Avvo

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...

I always wonder why we cannot put 0 stars.
That website AVVO just protects lawyers and AVVO pretends to accept negative reviews but it is a lie.
As soon as you want to post a legitimate review they refuse by their continuous saying "you do not follow the guideline". Even if we do! So we realized that website is in fact made by Lawyers.
All the time, they attract clients by saying JUST UNDER THE NAME OF THE LAWYER, FREE CONSULTATION and when you call, they do not want to speak to you unless you pay, I call that false advertisement!

I have used Avvo in the past to assist me with contacting an attorney to represent me in a legal matter. Recently I attempted to use it again, at which time one of their recommended attorneys never contacted after I made direct contact with him via his website. Avvo contacted me about a week later to inquire about my experience with their recommended attorney and to ask if I would write a review. I chose to do so in order to politely inform other potential clients of my experience with the Avvo-recommended attorney. However, in spite of repeated attempts, Avvo refused to post my review. Of note: Their recommended attorney is a 5-star client of Avvo and I rate them with only 1 star. It seems to me that Avvo is protecting their 5-star client by not allowing me to post my negative experience with their client. This action feels dishonest and slimy because it appears that Avvo will only allow positive reviews of their clients. If this is true, it begs the question: What good are ANY of the Avvo attorneys if all of their reviews are possibly manipulated? As you can see by many of the other reviews on this site, I am not the only person with this same issue. Please understand that I am reviewing Avvo and not all of their attorneys.

I wrote a negative review about an unethical, incompetent attorney, William Bruzzo, that was based on my personal experience and true. Avvo posted it first. Two days later, after the corrupt William Bruzzo noticed it and complained about it, Avvo removed it, saying that it violated their guidelines! I posted it again three more times and each time Avvo rejected it. There was nothing in my review that was outside their guidelines. They lied and they knew it. They posted it the first time, but basically since William Bruzzo complained about it, then my review became outside their guidelines! I told them that they get paid by attorneys to post only good FAKE/PAID reviews for them and their site is only an advertising tool for attorneys and not trusted. People should not choose attorneys based on FAKE Avvo 5-star reviews. Knowing this incompetent, corrupt attorney, and having the first-hand experience with him, and finding out that some other people have the same type of experience with this guy, and knowing that he posts fake reviews for himself, on every site, and then of course seeing only 5-star reviews on Avvo about him, is the best proof that Avvo is not a reliable source for choosing the right attorney. The attached photo shows my review for William Bruzzo that Avvo removed.

Don't trust Avvo reviews. They do not post bad reviews, the lawyer are paying them for the good reviews. All fake.

I'm a lawyer re-entering the work force full time, (after taking several years off to raise my kids & care for a seriously ill parent.) I've done private consulting work, but now I'm resuming my legal career and sending out my resumes for full time work.

I had never heard of AVVO until I saw my name, along with a middling review of my legal career. Based on what? They never contacted me for any information about anything, such as the consulting work I did during my 7 year absence from practicing law.

There are NO client reviews of any kind, nor have there ever been any grievances filed against me. So I'm mystified as to what their "ratings" are based on. So their reviews are worthless. But it gets WORSE!

THE SCAM is that the only effective way you "MAY" improve your rating is to join their "Premium Services" and PAY THEM a monthly fee! That's extortion. But at least that only hurts lawyers.

But rumors swirl that some lawyers reportedly give great reviews to each other in exchange for the same. Hence the rave comments by those with perfect reviews. But even the very best lawyer I ever knew, would not have gotten PERFECT reviews from clients and colleagues. (What practicing lawyer makes ALL clients fully satisfied?) This means potential clients in need of solid counsel, are potentially misdirected and harmed.

WORSE STILL, Your only option to paying them off, is to request they NOT show your rating, but then they publicly present your request to hide their ratings of you - with the clear implication that you must be hiding something negative.

This is a shake down, it's extortion, and I'm appalled.

I wrote a 1 star review of a lawyer I had a really bad experience with - not returning my calls / e-mails, charging me for services that were sort of half-rendered, not even explaining the legal process to me...

Avvo denied my reviews over and over citing "guidelines". When I enumerated exactly how I was meeting the guidelines, and I kept asking over and over for something more specific if I was truly not meeting the guidelines, I was finally told my review was about "mediation / arbitration" (those are not accepted).

Mediation / arbitration in their guidelines is about the lawyer being a neutral third party to mediation. It was 100% clear in my review, and my response to Avvo support, that I hired the lawyer to represent me in court and our interests were aligned - this was NOT a neutral party.

Each time I asked for a phone number to speak to a specific person, I was ignored.

So, the most logical conclusion I can reach is that they are cultivating reviews by making the barrier to acceptance so high they hope I will just give up.

