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.

The law, which also imposes stricter penalties and limitations on sex offenders, imposes jail time and fines on those who try to trick minors into viewing sexual content via misspelled domain names, search, and misleading hyperlinks. Links to such content will need to be clearly labeled as to the nature of it.

From the government press release, measures include:

- More consistent availability to the public through the Internet of information concerning the identities and locations of sex offenders who are required to register.

- Prohibiting the insidious practice engaged in by certain sexually explicit web sites of hiding innocuous terms in the hypertext markup language so that a search for those terms on the Internet yields links to the sexually explicit web sites.

The language of section 2252B of the bill, entitled “Misleading domain names on the Internet”:

(a) Whoever knowingly uses a misleading domain name on the Internet with the intent to deceive a person into viewing material constituting obscenity shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.

(b) Whoever knowingly uses a misleading domain name on the Internet with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material that is harmful to minors on the Internet shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 4 years, or both.

(c) For the purposes of this section, a domain name that includes a word or words to indicate the sexual content of the site, such as “sex” or “porn”, is not misleading.

(d) For the purposes of this section, the term “material that is harmful to minors” means any communication, consisting of nudity, sex, or excretion, that, taken as a whole and with reference to its context-

(1) predominantly appeals to a prurient interest of minors;

(2) is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable material for minors; and

(3) lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.

(e) For the purposes of subsection (d), the term “sex” means acts of masturbation, sexual intercourse, or physcial [1] contact with a person’s genitals, or the condition of human male or female genitals when in a state of sexual stimulation or arousal.

“America’s children will be better protected from every parent’s worst nightmare — sexual predators — thanks to passage of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. I applaud both the House and Senate — and in particular the leadership of Chairman Specter in the Senate and Chairman Sensenbrenner in the House — for passing this comprehensive bill, which includes provisions proposed by the Department of Justice,” said US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

“The protection of our Nation’s children has been, and will continue to be, one of the Department’s highest priorities, and we believe this bill will help us do our job even better.”

The law is already receiving criticism from those who feel it is a violation of free speech. Blogger “Shii” fears the language of the law prohibits even “prank links.”

“So, what does this bill outlaw? You can’t put prank links to Goatse anymore, because they decieve people into viewing obscenity. More importantly, you can’t link to erotic art on a website that minors might read without explicitly explaining its erotic nature. So, if I were to link to, say, the anime image database Danbooru, that would be totally illegal because I didn’t tell you what sort of pictures you might find there.”

What’s Goatse? It’s um, erm, uhYou really don’t want to know.

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After a New Year’s Eve party hosted by Anthony DiMeo III went woefully awry due to a couple of hundred unexpected guests rioting over the lack of party provisions (they ran out of food and liquor), self-described a-hole Tucker Max, who runs TuckerMax.com, was hauled into court as the publisher of defamatory and libelous remarks posted on his message board.

The comments in question were posted by the nefarious “Jerkoff,” “Drunken DJ” and “footinmouth,” among a small chorus of others who intimated DiMeo was guilty of poor planning, hiring stoned bartenders, was ugly (in so many words), pretentious, a jackass, a tool, a briber of politicians, a defrauder, as well as a large piece of excrement. They also suggest DiMeo take his own life and pray for his death.

DiMeo filed suit against Max in federal court over six specific postings, found in the colorful judicial opinion, claiming defamation under 47 U.S.C. 223(a)(1)(3), a criminal statute that prohibits
anonymously using a telecommunications device to harass someone.

US District Judge Stewart Dalzell ruled that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), a section that survives even though some of it was stricken down by the Supreme Court for being unconstitutional, protects interactive computer service providers from liability for third party comments.

In addition, the judge interpreted sections of the Act that protect users’ ability to filter offensive content in order to protect children from pornographic material, as also a right granted to providers of an interactive computer service to filter third party material and not to be held liable as a publisher of comments that remain.

The section of the CDA more specifically states:

And

The Supreme Court declined to rule on the case late last week, helping to solidify the judge’s decision. Dalzell’s write-up (PDF) of the ruling is worth the 22-page read, as he goes into detail about Max’ shenanigans and the comments made, and then slyly joins Max’ mocking of DiMeo and his lawyer for certain court proceedings he considered “baffling.”

The judge seemed particularly taken aback at DiMeo’s filing suit against Max when DiMeo readily admitted that Max had not made the comments himself; most of the comments, too, says the judge, are impossible to prove one way or the other. He also notes that DiMeo (or his attorney) took the supporting US criminal statute out of context by leaving out a key qualifier saying that interactive computer services did not meet the definition of a “telecommunications device.”

Dalzell concludes with:

Mr. Max and his vulgar anonymous friends celebrate the ruling by continuing their mocking of Mr. DiMeo in a new message board thread.

A few bloggers have noted that this ruling applies specifically to message boards, and not necessarily to blogs. However, some assume the language of the ruling will also apply to the blogosphere.

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