"Best Lawyers In America"
Lawyer Ego Scams: What You Need to Know
Jason Miller
Posted on October 19, 2018
Share Lawyers often ask me whether they should join a particular organization, purchase an enhanced listing, or add a badge to their website. The answer depends on a few factors:
Nonprofit Legal AssociationsIn the legal industry, nonprofit organizations are the only entities that might provide a true measurement of the lawyer’s merit and accomplishments within specific areas of practice.
Nonprofit organizations provide valuable education and resources to help lawyers improve their practice and competency. These honorable organizations pride themselves on their commitment to advancing the legal profession.
The different type of nonprofit legal organizations include:
Many of these associations existed long before the internet. Some of them since the 19th century. Typically, these associations do a very poor job of getting in front of consumers. This brings me to our second category.
Back to Top
Commercial Lawyer DirectoriesThe most prevalent commercial entities within the legal industry do a fantastic job of getting in front of consumers. By utilizing powerful data-driver technology and robust marketing strategies, commercial lawyer directories are easily found by consumers and provide a user-friendly experience.
These types of commercial lawyer directories include:
The criteria for these subjective ratings rely heavily on peer endorsements, or in other words, popularity contests. If you have 10 friends who will endorse you, congratulations, you’re a super-duper lawyer.
Because these ratings are particular to a specific practice area, the rating provides little value. Nevertheless, these large-scale commercial operations are legitimate and rank very well in Google’s search results. Consumers do find them and use them.
For these reasons, it might make sense to purchase an enhanced listing in these directories if it provides a return on the investment (although I do not recommend displaying the logo on your law firm’s website).
All of these commercial lawyer directories utilize some sort of “pay-to-play” system for determining who ranks at the top of search results. Some are worse than others. For example, Avvo no longer displays your phone number or links to your website on its free listings.
The same goes for Martindale and SuperLawyers but those directories will not display your headshot or bio either. Lawyer Legion and Justia, which in my completely biased opinion are the two best, will allow you to display all of your contact info, photos, bio, and social media on free listings.
True merit cannot be measured with a subjective rating or some flattering adjective. The label of superb, excellent, premium, or super-duper lawyer nor the amount of money they spend on advertising are indications of how well the lawyer will perform in representing someone facing a specific type of legal issue.
Again, only the nonprofit sector can provide any true indication of merit. One of the reasons these commercial directories have been so successful is because they play into the lawyer’s ego. By being labeled with these flattering adjectives, the lawyer feels special. Which brings me to our third and final category.
Back to Top
Lawyer Ego ScamsThese types of directories are not reputable, the listings provide absolutely no value, and the insignias are completely meaningless.
Disclaimer: By using the word “scams” I am not implying that they are doing anything illegal. I am not saying that they don’t deliver what they promise to their members. The product delivers a phony “award” which is exactly what the member ordered.
A phony “award” you have to pay for which comes in the form of a generic graphic, a meaningless plaque, and a misleading unverifiable claim that you are better than other lawyers. I use the word “scam” as a matter of opinion. I am simply pointing out that they are totally bogus. These companies use questionable marketing strategies to mislead consumers.
All of these scams share the following characteristics:
The entities are operated by just one individual or a small group of individuals. The entity has no events, seminars, or conferences. The business address is usually just a virtual office or a UPS Store mailbox. It’s often difficult to find the identity of who runs the scam.
You won’t see them exhibiting at legitimate events in the legal industry. Unlike the reputable commercial lawyer directories, which are operated by large teams of professionals providing legitimate services, the scams are operated entirely by a single individual or a small group of individuals.
These companies provide no legitimate services whatsoever.
The entity masquerades as a nonprofit organization. The name of these entities often includes words like: “forum,” “institute,” “society,” “association,” or “academy,” to try and mimic actual nonprofits. Some of them even claim to have a board of directors or board of regents, but don’t provide a list of names of the people serving on this board (because it doesn’t exist).
This sort of misleading language is an attempt to fool the consumer into thinking it is some legitimate nonprofit. They are anything but. In fact, some of them are extremely profitable.
The entity plays into a lawyer’s ego. These scams will prey on the egotistical lawyer. By using laudatory language like “top,” “best,” “distinguished,” or “premier,” lawyers will feel flattered and shell out the money for something that has no intrinsic value.
They get listed on a website that consumers don’t know about and don’t use. They get to display a meaningless badge on their website, and they get a shiny meaningless plaque to hang on their wall.
The only aspect that may provide some kind of benefit is that they get to fool their prospective clients into thinking that they have accomplished something meaningful. In other words, purchasing these simply helps lawyers mislead their potential clients.