Ok so I have not realized that mentioning something of a false accusation question (I won't mention bc I don't think it's good to mention but it starts with an m.) would be so bad, I was asking for a friend who really really needed advice but all I kept getting was that it wasn't wise to mention it bc cops can literally do a search warrant. Well I couldn't have known otherwise but my friend is now 1000% more terrified that I'll be in trouble, which I feel the same way. Plus the person that answered the question was somehow implying that someone did a crime when I specifically said it was a false accusation. Anyway, literally doesn't give advice even when you REALLY need it, I'm not trying to cause trouble but I'm very sure they won't give any advice to cases like that IF you mention it's you. Beware to those who don't know, just don't ask sensitive topics or cases looked down upon for the suspects because everyone will be against you. If you're going to ask a serious question like that, please change your location into a super far away state/country from you or don't even ask that site at all bc they won't answer questions to a "suspect" of this kind of topic. In the end, it's not good and just use simple google for the research, the whole site is just basically kind of one sided sometimes.

I hired the attorney and paid on behalf of my son. What is the problem with the review, this is my personal experience, and I signed the contract with Peter Wosnik. How can my experience with the attorney not be appropriate and personal.
Your review of Wosnik Peter was denied: Underwhelmed 09/01/22 02:32 PM
There is a point when you can pay the attorney what is asked, but they don't have to provide you with an informed and helpful defense as what was the case for my family. Not all attorneys are defensive or fighters. This attorney proved to be just that, and I could not in good conscience recommend this person as a defense attorney; not if you expect sound advice. He is not to be trusted. I found the way this attorney worked to be more underhanded and should have tried the public defender system. (Or found a knowledgeable attorney that has the respect of the court to fight and not secretly agree with the DA. In retrospect, I made a crucial error in hiring Wosnik.

That is the truth and facts from my point of view.

Avvo has denied/rejected every Negative review i've written, citing "Contained language not appropriate for a public, professional forum". I have kept documentation regarding Avvo's claims, and screenshots, etc., and clearly they are utilizing a broad/open "claim" to reject negative reviews. Why? Because Lawyers, and those being reviewed, are their desired "customers," etc. Avvo is owned by, or at least co-operated with, Martindale-Avvo (it's right there, in the name), who ALSO is targeting attorneys as perspective clients/users, & is also another fake "review" site. I'm currently re-submitting my reviews, and taking screenshots, researching, regarding Avvo, and their false assertions of "language" which are obviously Untrue. I'd love to provide some Reddit links: 1 has comment regarding the poster's understanding that Avvo wants attorneys to pay to become subscribers, and often will remove negative reviews, to clean-up a lawyer's profile, which makes sense with their motive; one explains that Avvo is Martindale-Avvo, but I can't give links here. Do NOT rely on Avvo, or most sites, they ALL have reason, motive, and intention, to "protect" those whom they desire to have business with, make money from, or at least utilize in some way. Due to character limits, and censoring Negative Reviews at most "review" sites, I made a video regarding Evan Taylor, the attorney i'm trying to warn people about - Evan Taylor (Owensboro, KY "Attorney") My Review; Unfortunately, most sites will hide, or remove, or deny ANY Negative reviews, because it is in their best interest, and motive, to do so. My first review explained exactly what I experienced, and it was rejected, as every one has been, regardless of what language is used (see photo). So, my 2nd review, I added a section directly speaking about Avvo, & their obvious motive. That is in the screenshot. So, NOW, i'm not only reviewing Evan Taylor (attorney), also Avvo, wherever I can.

I am a practicing attorney and my "profile" was posted some time ago to the Avvo site without my consent, along with an arbitrary 6.5/10 "rating," with zero reviews, which apparently came from nowhere. I called and was told the rating comes from an "algorithm like Google," but that makes no sense as I do not participate in the respected attorney rating services like Martindale-Hubbell and therefore have never been "rated" by anyone. They agreed to remove my profile after a few weasel-worded emails trying to defend this nonsense.

The deal, apparently, is that you can join this "service" and gratuitously endorse other lawyers to gain ratings. It also sounds like you can pay money to raise your rating or what have you.
It's flatly libelous in my opinion, given that attorneys are added to the site without contacting them first (presumably from some web crawler scraping the state bar websites) and unless you agree to participate, you are saddled with a baseless low rating.

It's hard enough to build a professional reputation without these yahoos extorting people to participate in their meaningless database.

Don't encourage them.

I retained this attorney for my divorce after I filed for the divorce and did all the leg work for paperwork to prove the mother was unfit to gain child custody as she has a severe gambling issue this attorney allowed my case to be rushed without putting out any discoveries to prove the mothers negligence and allowed the courts to put in 2 child support orders for the same mother, she did not file paperwork on time which lead my case into default, the mother doesn't work and the judge clearly stated to get the child exemptions were awarded to me for tax purposes and at the end of my case which she allowed to be rushed and closed in 2 months I lost the exemptions, I have no divorce decree and my children are living in an unsafe environment thousands of dollars later. She would not fight or argue anything in my defense I could have represented myself better and I have a technical education please beware unless you want to give your money away and get railroaded at the same time do not use this attorney and do not trust avvo review about her i wrote a review about this attorney and avvo removed it and replaced it with a fake one describing her as an awesome attorney. You can make your own descisions just know after your bad experience that I tried to warn you and protect your bank account as well as your life altering divorce and or child custody case please beware!