Avvo

I called a highly recommended lawyer from Avvo's review area. He was rude, abrupt, and didn't listen. He told me his cases were mainly slip and fall stuff and car accidents. His Avvo reviews painted him as a courtroom warrior who performs miracles with tough criminal cases, lol.
He was exactly the opposite of how the reviews described him! I had a feeling that his reviews were bought and paid for.
Every review site has him as a five star guy...not possible in the real world. Avvo is supported by lawyers and the reviews are unverified. Approach with extreme caution.

Use this site if you feel the need to be insulted and ridiculed for asking for legal advise! Nothing helpful just a waste of my time typing!

You might be able to get some contacts and follow up with lawyers via Avvo, but in general, you should do so knowing that the site is for the benefit of lawyers, not users.

Any question you ask on the site will likely receive condescending responses. Most advice ends up being: "You are probably dumb. Hire a lawyer." No matter how simple the question might be.

It's like going to a plumbing website for help on how to unclog a drain, and all the plumbers just respond with "Hire a plumber."

I am a retired college professor and engineer. I had a bad experience with an Atty who misappropriated a large sum of money from me and then stopped all communication. He is clearly dishonest and unethical. My review stated that he was ordered by the Arbitration Judge to pay me; he was further ordered by a Superior Court judge to pay me. He has not paid, was evicted from his apt ( public record) and has disappeared. Cal Bar website shows he has been disciplined in past and his license suspended twice. I reported this and AVVO refused to publish my review... withoiut explantion! I note that 6 mo. Earlier his name was presented in RED with a negative review but that review has disappeared and he remains a 5 star lawyer. Equally troubling is the fact that there are other lawyers on the site giving him high recommendtations. Either they are part of his scam, dont know who or what he is or just dont care. AVVO has some good attorneys sharing good info with the public but their Lawyer recommendations and star ratings cannot be trusted if they refuse to publish negative reviews or make it easy to remove them.

You can be as clear and straightforward with your question as is possible and you won't get much in return. With the sketchy, half-hearted replies, you'll wonder if these attys even totally read your question. Or understood it. Not worth the effort and I've tried several times. I give this 2 stars because at least they email you with some follow up contact, like they care a tad. Though it's relevant to what you asked only about half the time.

I was unaware that as a user for this site, NOT a lawyer, you cannot cancel your profile. I posted something I thought was between me and a lawyer and it was a bit of personal identifying info. I want to cancel, but even live chat is live, just email. I have 2 brain diseases and it is my fault for not being able to notice what I was doing at the time, but the site she allow visitors to remove thier questions and cancel thier profile, just like anywhere else in the web. I REALLY don't like this.

I submitted a negative review on an attorney who was unethical and dishonest. The attorney disputed the review and Avvo emailed me a request to verify my review and it would be reposted. I verified it and it was reposted, then taken down again. The customer service manager claimed my review violated community guidelines and I review the wrong lawyer. I had proof to the contrary. On 06/03/19, I forwarded my concerns to their legal department but never heard from them. I also filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Apparently, Avvo shows favoritism toward lawyers, even if they're in the wrong. Therefore, a lawyer's Avvo rating is a false representation and is misleading to the public.

I have posted reviews of lawyers on this website over the last few years. When I post a five-star review of a lawyer, it goes through somewhat automatically, I get an approval statement from the website usually the next day. On two occasions, I submitted negative reviews of lawyers who had not done a good job. The next day, in both cases, my reviews were rejected for violating "community guidelines." The community guidelines are overly broad and, more interestingly, the website does not tell you which guideline you have supposedly violated. This is particularly noteworthy for a website that deals with lawyers, lawyers deal in details. In any case, in both of my negative reviews, I had to change the reviews until eventually, several days and several emails later, they were accepted. I know that in one of these two cases, the lawyer, Andrew Fitzgerald in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, actually tried to deny that I had been his client and Avvo asked me for proof that I have been his client. This is a violation of confidentiality by a website. In any case, Avvo eventually posted the negative review of this man in Winston-Salem, after several days and several emails back and forth.