The website is just a link farm. Being listed on these sites provides no benefit at all. The link won’t help you it might even harm you. Having too many backlinks from low-value sites can negatively impact your website’s credibility with search engines.
There is 0 SEO value because there is no original, unique, or valuable content being posted to the site at all. There are no educational resources being provided and no original articles or stories. Sometimes you will find an RSS feed that displays links to stories from other sources, but that’s it.
A few things you will always when investigating these companies:
Translation: “Less than 1% of attorneys were stupid enough to pay for this fake award.” The fact of the matter is that any lawyer can join. In some cases, you don’t even have to be a lawyer. There have been instances of lawyers purchasing the membership for their dog and even a pet chicken. If you are willing to pay the price, you will be included.
Some scams who claim to be the “top 100” attorney in your state, will… get this, break the state into multiple “regions” once they reach the 100 attorney threshold and then change the language to say “state or region.” This allows them to sell fake awards to more than 100 people in larger states.
They never deny anyone, they will continue creating more regions every time one of them reaches 100. There is not a single instance of any attorney ever being denied membership into one of these scams.
When it comes to the selection criteria, one scam in particular is the lone exception. The Million Dollar Advocates Forum requires one criterion: the lawyer has to have obtained a $1M+ verdict or settlement on a case. Of course, this doesn’t mean they did a good job on the case. It may simply mean they screwed up a case that should have been a $5M+ verdict.
Speaking of Million Dollar Advocates Forum, the individual who operates this brilliant scam is Don Costello, an attorney out of San Diego, CA. Currently, there are more than 7,000 suckers who have paid Mr. Costello. In 2011, an anonymous blogger wrote an article comparing the business model of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum to that of Girls Gone Wild. A quote from this classic article:
“So, if you ever see a Million Dollar Advocates Forum certificate hanging in your lawyer’s office, imagine your lawyer drunk, on Bourbon Street, lifting his t-shirt and yelling, “Whoooooooo! Check these out!” Because that’s pretty much what he’s doing.”
Another blogger who has written on this topic is also the former Director of Marketing for Avvo, Conrad Saam. Currently, the President of Mockingbird Marketing, Saam and his team have written some fantastic articles exposing Lawyers of Distinction and the American Institute of Personal Injury Attorneys, among others.
Many of these scams are sending out mass emails and direct mail campaigns as we speak. I know because my clients forward me these emails all the time. I’ve recently received an unusually large amount of these within the past 3 months or so.
Many lawyers are asking me about this. So, I’ll go ahead set the record straight. Here is my running list of known lawyer ego scams:
American Institute of Legal Counsel – SCAM
American Institute of DUI/DWI Attorneys – SCAM
American Institute of Personal Injury Attorneys – SCAM
American Institute of Criminal Law Attorneys – SCAM
American Institute of Family Law Attorneys – SCAM
National Academy of Family Law Attorneys – SCAM
National Academy of Criminal Defense Attorneys – SCAM
National Academy of Personal Injury Attorneys – SCAM
Million Dollar Advocates Forum – SCAM
Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum – SCAM
Best of the Best Attorneys – SCAM
Best Attorneys of America – SCAM
American Academy of Attorneys – SCAM
American Association of Premier DUI Attorneys – SCAMAmerican Society of Legal Advocates – SCAMLawyers of Distinction – SCAMNational Academy of Jurisprudence (formerly American Academy of Trial Attorneys) – SCAMNational Academy for DUI Defense – SCAM
National Association of Distinguished Counsel – SCAMNational League of Renowned Attorneys – SCAMTop American Lawyers – SCAM
American Jurist Institute – SCAM
America’s Top 100 Attorneys – SCAM
https://www.internetlava.com/news/lawyer-ego-scams-what-you-need-to-know/
wyer Awards Are (Mostly) Bullshit, Unless They’re Given to Me – American Institute Scam
William Peacock
More of My Jibber JabberI am one of the top ten Family Law attorneys in California.
Check that: I’m one of the “Ten Best” Family Law Attorneys for Client Satisfaction in California [if I pay for a membership in some organization that nobody has ever heard of]. A skeptic, as many a Missourian will be, might instinctively utter “bullshit” at such an award, and indeed, as much as I work to do my best for my clients, I have such a limited caseload that whomever was in charge of building the short list must’ve celebrated Cinco de Mayo a little too hard before drafting the list.
Are these random lawyer awards, a few of which I have been offered in the sixteen months since I made the jump to full-time legal practice, really worth anything?
