Avvo is a really neat idea that has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, a prolific few have decided that peeing in the well is a neat idea too. The value of Avvo to laypersons as a forum for educating themselves on legal issues is irreparably dimished when users have to wade through crap answers and unqualified opinions from professionals who should know better than answer questions from beyond where their license permits them to practice.

I have contaced several times in the past to discontinue the practice of allowing attorneys commenting on cases outside of the state where they are licensed. Eventually, I had an actual person contact me to inform that me that they could not stop the practice of allowing attorneys to answer questions that they have no business answering. I told them that I found that answer lazy. I told them if they were a responsible website they would not allow this practice of answering questions outside the jurisdiction where they are licensed. A second person from Avvo contacted me suggesting that if I saw an answer that was merely for gaming the system to “flag it is as objectionable.” Again, I found this to be a lazy answer from Avvo since I would be doing their work. I have cut down on answering questions on their site since I spoke to the second person because I feel that the main focus is creating content for their webiste by having lawyers answer as many questions as possible. Thus, their website moves up the search engines so that they can later charge for advertising.

Anyway, you’ve inspired another blog post. So . . . you win?

Nothing is wrong with my phone, as I attempted to and did speak for about 15 seconds to explain some of the appeals I have done in a wide variety of areas of law only to realize you had left the line.

Anyway, even though you disagree that my free online participation is a positive thing, isn’t it a lot more civil to have a dialogue such as this as opposed to your name calling blog [avvo-answhores.html]. One of the things I teach in ethics and professional responsibility to young lawyers is that civility assists lawyers to make a point more rationally, peacefully, and powerfully than name calling.

Thanks for replying.

Unless you are having some problem with your phone system, you—as I noted in my update—hung up on me. It was not the other way around.

Maybe you really think that you are making a positive contribution with answers like this, but your disclaimer—not “a substitute for competent legal advice”—says otherwise.

I’ve got my hands full helping people who have questions that I have answers to, and I have a rule against providing legal advice—pro bono or otherwise—in areas outside of my areas of licensure and special knowledge. So I decline your invitation to join you in answering questions from every state dealing with every topic of law.

I am the Alan Brinkmeier that you say should “recognize that they have no clue what they’re talking about” and should, “just keep their traps shut”. When we spoke by phone this morning unfortunately you were not interested in hearing anything I said when you rudely hung up the phone on me when I inquired if you would consider removing the post about me if I explained why I participate in the online forum.

Here is my thinking. I volunteer by posting online in an effort to help those that take time to post their problems. I do not do this for some ill purpose or as a game. I have done this same kind of thing in my practice and this is another way, albeit online, in which I feel that I can share. More such volunteer effort is needed by us all and it binds us to our community in a positive way. Try it. You might like it.

I attempt to help people point them in the right direction for a potential solution to their problems knowing full well I am not their attorney. I gain nothing. I have no ill-will in doing so. I enjoy trying to help others with the questions they post. I join Ms. Henly (her post 26 Nov) and her thinking as I too really do like trying and helping these people. I like it when someone phones me to thank me for a post I have made and follows up with another question.

Other than the summer months of 2009 when I was fully engaged and could not post much, I continue to enjoy trying to help.

I have been lucky enough in my practice to do appeals which have pertained to a wide variety of legal issues such as product liability, wrongful death, contract, insurance, civil rights, constitutional law, police matters, government takings, and more. By posting in the section that covers Appeals I do see and make observations on posts in these and other topics. I am thankful to be able to talk with those people that have phoned me to talk about their situations further. You calling me an answhore on your post falls in the category of all name-calling – it does not further any positive dialogue.

As I have often mentioned to people that ask, I think Avvo is only one of several tools that a person looking for an attorney should use to choose the right lawyer.

Alan Brinkmeier

I have no problem with the lawyers who simply agree with their “esteemed” colleagues on a response in order to score quick points. That kind of strategy should be pretty transparent to everyone, including people who might consider hiring them.

What bothers me are the lawyers who answer questions posed by someone who obviously already has a lawyer and who is just using the site to second-guess that lawyer. Many people who are asking questions have just entered a guilty plea or are being encouraged to take a guilty plea. Who does it help to second-guess the advice of the lawyer who negotiated this guilty plea and who is intimately familiar with the facts of the case. And yet some lawyers will do precisely that. They seem to suggest that they have gleaned something from the two- or three-sentence question that the questioner’s retained counsel has somehow missed.

Lots of lawyers don’t give free advice, though, even when giving it would be no more work than refusing to give it, and make excuses for not doing so—speculative and unlikely liability, for example. By creating business incentives for lawyers to “answer” questions (even when they don’t know the answers), Avvo has taken free legal advice out of the hands of lawyers who know the answers and share them because they care, and put it in the hands of marketers trying pathetically to get their names to the top of the page.