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Memo to Disciplinees
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Mark Britton Mark Britton is a Human Wrecking Ball Former Avvo CEO, Mark Britton is Dishonest |
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Mark Britton exhibits a high tolerance for destructive behavior. Mark Britton uses his Avvo-com web site to draw binary lines around marginalized people, and lawyers with discipline are a distinctly marginalized community in the legal profession. Mark Britton has not merely disrupted the legal profession with his blood libel against disciplined lawyers, but more accurately he has broken the legal profession. In the hands of Mark Britton, the Avvo-com web site promises thoughtful evaluation of lawyers but delivers disaster! Cruelty is the only possible explanation for this attack on disciplined lawyers ~ Mark Britton is churning the idea of the evilness of "the Other" as a marketing ploy for his web site, and in this instance "the Other" is the disciplined lawyer who is striving to redeem himself. Whether or not he participates in Avvo and whether or not he has "claimed" his Avvo page, Avvo gives the disciplined lawyer an Avvo page which prominently displays his name and identifies him as a disciplined lawyer ~ "This lawyer was disciplined by a state licensing authority." Mark Britton's use of red ink is indeed appropriate since this is the new blood libel against lawyers with discipline who are striving for their redemption.
Thomas Jefferson, who was not only a Founding Father but also a member of the legal profession, is remembered for saying: "The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots." Mark Britton and Avvo have apparently decided that "The Tree of Avvo with its paradigm of instant gratification must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of disciplined lawyers." Disciplined lawyers do not blame Mark Britton for their reprimands, but they are well justified in pointing out that Mark Britton has made a national spectacle of their discipline while they are striving for redemption.
Mark Britton's use of red lettering to single out marginalized lawyers is clever but is not original: this red letter technique has been used effectively in past cultures. What appears below is the top portion of the passport page issued by the Third Reich in 1939 to identify marginalized people in Germany. According to the Museum of Passports ~ who publishes this image at PassportMuseum.Org ~ the "Red J means ‘Jew’ stamped to make it easier for border guards to identity and pull out Jews from queues from Germany and other Nazi occupied countries." Avvo and Mark Britton ensure with total certainty that people who surf the internet today can readily "identify and pull out" disciplined lawyers. Of course, neither Mark Britton nor Avvo are guilty of killing human beings, but they do kill the emotions that make their lives productive and worth living.
 Making matters worse, most American lawyers now worship at the shrine of Avvo-com, so Mark Britton wields more power and influence over the legal profession than the fifty organized bar associations sanctified by state law. The ugly truth is that there are very few lawyers on the payroll at Avvo. Team Avvo consists mostly of overpaid computer techs ("coding" people) and overpaid junior execs ("sales" people). If you are willing to face reality: Team Avvo is a mob of propaganda ministers who are masquerading as dispensers of legal wisdom and moral justice. How quaint! Mark Britton and his Team Avvo have delegated the task of demonizing and shaming disciplined lawyers to non-lawyers on Mr. Britton's Team Avvo who are armed with massive international bandwidth! Figuratively speaking, the lunatics have taken over the asylum!
With a little nudge from Mark Britton, you can easily imagine a whole constellation of sins, errors and omissions on the part of the disciplined lawyer. Indeed, if you let your imagination run wild, you can envision a disciplined lawyer who is not only guilty of moral bankruptcy but also living a life of conspicuous consumption. Mark Britton's insight into morality is unmistakenly glorious and pagan. Thus, Mark Britton is a connoisseur of brutality.
In the fullness of time, Mark Britton's blood lust against disciplined lawyers is damaging all lawyers insolido across the board. Neither Mark Britton nor Avvo are restrained in their fratricidal race for the bottom. The legal profession is diminished when we gloss over and ignore Avvo's blood lust which refreshes the Tree of Avvo. Any justification that Mark Britton might offer would be unconvincing. Avvo's business plan rips through the legal profession like an invisible and impersonal river which has no need of us and no knowledge of us.