According to its website, Avvo claims to provide "more information" to help potential clients make "better decisions." Yet, Avvo apparently makes little effort to screen positive reviews (which could possibly be provided by the personal friends of a lawyer). It is my understanding that the only way that Avvo actually verifies positive evaluations is to let the lawyers challenge such reviews. On the other hand, Avvo routinely intercedes with negative reviews (as well as allowing the lawyer to question such reviews, as happened to me with Mr. Fitzgerald in Winston-Salem). So, in the case of incompetent, unprofessional, or disreputable lawyers, Avvo does not really provide a platform for consumers to make "better decisions."

I don't get that feeling. I tried to be as clear as possible and the answer was only about half pertinent.

Yes even though I have done filed out for an attorney to contact me here in Noblesville Indiana I need a lawyer and the person running there Facebook's needs too stop being a smartass. They said they can not hook me up with an attorney it's like ok I can take my money and business elsewhere the moron feeling disappointed with avvo.

The most useless advice on AVVO is telling people to get a lawyer. How stupid. Surely everyone has considered that option and for whatever reason, is not able to hire an attorney. As if attorneys are free. The person asking the question didn't need to go to AVVO just to hear "get a lawyer." Every time I see that in an answer, I tend to ignore that lawyer. Most questions I have seen on AVVO are not that difficult for a real lawyer to address. At the same time, many questions are so poorly written and far too complicated to want an answer from AVVO. The attorneys also seem to believe that AVVO was the first place the asker went for information. I'm sure that in many cases, AVVO is just an additional source. Lastly, I hate how the attorneys answer the questions as if the asker is a moron, incapable of learning and understanding legal concepts.

As a consumer, I do not expect Avvo to be a substitute for an actual attorney. But sometimes you don't need legal advice, per se, you just have a legal question (like what form do you need to file for XYZ or what does Civil Code ZYX mean). Now and then you get a straight forward and useful response, most of the time, you get useless, incomprehensible, "legalese" that ends with "consult a local attorney." If the consumer understood the "legalese" used within the worthless response, he wouldn't need to ask Avvo or any attorney registered with it for that matter.

Even worse, some attorneys use the questions section to berate the questioning consumer, jumping to conclusions when they've only been given a fraction of the facts and issuing insulting commentary without knowing what they're talking about; that is a MAJOR turnoff. Some Avvo attorneys are childish "Mean Girls" both he-girl and she-girl. Even this site has trolls... how unfortunate.

Again, I do not expect free legal advice; plenty of attorneys offer consultations. Sometimes you don't need full-blown advice, you simply have a question. If Avvo's attorney's do not want to answer legal questions, then they should stay off the "Ask a Legal Question" page---DUHHH! Sometimes Avvo is helpful, mostly it's not... it's a coin toss.

From a client's perspective you get iffy advice and there are lawyers on the site with the highest rating -- '10'-- with not a single client review (or peer review, for that matter.) They raise their rating by answering questions, I guess. The attorney answers to some questions I researched were from attorneys not in my state who were either wrong or 'wronger'-- they told questioners to go hire an attorney (uhh-please!) when they could have sent them to the state office for FREE advice and follow-up. An attorney answered me with a non-answer. I replied 'let me restate the question' and received no additional answers; my comment is also hidden. I've chosen my next attorney from Martindale-Hubbell where they are peer-reviewed and client reviewed. It seems honest and factual.

Avvo.com is a ripoff, soon will be report into ripoff.com.

This website is a waste of time and an opportunity affiliate for lawyers to get clients to make money.

This website, avvo.com, is not free unless you have money to hire of their lawyers on their site since it is their intent of what avvo.com was created for.

They never answer a question, but trying to get you to get a lawyer.

