Avvo Watch / Page 1 Avvo Watch / Page 2 Mr. Wolfstone Mark Britton
AVVO Watch
Avvo Watch speaks Truth to PowerAvvo and Mark Britton Diminish the Legal Profession
Avvo is a Kaleidoscope of Some Good but Mostly Bad Evaluations! Mark Britton's answer to my challenge is likely to be self-serving and superficial.
Mark Britton would answer that he is not responsible for the sins, errors and omissions of lawyers who suffer discipline.
But Mr. Britton misses the point. Mark Britton and the Avvo web site are staging a parade of damaged and disciplined lawyers without
which his web site would soon cease to exist. Without the lawyer bashing, without the parade of injured and
damaged lawyers with discipline, Avvo would offer nothing more than a ranking and rating of lawyers by a middle-aged man who
has never dedicated his career to bar leadership. Consumers of legal services who surf the web are likely
to ask, "Who is Mark Britton?" ... or ... for greater emphasis ... "Who in the hell is Mark Britton?"
Has Mark Britton ever tried a case in the courtroom; has he ever marshalled the evidence to persuade a twelve
person jury; has he ever stood in front of a jury and made an opening statement, scheduled and prepared witnesses
and elicited their testimony; has he ever cross examined an expert witness in a jury trial; has he ever made a closing argument; has he ever been responsible for
the post trial motions in a jury trial; has he ever entered and collected a judgment or explained to his client
why the judgment will not be paid; and has he ever continued to fight a case on appeal after his client's case
was tried?I am hard pressed to believe that any prospective consumer of legal services would visit Avvo's web site for
the sake of learning whether a lawyer is rated as "7" or "8" or "9" in Mark Britton's book. Nothing in Mark Britton's career
qualifies him to judge and rank and rate all of America's lawyers. To borrow a phrase from the legal profession, Mark Britton does not "have
the whiskers" to do the job. Mark Britton is a businessman ~ with an ego as big as a house ~ who has neither the
experience, nor the judgment nor the wisdom to rank and rate all of America's legal practitioners. Think about this
carefully, Mark Britton has appointed himself a one man super bar association who is going to rank and rate
every legal practitioner in the United States! Of course, Mark Britton's own Avvo page assigns himself an Avvo
score of 9.2 out of a possible 10 and includes extravagant praise and self-promotion. In my opinion, many lawyers will be
tempted to ask, "Is Mark Britton a greek god or just another narcissistic personality?"Lawyers who play the Avvo game will admit that its criteria are
highly manipulatable. Lawyers can ask their lawyer friends (so-called peer reviews) and clients to write laudatory letters to Avvo to
increase their Avvo score. Lawyers can identify just about any outside or community activity (which are not
vetted by the so-called Team Avvo people since Avvo software ~ a black box sitting in a dark room ~ receives and evaluates the input about lawyers) to support and
increase their Avvo score. Industry recognition can be inflated by speaking at a seminar of lawyers ~ although
participating in seminars can be a contribution to the legal community. If you give a speech about tort liability,
for example, to the graduating class at New Mexico Body & Fender, your Avvo score is aroused!
Any lawyer who wants to increase his Avvo score can "game" the system and dramatically increase his rating.
Many of the finest and most noble lawyers in your community have no Avvo score or perhaps a modest Avvo score.
Avvo creates the false impression that its system is a litmus test for integrity and service when in fact
Avvo is a House of Desolation.What attracts web surfers and consumers to Avvo is a sleazy parade of damaged and injured human beings.
If Avvo did not publish lawyers' discipline, Avvo would shrivel up and die on the vine. Avvo is propagandizing. Persecution relies heavily on propaganda as history teaches.
Can we compare Mr. Britton's treatment of lawyers who have been disciplined to the work of propaganda ministers?
I do not accuse Mark of genocide and I do not accuse Mark of killing human beings.
However, the Avvo web site is killing the emotions that make life productive for a damaged lawyer who is "starting over" and seeking redemption.
Mark Britton is getting rich trafficking in human pain. Mark Britton's website, Avvo, is a House of Desolation.Mark Britton is a walking, talking cash register and is not in the business of granting forgiveness. But the disciplined
lawyer is not asking for Mark Britton's forgiveness. The disciplined lawyer will get all of the forgiveness he
wants from his friends and family and clients. What Avvo blocks is the opportunity for redemption. Avvo makes
redemption more difficult and less likely. Thanks to Mark Britton, the lawyer with a reprimand must now walk
through life with a red "R" tatooed on his forehead. Even if a reprimand is a quarter of a
century in the past, Mark Britton keeps the wound open and keeps the wound fresh. Because he is devoting his productive energy to gathering and publishing lawyers' discipline, Mark Britton has revealed himself to be "a collector of grievances ... a collector of injustices." One Seattle lawyer who is a quadraplegic and confined mostly
to a wheelchair has a large red box with the word "Attention" on his Avvo page, and he has never agreed
to claim his Avvo page or play the Avvo game. This lawyer received
a letter of admonition for which Avvo lights up his Avvo page like a neon sign. Avvo asserts that it does
not want lawyers to "repeat" their mistakes, so apparently Avvo is protecting your families from this
quadraplegic lawyer in case he leaps out of his wheel chair and reoffends. Avvo is a mockery of justice!
Redemption is a gift that we give ourselves by starting over. Redemption is the disciplined lawyer's committment
to rebuilding his practice and reforming his life. To say that disciplined lawyers have no one to blame but
themselves is rewarding cruelty and degrading nobility.
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