Last year http://www.avvo.com/ was launched amid a lot of controversy in the legal community. Using a secret algorithm, the site ranks lawyers on a 1-10 scale based on publicy available information such as years of experience and known disciplinary actions from the Bar. This black and white system has produced a number of embarrassing results, including having a Supreme Court judge rank lower than a disbarred attorney. In fact, Avvo is facing a number of class action lawsuits. That said, Avvo does provide a unique search experience and it is increasingly showing up in search results–particularly for attorney name searches.

Therefore, it is important that you “claim” your Avvo profile and update your information. Just by updating your score will likely improve. So here then are the steps you need to take in order to update your Avvo profile;

1.Go to www.avvo.com and look for the “Search for your lawyer” box
2.Click on the tab that says “Lawyer name”
3.Enter the lawyer’s name within the fields and click on the “Search” button
4.Click on the link that says “Claim and update your profile for free.”
5.Click on the button that says “This is me, let’s claim my profile”
6.Enter the verification information, which includes credit card information
7.Check your email account that was used in the verification form and click on the link to access your profile

*special thanks to the FindLaw SEM team and Lela Phommasouvanh on providing me with this.