Step 1: Create an Official-Sounding Organization and Award
Step 2: Appeal to Lawyers’ Vanity and Marketing Ignorance
Step 3: $
American Institute of Legal Scams
The organization behind my most recent, most prestigious award, is the American Institute of Family Law Attorneys. Who is AIFLA? The Better Business Bureau cared enough to do some research recently and said this:
American Institute Group, which uses several other names including American Institute of Criminal Law Attorneys, American Institute of Family Law Attorneys, American Institute of Bankruptcy Attorneys,American Institute of Elder Law Attorneys and American Institute of DUI/DWI Attorneys. [Ed. note: don’t forget American Institute of Personal Injury Attorneys! They’ll buy anything!] American Institute Group was registered in the state of Hawaii in July 2014 and lists Cynthia Stanley of Honolulu as its only member. In a recent nomination letter, Stanley called American Institute of Family Law Attorneys an impartial third-party rating service “recognizing excellence of practitioners in the field.” American Institute Group has not responded to a BBB request for information about the organization.
Certainly, the age of the organization provides some grounds for skepticism. But here’s my red flag: you don’t get to keep the award unless you pay for a membership to the AIFLA.
A tip to all the young lawyers out there: if you pay for an award, it is bullshit — period. If you receive these letters, it is a scam — period:
Perusing “American Institute” sites is almost a tragic experience: there are so many lawyers that fell for this scam and now have their faces plastered on these hall-of-sucker sites. And AIFLA/AIDUIA/AILegalCounsel/AIOPIA/AIOCLA/etc.has come up with an infinite variety of faux awards it seems: 10 Best Firms, 10 Best Under 40, 10 Best Female, 10 Best By State, and I believe mine was 10 Best for Client Satisfaction, across a handful of practice areas each, updated annually (of course).
How Do These Awards Stack Up With The Classics?
Lawyer awards aren’t a new thing: anyone remember Martindale Hubbell? Sure, they’re about as relevant as Pogs nowadays, but at one point, an AV-Rating was something to brag about. Was it something more than a vanity placard or was it simply an earlier incarnation of these arguably worthless awards?
I recently contacted Martindale to find out. And the selection process surprised me: submit a list of eighteen references (from outside your firm) to vouch for your abilities as an attorney.
That’s it. Have 18 friends.
And SuperLawyers? SuperLawyers is similar: all attorneys in a geographic area (such as Southern California) are eligible to submit a ballot listing ten in-firm attorneys who are “SuperLawyers,” ten out-of-firm attorneys who are “SuperLawyers,” and ten young “Rising Stars.” If you’re a shameless campaigner, it’s not too different from Martindale: have friends who will vouch for you.
Both are popularity contests. Is that better than a random organization picking names out of a hat using their own proprietary selection criteria for award recipients? Maybe a bit — at least the selectors are members of the profession who are arguably better equipped to differentiate between “good” and “bad” attorneys.
Here’s the big difference though: you don’t have to pay to keep your award (even if they do sell memorabilia and ad space for braggards).
Do These Awards Have Any Value for Attorneys?
The marketing term for these types of awards is “trust signals.” By appealing to third-party sources that vouch for your credibility, one can convince a prospective client or customer that you are, in fact, credible. Citing positive Yelp reviews is one way of doing this. Avvo client reviews and scores are yet another. Martindale ratings and SuperLawyers badges are too, of course.
What about these new awards? Do they serve any purpose? They might boost your Avvo score — which is a 1-10 rating based on awards, endorsements from fellow attorneys, publications, speaking engagements, and experience — if Avvo recognizes them. (Martindale and SuperLawyers certainly count.) And to a client who doesn’t know anything about lawyer awards (read: all of them), there is no way to differentiate between a “real” award and a paid one — you might sway an on-the-fence client if you display enough badges.
(the video makes sense if you wait for the 1:00 mark)
Besides that, do these awards trigger anyone else’s “ick” factor? (For a marketing tool to trigger a marketing guy’s ick factor, you know it has to be bad.) Promoting oneself as a “Top Attorney” when you know the award is simply a money grab tossed out willy-nilly to a number of attorneys who they hope will send back a check for $250 feels like a Nigerian scam for the lawyers and false advertising to potential clients. It may even be, gasp, unethical.
I passed on my AIFLA award. I have an Avvo 10.0 based on publications, endorsements, and speaking engagements. I have perfect client reviews to date. I’ve earned those awards and, as preachy as it might sound, faux trust signals just don’t feel right.