They do the worst thing to someone who try to get justice, which is make that person feels he or she is not important unless they have lawyers instead of answer questions people are asking.

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.

Avvo publishes consumer reviews that paint an excessively rosy picture of the respective practitioners. That's because Avvo will arbitrarily reject reviews on the basis of what it deems to be "personal attacks, insulting comments, or accusations."

The website may have merit in some areas (such as advice), but is not trustworthy when it comes to posting a negative review. And trust trumping all other qualities, the 1 / 5 stars rating is justified (updated to 2 / 5 on Sep 19, explained at the bottom). My review is in three parts: 1/ My experience writing a negative review about a "A Boutique New York Uncontested Divorce Law Firm" with a visible online presence, and dealing with Avvo's support. 2/ Comments on the frequency of the reviews for that particular law firm, whose website shows there are 5 attorneys (keep that in mind). 3/ A more general defect about Avvo's user interface.

1/ On Aug 29th, my first review was accepted for publication by Avvo. On Sep 2nd, and I get an email stating that my review is revoked. I then wrote a new, similar, but shorter, review:

" [...] At my request that [the lawyers] identify possible legal flaws [in the divorce papers], [they] refused, justifying it as follows: Would you ask your current doctor to take responsibility for a medical procedure was performed by another doctor. To which I responded, Your analogy with the doctor is sophistry. [...] A doctor looks at past reports of medical procedures, to ensure the next one is appropriate". [They] diverted from proper etiquette, in my opinion, with comments such as "That said this is not elementary school", and no common ground was found. So I filed a complaint with the Grievance Committee."

On Sep 3rd, my review was approved, and the 4th it was revoked. On the 5th, I complained through their support interface as follows:

"it's the second time you reject my review, without giving a specific reason. I ask that you please identify contentious sentences, and, for each, explain why. "

On Sep 9th, I got this response:

"I have approved your most recent client review and it is now posted in your attorney's profile. We have a team of people who read client reviews to ensure they meet our community guidelines, and sometimes we make mistakes. [...] Please let me know if there is anything else I can help with. "

On Sep 10th, I replied to the support email address:

"the frequency of reviews for this lawyer, several per week, is dubious. I think it's your duty towards the users of this site, whether lawyers or potential clients, to look for combos of reviews for a given lawyer that share a common ip address, which is the dead giveaway they are fraudulent. Your webadministrator can easily do that"

On Sep 10th, they responded:

"If you feel you've come across any suspicious reviews please let us know and we will look into it. "

Which I interpret as stonewalling. On Sep 15th, my review was revoked. I emailed the support group that had previously reviewed my earlier claim as follows:

"the 'most recent client review' you approved after I contested its removal, has once again been removed (see below, email timestamped Mon, Sep 15 [...]). Please clarify."

And to this day, Sep 19th, it hasn't been answered.

The attorney could have commented on my review, but never did. Apparently, working behind the scenes is his preferred course of action, and the disturbing part is, facts prove him right.

2/ When my first review was approved, Aug 29th, there were 630 reviews for the lawyer. Today, Sep (1)9th, there are 650 (oldest reviews are two years old). That's 20 cases that were processed (in 3 weeks). If, say, 10% of divorce clients write a review, it implies each attorney processes 40 cases (in that time frame). That's about (nearly 3) cases/day. It's a factory! I looked at other NYS divorce lawyers, and the bulk has under 10 reviews, and a few have up to 70.

Keep in mind that it isn't just prospective clients that are misled, but the (I hope) majority of attorneys using this site that don't seek to game the system.

3/ Unlike, say, Amazon, users cannot filter reviews by rating. That's makes it very difficult to search for bad reviews when there's a plethora of reviews, as in case reported here.

PS: any edits are shown inside ()

(On Sep 19, customer care emailed me

"Thanks for reaching out! I am sorry for the confusion. I have put notes to not remove the review. Your review has been reposted. "

Hence the 2 stars, rather than 1.)