Mark Britton has been enthusiastic about standing at the Avvocating Seminar podium and peddling his business plan, but Mark Britton's
scheme of things would return our profession to the culture of separate drinking fountains. Mark Britton is offering a reset of our collective memories to a time when people in pain were destined to live on the outskirts of hope. Mark Britton has persuaded the legal profession that lawyers can grow their practices by demonizing and shaming lawyers with discipline who are striving for their redemption. Thus, Mark Britton's ambitious business plan degrades nobility and rewards cruelty. Avvo-com is a House of Desolation.
When we refer to the Avvo 10 person, we include Mark Britton because he had originally published his Avvo biography page with an Avvo 10 score until Avvo Watch launched its initial critique of Mr. Britton and his Avvo-com web site. Shortly after, Mr. Britton lowered his score to 9.6 and subsequently to 9.2 and then to 9.0 and finally 8.8. Presently, Mr. Britton has reinstated his Avvo score to 10. We have never underestimated Mark Britton's chameleon-like ability to change his colors.
Avvo-com confers the Avvo 10 score on lawyers with extraordinary self-confidence whose self-love sprouts up from the unconscious like fierce tropical foilage and who are willing to portray themselves as pioneers who were born in a covered wagon pointed West and who grew up in the foothills of the mountains where the peaks companion with stars. These people hold themselves out as name-brand merchandise and their resumes are distinguished by their weight, ripeness and plenitude. Thus, Mark Britton creates the illusion of legitimacy through posturing and gimmickry.
Mr. Britton frequently says that his web site enables him to shine a flashlight into dark places. Truth be told, however, Mark Britton needs to shine his flashlight in his own face and stand in front of a mirror.
Mark Britton subsequently added a new feature called Avvo Advisor to his web site to deflect attention from his "free legal advice" fiasco. Mr. Britton's new feature, Avvo Advisor, offered a program of paid legal advice with a "money-back guarantee." Apparently, Mr. Britton resorted to the new feature to sprinkle a little pixie dust on his nightmare and eliminate ethical problems inherent in offering free legal advice (coupled with his cleverly footnoted denial which says that free legal advice is not really legal advice).
However, Mr. Britton overlooked the fact that lawyers and law firms live in existential dread of any effort to make their legal fees refundable on demand. Avvo Advisor's "money-back guarantee" which was published on Avvo-com's web site promised the consumer subjective satisfaction ~ thus, the participating lawyers' legal fees evaporated in front of their eyes like a handful of seafoam. In rhetoric, in fact and in policy, Mark Britton's "money back guarantee" was nothing more than a unsuccessful "Charm Offensive" to cover up and provide contrast to his flawed program which boasts "free legal advice" above the fold and then hastily retreats with the suggestion below the fold that free legal advice is not really legal advice.
When he cobbled together "free legal advice" with "paid legal advice," Mark Britton's intellectual scaffolding came tumbling down on the heads of Digital Natives who visited the Avvo-com web site. Upshot: ~ Avvo-com's new feature was a bundle of contradictions which gave the reader an attack of vertigo. Avvo finally waived a white flag and totally aborted its "paid legal services" new feature. In a letter dated June 6, 2018, Avvo's General Counsel (B. Lynn Walsh) announced to the North Carolina State Bar whose committee was investigating Avvo's apparent "Unauthorized Practice of Law" that Avvo (Internet Brands) was discontinuing its "Legal Services product." Obviously, the term "Legal Services product" is corporate-speak for paid legal services on the Avvo-com web site.
How, then, does Avvo make money for its investors and shareholders? Avvo makes its money selling advertising to lawyers and law firms. In order to circumvent the problems ~ notably ethical problems ~ associated with its original scheme of free legal advice, Avvo's new program called Avvo Advisor was an on demand 15 minute telephone consultation session with an Avvo member lawyer that cost $39 and was available in 18 states. Make no mistake about it, however, Avvo has always made its money selling advertising space on its website, and the advertsing space is purchased by lawyers who are promoting their brands ~ credential kiting and self-aggrandizement. Avvo was never supported by "paid legal fees." Avvo is well aware that it was creating the false impression ~ a pure fiction ~ that it was supported by consumers who are paying legal fees for legal advice. Avvo Advisor was a pale imitation of the robust revenues that are generated by selling advertising space to lawyers who love to hear the sound of their own names.
