the money on expensive advertising to be rated and in this publication, but they cannot afford to be out of the publication.
Avvo is like FICO because undoubtedly it is based on a algorithm that nobody understand, and that does not make sense to the common consumer. For example, if you are smart enough to not incur debt, FICO will give you lower rating.
Or maybe it is too much like the U.S. News ratings of law schools that penalize law schools that would dare to train lawyers to go out on their own in private or solo practice.
Law is simply too much of a subjective thing to be regulated to a scoring system. There are too many factors involved that cannot be placed in a quantitative equation. How well a lawyer works at settling a case, given the liability issue, cannot be understated. You simply cannot place a rating on reasonableness.
Maybe we would all be better off if eharmony.com created a portal for placing clients with lawyers. After all, they claim to be the "#1 Trusted Relationship Site". And, what are attorneys and clients other than a relationship. Clients and attorneys would just go on, file out the simple "personality profile", and be placed with an attorney based upon the 29 deep dimensions, or whatever, of compatibility.
Susan's post is a little more serious and in depth. Read it.
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