Thursday, June 12, 2008

Lawyer rating service seeks names of all licensed lawyers in Illinois

Avvo Inc., a company that provides an online ratings directory of U.S. lawyers, has petitioned the Illinois Supreme Court to obtain an electronic list of the attorneys licensed to practice in Illinois from the ARDC. The company noted that the information was already made public on the ARDC's own Web site, just not in a form that's usable by Avvo. The ARDC said providing the list would fly in the face of long-standing policy. In an April letter to Avvo, ARDC lawyers said that outside its Web site the list is only provided to state and local bar associations, officers of the court and continuing legal education organizations.

I have been to the Avvo website. They claim to have most Illinois lawyers in their database already. They just want to fill in the holes with the master list from the ARDC. I went there and found my own listing. It was very generic. I think it just basically listed the date of my admission and my contact information. I actually created a free account so that I could customize my profile. The website allows clients to go on there and "rate" the lawyers. I seriously doubt any of my clients have ever heard of that website, but I still thought it was worth it to create an account so that I could control what my clients see if they ever come across the site.

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