AVVO Secures $10 million in New Funding
AVVO, the controversial law firm Directory that provides ratings of lawyers has received a new $10,000,000 round of venture financing led by DAG Ventures of Pal Alto, California. The AVVO Directory is reputed to be the largest and most trafficked legal directory and the largest free legal Q&A forum receiving tens of thousands of questions and answers each month from consumers. The Directory also provides ratings and profiles for 90% of licensed attorneys in the US.
This funding is an endorsement of AVVO's concept that what consumers want in evaluating law firms is transparency and clarity with respect to the lawyer's reputation, legal services offered and even the pricing of legal services. The AVVO ratings system continues to increase in credibility and I predict that AVVO will become a first stop for consumers in searching for an attorney.
The AVVO system is arguably superior to Internet-based lawyer matching services, where consumers are matched with an attorney on the basis of a summary of a problem submitted over the web, as the consumer really doesn't have a clue about the competence of the law firm to which they are being matched.
To cite other examples of opaque law firm directory sites, there are web sites that aggregate consumers through a specialized legal information web site, and then redirect those prospects to a network of law firms that have purchased the exclusive right to receive leads in a particular territory. The lawyers in these networks may be very competent, but there is little information about their pricing or even links to these law firm's web sites.Consumers seeking competent lawyers on the Internet will continue to gravitate towards more transparent sites law firm directories sites like AVVO.
