Facebook is also reportedly going public next year with an alleged valuation at $100 billion. Popular companies like Yelp and LivingSocial are also expected to file for IPOs as well.

But, do all these factors indicate that we’re in a bubble? What do you think?

A report from legal Q&A website Avvo adds even more fuel to this speculation. It has seen a 3,000 percent increase in its startup-related pageviews in the Silicon Valley over the past 6 months. Mark Britton, the company’s CEO and founder, told us that terms such as “incorporation,” “online company,” “tech startup,” and “intellectual property” have been searched very frequently.

“What we saw is that, particularly in [the] Silicon Valley, but also in traditional startup markets like Seattle, Austin, etc., we’ve seen a massive, massive jump in the number of searches and pageviews and overall site activity,” he said.

A few of the popular questions that Avvo has received include:

- Is a verbal partnership agreement for a startup binding in California?
- How do I fire the co-founder of my startup?
- My startup company is being accused of trademark infringement. What should we do?

According to Britton, most entrepreneurs are not lawyers, and, typically, try to avoid anything that has to do with legal matters. He believes that they finally understand that “if you don’t get this stuff right, it can sink a company.”

Although he didn’t come out and say that we were experiencing a bubble, he did point out some strong indications.

“I think you are seeing a lot of value that has been locked into these companies for a tremendous amount of time,” he said. “I think these companies are finally finding a favorable IPO market, and they’re going to that market to unlock the value.”

“I don’t know if that’s a bubble, but I do think we have some interesting sparks that are often driven by the tech sector that could light… a very nice micro fire in the larger economy,” he added.

Coincidentally, at the recent Sun Valley conference, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt was asked whether or not he thought we were in a tech bubble. Even though he didn’t directly state that we were in a bubble, his answer was pretty clear.

“On the general question of bubble, in the first place you don’t know it’s a bubble until the bubble ends, by definition. The rule I set for myself 10 years ago was that if the press calls it a bubble then I’d pay attention, and let me report that the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Economist have all written articles saying that it’s a bubble.”

Interesting perspective, huh? If he is right, then understanding legal matters is very important for startups. Britton advises startups to have a set of agreements in place that plainly shows all the founders how much they own and what will happen if one of them leaves. He also recommends that they have agreements in place for intellectual property to make sure that the people working with it understand it and protect it.

“In the same way that you have an infrastructure that would support a website, have an infrastructure, a legal infrastructure, that will support your company,” he said.

About eight business days.

Avvo launched in beta on June 5, coming out of stealth mode, with the stated intention of helping consumers choose better lawyers. The main problem was that there were two main ways of finding an attorney: via recommendation and via the Yellow Pages.

Both versions are fraught with bias, or at the least, lacking in objective information. That’s where Avvo CEO Mark Britton comes in with an algorithmic based, allegedly (you have to use "allegedly" right?) objective rating system.

Before we get into how many of us might have predicted that some lawyer(s) out there wouldn’t be pleased with their rating, and thus might have the inclination and sure-footedness to sue, let’s look at the Top 10 Things I Will Never Ever Do to see where creating a lawyer rating website ranks: 

Top 10 Things I Will Never Ever Do

10. Think rock climbing, running, or math are "fun"
9. Answer the door for two young guys in short sleeve white button-ups
8. Trust Whitey
7. Get a GoldenPalace.com tattoo on my forehead
6. Create a lawyer rating website
5. Put my head in a lion’s mouth
4. Wrestle a crocodile
3. Play leapfrog with a unicorn
2. Invest in a "Prince Albert"
1. Ask a woman if this is her PMS week

Number 6, it looks like, just above putting my head in a lion’s mouth.

My guess is that Britton has attempted at least two of these other bad ideas, most likely out of brazen disregard for his own well-being, and not out of stupidity. In fact, the website seems like it would be a great resource for us clueless consumers in the event that we need (and we all do, eventually) legal services.

So I’m guessing there’s an element of altruism here, if indeed we can use that word and "lawyer" in the same sentence.

Avvo’s rating system is based on a 10-point scale, according to the plaintiffs (John Henry Browne and Alan Wenokur of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro):

9.0-10.0  Superb
8.0-8.9    Excellent
7.0-7.9    Very good
6.0-6.9    Good
5.0-5.9    Average
4.0-4.9    Concern
3.0-3.9    Caution
2.0-2.9    Strong caution
1.0-1.9    Extreme caution

Eric Goldman, who teaches Cyberlaw and Intellectual Property at Santa Clara University School of Law, notes this was probably a bad idea:

The distillation of attorneys into a single numerical rating is inherently fraught with peril, and the media has picked up on numerous examples where the ratings are out of sync with common sense.

There could be a number of reasons for this, including insufficient data to make accurate ratings or miscalibrated components of the rating algorithm.

Either way, the numerical ratings look much more like a work-in-progress than a finished product, and I sure hope consumers aren’t actually relying on the numerical ratings….

Goldman continues at his blog about the philosophical and transparency issues, as well as what this means to interactive websites and rankings by search engines.

Plaintiffs say the ranking system is flawed, ranking highly respected veterans below disbarred and even jailed attorneys. They write:

Avvo’s fallible system for rating and promoting attorneys has produced wild discrepancies in ratings rather than the reliable consumer benchmarks for making decisions about legal representation that Avvo claims.

For example, the Dean of Stanford Law School, Larry Kramer (Avvo Rating 5.7 of "Average"), is rated lower than Lynne Stewart, a disbarred New York lawyer who was convicted of conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists, who received a 6.5 or "very good" rating.

The Avvo founder and CEO, Mark Britton, who was been a member of the Washington State Bar for just nine years received an 8 or "Excellent Rating," higher than the Dean Kramer.

Ouch. On the Avvo blog, Britton defends his website saying the plaintiffs are looking to squelch freedom of speech.

Britton writes:

This lawsuit is an effort to censor and to chill Avvo’s analysis, commentary and opinion in order to protect attorneys who have disciplinary actions in their backgrounds. It seems to reflect a belief, on behalf of the lawyers bringing this lawsuit, that the First Amendment doesn’t apply to the dissemination of opinions and information about them.

Whatever the outcome, this Lawyer vs. Lawyer case will be interesting to watch – in the same way "Crocodile Hunter" and "Jackass" were always cringingly fun to suffer through.