Miscellaneous

Another Legal Site Jumps on the Consumer Ratings Bandwagon

By Robert Ambrogi

Some lawyers still squirm at the mention of Avvo, the website that purports to rate every lawyer in the U.S. (and now every doctor too). My belief is that ratings are a good thing, in that they help consumers make a better-informed decision. We all check consumer ratings and reviews when we buy other products and services. Why shouldn’t they be available for legal products and services as well?

This month, another site added consumer ratings as a feature, as part of a broader relaunch. The site, MyLegal.com, describes itself as a “dynamic portal that provides business opportunities for the legal community.” It combines features of a marketing directory with those of a professional networking site.

One way in which MyLegal.com differs from many other legal directories is that it includes not only lawyers, but vendors offering products and services to the legal community. Thus, it includes listings for couriers, court-reporting services, e-discovery providers, paralegals, private investigators, and the like.

As of Feb. 1, MyLegal.com added a feature that enables consumers to add reviews of anyone listed in the directory. The feature is simple enough, asking the reviewer to provide a rating of up to five stars and to add a comment describing “your overall impression.”

I somewhat randomly searched the directory and was unable to find any listings that included reviews. Given that the feature was launched just two weeks ago, I’m not surprised by this. To be perfectly honest, I will be surprised if all that many users actually add reviews.

Listing in the MyLegal.com directory requires membership in the site, although the basic membership is free. The site also offers “preferred” and “premier” memberships for $25 and $50 a month.

Full post as published by Lawsites on February 17, 2011 (boomark / email).