Seattle Criminal Attorney | Avvo.com Sucks – A Negative Review

Did that headline get your attention? I hope so. Avvo.com was originally designed to be a sort of lawyer review site, where a Seattle criminal attorney, like myself, could go, set up a profile, including education, practice area, and things like that, and clients could go and review my services so others could be helped if they ever needed criminal defense help. It also provides information on your disciplinary history, including whether or not any complaints have been lodged against you and whether or not you have been disciplined.

When avvo.com first came out, the criminal lawyers in the area, as is the case with most new things, particularly new things that have an effect on your professional reputation, were not happy about it. Most saw the potential for abuse (from false bad reviews if nothing else) and cried out against it. But, in the end, it became something that was at least tolerated, and most people set up profiles on avvo.com, if for no other reason than they didn’t want potential clients to somehow end up there and not be able to find out about them.

And during this entire process, avvo.com presented itself as a neutral third party, wanting to get out to people unbiased information on attorneys so potential clients could make informed decisions. And if it would have stayed this way there would have been no need for a negative review of avvo.com.

But, as with most, if not all, internet online communities, in the background avvo.com was building up a way to make money by, you guessed it, advertising on their site. So, now I get to use the Seattle Criminal Attorney Blog to let all the unsuspecting people out there know what a scam avvo.com can be.

They began by allowing people to advertise on the main site and in some of the search results (if you search for Seattle criminal attorney, for example, a list of results pops up, much like Google, with advertising above and to the side). This wasn’t so bad. I mean, they have to make a little money to keep the platform going and pay the people who are working there, right? And that would have been fine. But it’s gotten worse.

The next thing that happened was that avvo.com invented this special category of avvo.com attorneys called avvo.com pro. All you had to do was pay a little bit of extra money and you got to have your name placed at the top of search results for your regional practice area (said to “take your practice to the next level” – I don’t really see the promise paying off, however). Again, I have no problem with this. There are so many criminal attorneys in Seattle that have no idea how to market on the internet and instead of learning they throw money at the problem to try to get phone calls. If avvo.com can get people to pay to have their name at the top of the list, then so be it.

But then avvo.com took it to the next level, to something called avvo.com advertising, which I think is a little bit improper, particularly considering the way the site and platform was originally marketed. With avvo.com advertising you can have your picture placed inside the profile of the attorneys in your given area. For example, I am a criminal defense attorney, so that would be what I’d want people to find me for. Today, if someone stumbles upon my profile, they will see in the sidebar a link to another attorney’s profile, someone that has paid to have it put there.

I don’t like this for two reasons. First, someone can capitalize on my reputation to get more business. If someone comes onto avvo.com looking for me, and another attorney gets a look from this potential client because their face is pasted in my sidebar, I’m not really happy about that. I haven’t, but some people have, spent a lot of time and effort building their avvo profile, and now it’s all going to waste. Second, the only way to prevent this advertisement from being shown on your profile is to pay to upgrade to avvo.com pro (and I think that is the only benefit you get). Sounds like a bit of a bait and switch to me.

I don’t like it. And since this is my blog and I can say what I want, I can give avvo.com a negative review (and the link goes to the post where I learned of this information – I’d love to send enough links to this article to get it above avvo.com itself when people search for it).

Related Posts:

Seattle Criminal Attorney | Leave Your Pipe at Homoe

Seattle Criminal Attorney | Maricopa County Craziness