If Mark Britton truly believes that Avvo will ever earn significant money from legal fees paid by consumers, then Mark Britton is economically illiterate and is still dreaming about his failed plan which has been tagged as the Unauthorized Practice of Law
That said, it remains nonetheless true that Mark Britton is getting rich trafficking in human pain with his lawyer-bashing scheme. By turning his back on the core values, history and traditions of the legal profession, Mark Britton enables and encourages critics of our profession to tar all lawyers with the same brush. The trial lawyer who files complaints and who summons people into courtrooms is neither ennobled nor enriched by Mark Britton's mischcief. Instead, Mark Britton confirms the prejudices of low information voters who persist in believing that Shakespeare was right! ~ all lawyers are hypocritical people who are cruel and who lead austere and joyless lives.
A good review of the above photo of Maxwell Smart and his shoe phone is to point out that this photo symbolizes and typifies superficial clowns like Mark Britton. The world was entertained by Maxwell Smart's shoe phone, and we find an insightful parallel between Maxwell Smart's photo and Mark Britton's Avvo business enterprise. Like Mark Britton, Maxwell Smart appears cocky and self-confident, but his shoe phone illustrates his true achievement in making a connection with technology. Carry on Mr. Smart ... Carry on Mr. Britton.Mr. Britton is indeed a comical figure, and it would be easy to designate him and his enterprise as "Rufus Cornpone and his Team Avvo" but legal scholars must not lose sight of the fact that Mark Britton and his Team Avvo are a malign influence on the legal profession. By trampling on the weak and the downtrodden, Mr. Britton and his Team Avvo transform strong lawyers into a selfish lot of men and women whose legacy is lack of hope and lack of generosity. When we expose Mark Britton's tactic of "lawyer bashing" we are not talking about discipline ~ we are talking about Britton's success in damaging redemption as a core value in the law.Sadly, we live in a world in which sociopathic people are being increasingly rewarded, and in that world and in that context Mark Britton is an enabler. Mark Britton has persuaded the American legal profession to dumb down and water down its ethical and scholarly standards so that lawyers can now sell their brand and grow their practices by lawyer bashing and by peddling "free legal advice" with the added bonus of "lawyer ratings" based on self-aggrandizement. Sociopathic people ~ sociopathic lawyers and sociopathic consumers of legal services ~ gravitate to that model.
A few short years ago ~ in the early 1960's ~ the Washington State Bar News would publish a brief note at the end of the year informing its readership that "There were ____ [fill in the number] reprimands this year" without publishing lawyers' names or the details of their offenses. Today, of course, the Bar News publishes names and summarizes the offenses ~ justifying its stain on lawyers with the shibboleth that the Bar must earn the confidence of the public and punish offenders. Mark Britton and his Team Avvo ensure with the zeal of barbaric tribalism that the stain is a lifelong humiliation. Mark Britton does not physically kill human beings, but he does kill the emotions that make their lives productive and worth living. Thus, Avvo-com is a House of Desolation. The study of law and the practice of law can be and should be a spiritual pilgrimmage leading to a cleansing introspection and renewed self-esteem. When Mark Britton transforms the legal profession into commercial self-promotion in search of "the good life," however, the legal profession becomes a hideous parody of itself. When Nietzsche perceived this corruption of the soul, he proclaimed the superman. Mark Britton is less perceptive than Nietzsche but he is equally despairing. Just as Nietzsche had proclaimed the superman, Mark Britton has now proclaimed the "Avvo 10 Lawyer." Mark Britton misses the meaning of Grace at the precise moment when he had the opportunity to grasp it.This is your hour, Mark Britton, The hour of shadows.
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