Spending ridiculous amounts of money on a lawyer to turn around and find they can’t help you is no fun. Avvo’s mission is to prevent cases like this.
In our Avvo review, we’ll take a closer look at how it tries to do this and other company goals – and how well it succeeds.
Read on to see if Avvo puts forward anything useful to you.
What is Avvo
Avvo offers solutions both for people in need of legal consultation and for the lawyers that provide it.
On the site, consumers can find free legal advice given out by qualified attorneys, as well as a comprehensive directory of 97% of all lawyers around the US. For participating attorneys, Avvo is an opportunity to find new clients.
Avvo functions as a scraper site putting together lawyer listings with information copied from other sites. Because of this, there are a lot of mixed feelings about the site among lawyers, and many disagree with its business practices.
This has even led, ironically enough, to the legal advice company getting sued. Fortunately, the suit was settled in their favor.
Avvo Pros and Cons
We’ll start off by doing an overview of all the good and bad aspects of Avvo:
Pros
- Most Avvo services are free
- Questions get answered quickly
- Easy-to-use interface
- Directory of lawyers from all around the US
Cons
- Advice given is limited and general, sometimes vague
- The site has a lot of ads
- Information for its lawyer directory is gathered from other sites by web scraping
- A lot of users rate the site poorly
Avvo Services
Avvo’s Q&A section is open to everyone and is completely free to use. Any user can ask a question regarding a legal issue and can expect a speedy response from the lawyers using the site – typically answers take less than 12 hours. Follow-up questions are also free.
A draw-back is that answers are sometimes too general or vague, and in order to get what you’re looking for you’d have to actually hire an attorney. You might even be consulted on the site to seek official legal help.
For lawyers, Avvo presents a marketing opportunity and a chance to grow clientele.
If any users of the site decide they need legal representation, they already have access to your profile and know exactly what you do and where you’re located.
Is Avvo Legit?
Avvo’s been in business for over 14 years and has had its fair share of users.
The company hasn’t been accredited by the Better Business Bureau, but we do have customer reviews to go by.
Unfortunately for Avvo, its reviews are on the lower end, having a score of only 1.9 on TrustPilot. Still, the low reviews mainly complain about lawyers being rude, and the handling of the rating system. Neither of these things makes the site a scam so the question isn’t so much “Is it legit?” and it is “Is it any good?”
Aside from the bad ratings, you’ll find many people who were very pleased with the service. This means that while you can’t say there’s no room for improvement, Avvo is a legit company and proves the services it claims to.
Is Avvo as Good as a Lawyer?
Avvo is essentially having lots of different legal experts – specialized in different things – to talk to. So it offers a wide range of topics to be advised on, and given that it’s free, it’s certainly cheaper than any lawyer.
Lacking an official attorney-client relationship, attorneys on the site can only offer general advice. If you need anything more, Avvo will not help you, as it isn’t a replacement for an actual lawyer. However, if broad advice is what you’re looking for, then it sure beats paying.
Avvo Pricing Plans
Avvo is free for all its users, but it does offer an Avvo membership for lawyers that will give them some perks.
For $135 a month, you can get Avo Advanced and enhance your profile to help build your reputation and bring in more consumer interest. If you’re looking to further upgrade, for $225 per month lawyers can get Avvo Elite, which adds targeted advertising to grow the profile.
Customer Service of Avvo
To reach customer support you should scroll to the bottom of your screen and go to the “Support” section. Here you have access to the most frequently asked questions both for lawyers and consumers.
You’re likely to find what you need on this page; however, if you don’t you can go on to submit a request to Avvo’s support center or send an email to CustomerCare@Avvo.com. Avvo processes requests from Monday to Friday, 7 am – 4 pm PT, and aims to reply to inquiries within a day.
How Do I Get Rid of Avvo?
Avvo doesn’t remove profiles, and in many cases creates profiles for lawyers without them doing anything, or even knowing about it. This makes sense if we consider the size of the site’s directory.
Since it draws information from public sources there is no need to be concerned over anything shared on profiles, unless you think it’s incorrect. If that’s the case, contact the company to let them know.
Lawyers may later claim their profiles by providing proof of identification, and will thereafter get an Avvo rating calculated for them, and be able to ask for client and colleague reviews to improve on that rating.
If you want to cancel Avvo’s Premium subscriptions – Advanced or Elite – you will be able to do so with ease from your profile, and you won’t be charged anymore.
To cancel advertising or websites, you need to send a written notice to Avvo at least 30 days in advance of the renewal date.