This was originally written in May 2016. I recently updated it in 2018 after stumbling across a couple other American Institute offshoots.
Jason Miller
Posted on October 19, 2018
Share Lawyers often ask me whether they should join a particular organization, purchase an enhanced listing, or add a badge to their website. The answer depends on a few factors:
- Is the company or organization reputable?
- Does being listed on their website provide any value?
- Does the badge or insignia hold any true meaning?
- Is it a scam?
Nonprofit Legal AssociationsIn the legal industry, nonprofit organizations are the only entities that might provide a true measurement of the lawyer’s merit and accomplishments within specific areas of practice.
Nonprofit organizations provide valuable education and resources to help lawyers improve their practice and competency. These honorable organizations pride themselves on their commitment to advancing the legal profession.
The different type of nonprofit legal organizations include:
- Regulatory bar associations
- Voluntary bar associations
- Educational (501c3)
- Advocacy (501c4)
- Academic institutions and Fellowships
- ABA-accredited board certification programs
- Be a tax-exempt nonprofit organization
- Have a board of directors
- Provide CLE (continuing legal education)
- Have regular events such as meetings, seminars or conferences
Many of these associations existed long before the internet. Some of them since the 19th century. Typically, these associations do a very poor job of getting in front of consumers. This brings me to our second category.
Back to Top
Commercial Lawyer DirectoriesThe most prevalent commercial entities within the legal industry do a fantastic job of getting in front of consumers. By utilizing powerful data-driver technology and robust marketing strategies, commercial lawyer directories are easily found by consumers and provide a user-friendly experience.
These types of commercial lawyer directories include:
- Lawyer Legion (disclaimer: I am a stakeholder and co-founded the directory)
- Avvo
- Justia
- FindLaw
- SuperLawyers
- Martindale
- Best Lawyers
The criteria for these subjective ratings rely heavily on peer endorsements, or in other words, popularity contests. If you have 10 friends who will endorse you, congratulations, you’re a super-duper lawyer.
Because these ratings are particular to a specific practice area, the rating provides little value. Nevertheless, these large-scale commercial operations are legitimate and rank very well in Google’s search results. Consumers do find them and use them.
For these reasons, it might make sense to purchase an enhanced listing in these directories if it provides a return on the investment (although I do not recommend displaying the logo on your law firm’s website).
All of these commercial lawyer directories utilize some sort of “pay-to-play” system for determining who ranks at the top of search results. Some are worse than others. For example, Avvo no longer displays your phone number or links to your website on its free listings.
The same goes for Martindale and SuperLawyers but those directories will not display your headshot or bio either. Lawyer Legion and Justia, which in my completely biased opinion are the two best, will allow you to display all of your contact info, photos, bio, and social media on free listings.
True merit cannot be measured with a subjective rating or some flattering adjective. The label of superb, excellent, premium, or super-duper lawyer nor the amount of money they spend on advertising are indications of how well the lawyer will perform in representing someone facing a specific type of legal issue.
Again, only the nonprofit sector can provide any true indication of merit. One of the reasons these commercial directories have been so successful is because they play into the lawyer’s ego. By being labeled with these flattering adjectives, the lawyer feels special. Which brings me to our third and final category.
Back to Top
Lawyer Ego ScamsThese types of directories are not reputable, the listings provide absolutely no value, and the insignias are completely meaningless.
Disclaimer: By using the word “scams” I am not implying that they are doing anything illegal. I am not saying that they don’t deliver what they promise to their members. The product delivers a phony “award” which is exactly what the member ordered.
A phony “award” you have to pay for which comes in the form of a generic graphic, a meaningless plaque, and a misleading unverifiable claim that you are better than other lawyers. I use the word “scam” as a matter of opinion. I am simply pointing out that they are totally bogus. These companies use questionable marketing strategies to mislead consumers.
All of these scams share the following characteristics:
The entities are operated by just one individual or a small group of individuals. The entity has no events, seminars, or conferences. The business address is usually just a virtual office or a UPS Store mailbox. It’s often difficult to find the identity of who runs the scam.
You won’t see them exhibiting at legitimate events in the legal industry. Unlike the reputable commercial lawyer directories, which are operated by large teams of professionals providing legitimate services, the scams are operated entirely by a single individual or a small group of individuals.
These companies provide no legitimate services whatsoever.
The entity masquerades as a nonprofit organization. The name of these entities often includes words like: “forum,” “institute,” “society,” “association,” or “academy,” to try and mimic actual nonprofits. Some of them even claim to have a board of directors or board of regents, but don’t provide a list of names of the people serving on this board (because it doesn’t exist).
