Avvo, the new national online rating service for attorneys, opened its doors last week, not with a beta but with a bang. Founder Mark Britton, a former Expedia EVP, was in Italy when he conceived the idea for an attorney referral service and named it for the Italian word for attorneys, Avvocato. His Expedia colleague, Rich Barton, was also in Italy at the same time where he was conjuring the concept for another Seattle-based rating service, that one called Zillow.
Unlike houses with less than favorable ratings, lawyers tend to talk back. Avvo has already drawn the ire and the fire of a handful of lawyers who feel dissed by the service, even though the demerits are allegedly founded in complaints or disciplinary action by state bar associations. A potential class-action complaint may be looming for the fledgling company which has not disclosed its ranking criteria or weighting factors.
If enough lawyers feel slighted by lackluster ratings, Avvo could feel the slings of its targeted audience, as individuals or as a class, for defamation or worse. Perhaps Britton should have started with chiropractors or podiatrists as a group, before ranking and rankling lawyers.
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