AvvoReviews 417

I was solicited to write a review for my attorney on Avvo, and I wrote a glowing one indeed.

I received an eMail back, vaguely stating that my review was rejected because of Avvo's unspecified "community standards", although zero specifics are given. The review contained no profanity. Avvo provides no mechanism to revisit and re-edit my submission. I am to start again from scratch, after I take an an hour or so to read its tedious fine print boilerplate in an attempt to divine what it arbitrarily requires, and why — and then make a wild guess in the hope that whatever mystery word or phrase has offended its sensibilities has been toned down or removed. Wow, what an enticing offer.

I also seem to have been subscribed now to Avvo's broadcast mailings, which arrive containing no unsubscribe link. More specifically, to unsubscribe I must log into an account with logins I never created — in other words with a login which does not exist. How utterly lame. This makes Avvo's eMail perfectly fit the very definition of Spam, the technical textbook example of Spam itself, and as sure as sunrise, thousands of recipients will correctly tag them as such in their eMail clients' Spam filters, just as I have done.

I'm not even sure why I'm taking the time to write and post this review. Maybe it's because I'm so annoyed with Avvo's wretched functionality choices, and conversely, so fond of my attorney. In other words, they've pissed off a user enough that he's actually taking the time to let the world know how severely they suck, instead of just sending their eMail directly to trash and instructing his eMail client's spam filters to block them completely in future, as the majority of users would, and certainly do.

They're asking me to volunteer my time to write a review. This is the equivalent of asking someone to take an unpaid survey. They then reject the submission, while offering no specifics as to why, or a direct link to edit whichever specific part of it has offended their sensibilities. Instead I'm instructed to donate my precious time reading, to educate myself regarding Avvo's lengthy community standards and vainly try again… because I'm just that devoted to Avvo's capricious needs.

Wow.

Avvo rating of lawyers is meaningless and consumers are being misled... big time!

Some lawyer on the site as rated 9000 other lawyers as excellent. How can one lawyer know 9000 lawyers enough to review them. Avvo does not know the lawyers it rates, never used their services and therefore the ratings are a scam. Avvo makes annoying phone calls to get the lawyers it rates to advertise on the sight. Does anyone else see a conflict of interest here?

This site is a complete fraud and scam. I'm a lawyer who had an incredibly terrible review posted about me that was phony and anonymous. I've asked every client I've had in the last 2 years if they posted it and all said no. AVVO claims the review was posted 9 months ago, which is a lie. I was solicited by their high pressure salesmen and women to join them to clean up the bad review. I disputed the review and they took it down. Then they signed me up and took my money. As soon as they got my money they put the bad review up again. I asked a real client to write a review on me and he did. A very positive one, but AVVO rejected it for unknown reasons. I tried canceling them and told them they were not authorized to bill any more charges on my credit card. But they ignored me and keep running $100 per month charges that are unauthorized. I'm reporting them for credit card fraud to the Seattle King County Prosecuting Attorneys Office for investigation. They refuse to take down fake negative reviews to extort money out of lawyers. Then they empty your bank account. The site is a total fraud and scam.

Avvo had continually rejected 9 of my attempts to review a corrupt attorney that cheated me and my company out of 10s of thousands of dollars, was found guilty of 110 counts by the State of Illinois Sect'y of State Securities Department and was then indicted by a grand jury for criminal offences of wire fraud.

In my opinion, Avvo is a bogus operation and a gross dis-service to those seeking responsible insight into the qualities of a potential legal professional hire.

To place trust in Avvo is to do so at your own peril. Read through any number of the other reviews and you will note the pattern of irresponsible vetting.

OK... now on to RipoffReport and ScamBook for more of the same.

~rich

First I would like to say that whenever I post my question I reread it multiple times and make sure that it is very easy to understand so I could get a proper answer. That being said, I have gotten one good advice from this website. Whenever I post a question I'm lucky to even get 1 out of maybe 5 lawyers to remotely answer the question I had asked. The majority of the answers people give me barely have to do with the question I have asked, it's as if they just say whatever they think does something with the subject of my question for the hell of looking like they know what they're doing. So far, out of all the questions I've asked, only 1 person has actually answered my question and was clear about what I had to do. Even with all that, I would still come back again because even though the majority of the people who "answer" my question end up saying something that doesn't even answer my question at all, I believe that there are a few people who are actually able to comprehend what I'm asking and ACTUALLY answers my question.

I find this lawyer from fairfax county he's very excellent lawyer Joseph h Beale I pray to god no one have any kind of trouble in life if you guys have so you can go to this lawyer he is very excellent thanks so much RABIA IBRAHIM i am not guilty and he win my case

Avvo allowed me to post a 2 sentence review, that said: I did not have a good experience with this attorney.The communication was poor. They cut it way back after I relyed to them, that he had me served with an EMAIL (DWL) threatening to sue me and take my assets and our home, over my review. Had he spend that much time on my personal injury case, I may not have written a bad review.Not all attorneys do a good job, nor do they even treat clients the same. That is the reality so get over it, listen to the criticism, and learn from it. Threatening clients you profited off of, by sending some "goon" to your home, and shoving an EMAIL under our kitchen door (when we were out of the country) does not scare me at all, Attorney McCoy. You forged my name on documents, used a MAGIC MARKER to ititial stuff, "I knew you would not agree too" (yup, his words exactly)... all of that effected the CIVIL RIGHTS lawsuit with a different attorney. I NEVER agreed to waive a Conn, statute, saying: I do not mind if my attorney profits off this case, more than I do. NOBODY in the world would sign that, and to think that we would, is insane. People maimed for life by a drunk driver, are not there, because we have nothing better to do. I need money for ongoing care. All I ended up with, is (2) BAD attorneys, and they both, threw me under the bus. CONNECTICUT is so CORRUPT. Liars, corruption, and threats, all because we are not kissing their behinds on avvo. Avvo, should have left it alone, because they denied the original one. They emailed me back saying he was "bluffing me", and that they "had my back with a pro bono attorney on staff". That was nice, but I never head from them ever again.

While I absolutely agree that the sites "ranking" of attorneys is completely bogus (read their criteria for establishing these rankings), I think it's important to note that attorneys can't just dole out legal advice based on brief fact patterns, they could potentially have ethics issues with the State Bar for doing so. They have to tell you to retain your own counsel to review your entire situation to make sure that your legal situation is handled properly. Not to mention that it is impossible to just give a "this is how you do it" answer as no two situations are the same or should be handled the same.

Many excellent attorneys do not pay for "Avvo Pro", so do not have "10" ratings because of this. Please make sure you call several attorneys and speak to them directly before deciding who to hire (yes, call the non-10 rated attorneys too!). Basing your hiring decision on a ridiculous paid-for scoring system is ridiculous.