If you’ve practiced law for any length of time, chances are your name already appears on Avvo—whether you wanted it there or not. The platform claims to be a tool for consumers to “find the right lawyer,” but for many attorneys, it’s a double-edged sword: a free marketing profile wrapped around a system that can easily damage your reputation with little recourse.

As a Maryland appellate lawyer, I’ve maintained a presence on Avvo for years—not always by choice, but out of necessity. And like many attorneys, I’ve encountered the best and worst of what the platform has to offer.

The Good (Yes, There Is Some)

To be fair, Avvo has done a few things right. The site has strong domain authority and often ranks high in search engine results for attorney names. If a prospective client Googles you, your Avvo profile will likely appear near the top. That alone makes it hard to ignore.

It also offers clients a familiar, centralized interface to compare lawyers in a way that feels accessible. The profile structure is relatively clean, and for attorneys who take the time to update their bio, practice areas, and resume, it can be a low-effort visibility booster.

And the Q&A section, while flawed (more on that shortly), does offer attorneys a chance to showcase their knowledge to potential clients browsing legal questions in real time.

The Ugly Truth: Avvo’s Anti-Lawyer Tilt

Where Avvo fails—and fails badly—is in the mechanisms it provides for attorneys to defend their reputations.

1. You’re Presumed Guilty

If someone—client or not—posts a false, misleading, or even malicious review, your options are limited. Avvo hides behind Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and while they may investigate blatantly fraudulent reviews, the bar is high and the process slow. There’s little transparency, and even less accountability.

What does this mean in practice? A disgruntled opposing party, a non-paying client, or even a total stranger can smear you with a 1-star review—and it stays up unless you can prove the poster had no interaction with you whatsoever. Even if the claim is objectively false, Avvo usually won’t intervene.

2. Ethical Violations Never Die

Avvo loves to list disciplinary history—even when the issue was a one-off, purely technical violation from years ago. Did you receive a minor reprimand for a gray-area billing issue a decade ago? That fact may sit like a scarlet letter at the top of your profile indefinitely, regardless of how many clients you’ve served ethically and competently since.

Worse, the context often isn’t there. Avvo notes that a violation occurred, but it does little to explain what happened or why it might not reflect on your current practice.

3. Q&A Answers Are Neutered

One of Avvo’s most ironic failures is its legal Q&A section. Attorneys are invited to answer user questions for free—but any attempt to include a helpful backlink to their own site or contact page is scrubbed. In other words, Avvo gets free content from licensed professionals and actively blocks those professionals from benefiting from it via SEO.

There’s something especially galling about being asked to provide free legal advice to anonymous users, only to be penalized for trying to direct them to your own professional page for more information.

Final Thoughts

Avvo offers visibility, but at a price—sometimes a reputational one. For newer attorneys looking to gain exposure or for those with no disciplinary history and a spotless record, the platform can be a useful (if flawed) component of an online presence.

But for experienced attorneys who’ve been in the trenches—who’ve had the occasional technical infraction, or dealt with a few unreasonable clients—Avvo can become a frustrating and sometimes damaging mirror.

My advice? Be aware, be strategic, and don’t rely on Avvo as your primary professional platform. If you’re curious, here’s Jason Ostendorf’s Avvo profile—warts and all.

For lawyers trying to build visibility on their own terms, platforms like LawTally (which I recently reviewed) or your own custom-built site may be the better long game.

Image Credit: OpenAI DALL-E