AvvoReviews 417

I am a lawyer and wrote a very detailed review on AVVO.COM for my first time one to see that it was accepted then within 12 hours my review was taken down. Then I see that the lawyer who I wrote a negative report about put up another FAKE review about himself. What a scam! My parents were taken advantage by a Lawyer which precipitated my negative review. I have never trusted lawyers and after I became one my opinion of them has only worsened. I am very, very ashamed of many of my fellow lawyers who use the law for their benefit.

I have attempted several times to rate attorney Ledford White of Fort Worth, Texas? This attorney has over $4,000,000. In judgements on him from clients who have sued him in courts for cheating and stealing their money. I have sent to you the case numbers and the courts where he was found guilty of these frauds and you will not show my reviews on your AVVO web site. I am a former client of his. Why are you protecting him. Thanks, Mike Parks *******@gmail.com

Just to prove that this site is a total fraud, I created a fake attorney profile that within days, had a 7.1 rating. A fake profile for an attorney who has no clients from which to get feedback had a 7.1 rating within a few days. This site is not a consumer advocate, it is a pay-to-play website that plays on the egos of the lawyers they purport to profile by convincing them they need to pay to sponsor their profiles, which by the way automatically bumps up the attorney profile rating to as high as a 10.

Avvo purports to "rate" lawyers based upon publicly available information (specifically, bar disciplinary records) as well as other unspecified information. What they really want lawyers to do is "claim" their profiles (which results in an automatic increase in rating) and then sell advertising to lawyers (which seems to result in an additional rise in rating). Thereafter, lawyers can "game" the rankings by arranging for favored clients and colleagues to write nice things about them. I have witnessed colleagues increase their avvo rating from the 6.5 range ("good") to the 9.3 range ("superb") over a few months. Now they are engaging in an aggressive, obnoxious telemarketing campaign where they call my office line continually and ask to speak to me about my ranking. They will not stop calling when asked. Just say no to Avvo.

Recently I placed a review on avvo.com, only to have them deny the reviews. The reviews were for San Diego attorneys Irving Pedroza, and Ashley Negrette. The reason for providing reviews, was because of their excellent assistance in supporting some of our family clients that needed their assistance. Avvo.com denied the reviews stating that they were not in compliance with their policy, because they were broad. I contacted avvo.com to explain and prove to them the services that were provided by both of these attorneys, to which they continued to refuse to post the reviews. I replied a number of times, to have them continue in denying to post the reviews. I believe this is completely unethical for them to pick and choose which reviews to post for attorneys. Especially considering these were positive reviews, in no way inflammatory or anything like that... I then let them know I would be posting a review so the public would be alerted to their obvious bias, to which they were nonresponsive.

Being a new solo practitioner, I claimed my avvo account thinking it would be good for marketing. Well they don't even list my area of practice, and now I can't get rid of the profile I claimed. I also have a 6.1 rating out of 10 on the site even though I have NO client reviews yet, no disciplinary action or client complaints, and multiple high-profile appeals and successful speaking engagements. What the heck. On top of all of that I get multiple calls per week from different AVVO representatives trying to get me to finish my profile and participate in the site. No thank you. Do not claim your avvo profile, you will regret it!

I wrote this review after a jerk of a lawyer who argued with me after not answering a simple question that just became a law in California, regarding Real Estate License. He acted all tough because he's in another state. I tried to put a bad review and of course Avvo rejected it. Then I tried to put a positive review about a lawyer who went beyond anyone would to give me advice. He did it all for free, even when I tried to pay. He was a great human being before being being a great lawyer. Mr. Frederick M. Ray in City of Orange, CA. I tried to give him a great review and they turned it down. I have no idea why. Maybe Mr. Ray is no longer or never been part of Avvo. So ask yourselves this question. Why are good and bad reviews being turned down for the website? I didn't use any fowl language or anything that shouldn't be published anywhere. Yet they were. Why are only good reviews of paid lawyers being permitted on the website? Could it be 'conflict of interest'? I am asking that question. I have no evidence one way or the other. Yet something fishy is definitely going on with Avvo. That's for sure. If a review website doesn't let people put honest reviews, why are we using it? I sure don't anymore. All I ever get in the end is 'get an attorney from Avvo'. No thanks. I rather trust other reputable review sites to pick... I picked 2 specialty lawyers for 2 different cases from Yelp and it worked out just fine. Yelp let's me put all my reviews on their website. No Avvo, ever...

Did you know that AVVO does not consider client reviews in the rating process? I hired a lawyer that was rated a 10.0 by AVVO. He talked a big talk but when all was said and done, I lost 50K+ in alimony. The attorney claimed my case was simple and 100% winnable. What a joke! AVVO is horribly skewed in favor of the lawyers. Next step--Bar Association. We can't let lawyers lie and cheat us out of a fair settlement.

I wrote an honest, critical review of an attorney who had caused me very serious financial harm and Avvo notified her, took the review down, and she sued me. We settled for very little, but the terms indicate that I am not allowed to write another review (with her name) -- ever! It's sad what America has come to, what the legal community has reduced itself to, and even more so, the false advertising that this woman pays people to post on this site in order to get clients. People should be warned to avoid her -- and instead, Avvo supplies her with fresh victims.

This site only publishes fictitious reviews about Attorneys. If you write a honest critical review of an attorney, they take it down, and allow the attorney to deny they even know you. I stayed on top of them and asked why they took it down, and hounded them for two weeks. This attorney had no reviews for over a year, then when I demanded my negative review of the attorney be published, suddenly the attorney had two new reviews, so his score was never affected by my review. Don't trust this site, they probably are paid my the attorneys.

I asked two basic questions about filing for bankruptcy, and I had a simple case (no income or asset), but instead of answering the questions, they said,

"you are delusional if you think you can file yourself", "you are in way over your head", "this forum is not a DIY", "don't continue to delude yourself about handling your own BK. The consequences could be tragic", even when I stated I was ineligible for free legal aid by the local office and couldn't afford an attorney.

How can Avvo allow attorney's to troll the site like this?

I find it laughable that Conrad Saam claims Avvo brings "transparency" to the legal profession. I have not been a practicing attorney in more than 15 years, yet Avvo has me listed as an attorney in a jurisdiction in which I am not licensed to practice, and includes an old home address in that jurisdiction where I haven't lived in more than 13 years. Add to this the fact that I am on inactive status in the jurisdiction where I am actually licensed to practice, and Avvo is a joke.