This sort of misleading language is an attempt to fool the consumer into thinking it is some legitimate nonprofit. They are anything but. In fact, some of them are extremely profitable.
The entity plays into a lawyer’s ego. These scams will prey on the egotistical lawyer. By using laudatory language like “top,” “best,” “distinguished,” or “premier,” lawyers will feel flattered and shell out the money for something that has no intrinsic value.
They get listed on a website that consumers don’t know about and don’t use. They get to display a meaningless badge on their website, and they get a shiny meaningless plaque to hang on their wall.
The only aspect that may provide some kind of benefit is that they get to fool their prospective clients into thinking that they have accomplished something meaningful. In other words, purchasing these simply helps lawyers mislead their potential clients.
The website is just a link farm. Being listed on these sites provides no benefit at all. The link won’t help you it might even harm you. Having too many backlinks from low-value sites can negatively impact your website’s credibility with search engines.
There is 0 SEO value because there is no original, unique, or valuable content being posted to the site at all. There are no educational resources being provided and no original articles or stories. Sometimes you will find an RSS feed that displays links to stories from other sources, but that’s it.
A few things you will always when investigating these companies:
- A short page about the “selection criteria” that is extremely vague.
- A “Nomination Form” that lawyers can use to submit another lawyer for nomination (for being spammed). Nominations are simply a way for the scam to contact that attorney and say “Congratulations, so-and-so has nominated you for…” upping their chances of suckering that person into buying the fake award.
- A short description or video talking about how the attorneys in this group are “the best” and how very few attorneys are members.
- A directory of lawyers who have paid to be listed. This is the link farm. Some of the lawyer’s profile pages will contain a bio which is simply user-generated content that was copy/pasted from somewhere else.
- Featured attorneys (the most recent suckers).
- Free profiles.
- The name of the person or persons who founded the organization.
- A list of names of the persons responsible for choosing the attorneys or those who serve on the organization’s board.
- Events or seminars that are hosted by the organization.
- A legitimate address or office location. The address is always just a virtual mailbox.
- Photos and names of the team of people responsible for the operations.
- A phone number that you can call and speak to a person, you might get a phone number that goes to voicemail, that’s it
Translation: “Less than 1% of attorneys were stupid enough to pay for this fake award.” The fact of the matter is that any lawyer can join. In some cases, you don’t even have to be a lawyer. There have been instances of lawyers purchasing the membership for their dog and even a pet chicken. If you are willing to pay the price, you will be included.
Some scams who claim to be the “top 100” attorney in your state, will… get this, break the state into multiple “regions” once they reach the 100 attorney threshold and then change the language to say “state or region.” This allows them to sell fake awards to more than 100 people in larger states.
They never deny anyone, they will continue creating more regions every time one of them reaches 100. There is not a single instance of any attorney ever being denied membership into one of these scams.
When it comes to the selection criteria, one scam in particular is the lone exception. The Million Dollar Advocates Forum requires one criterion: the lawyer has to have obtained a $1M+ verdict or settlement on a case. Of course, this doesn’t mean they did a good job on the case. It may simply mean they screwed up a case that should have been a $5M+ verdict.
Speaking of Million Dollar Advocates Forum, the individual who operates this brilliant scam is Don Costello, an attorney out of San Diego, CA. Currently, there are more than 7,000 suckers who have paid Mr. Costello. In 2011, an anonymous blogger wrote an article comparing the business model of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum to that of Girls Gone Wild. A quote from this classic article:
“So, if you ever see a Million Dollar Advocates Forum certificate hanging in your lawyer’s office, imagine your lawyer drunk, on Bourbon Street, lifting his t-shirt and yelling, “Whoooooooo! Check these out!” Because that’s pretty much what he’s doing.”
Another blogger who has written on this topic is also the former Director of Marketing for Avvo, Conrad Saam. Currently, the President of Mockingbird Marketing, Saam and his team have written some fantastic articles exposing Lawyers of Distinction and the American Institute of Personal Injury Attorneys, among others.
Many of these scams are sending out mass emails and direct mail campaigns as we speak. I know because my clients forward me these emails all the time. I’ve recently received an unusually large amount of these within the past 3 months or so.
Many lawyers are asking me about this. So, I’ll go ahead set the record straight. Here is my running list of known lawyer ego scams:
American Institute of Legal Counsel – SCAM
American Institute of DUI/DWI Attorneys – SCAM
American Institute of Personal Injury Attorneys – SCAM
American Institute of Criminal Law Attorneys – SCAM
American Institute of Family Law Attorneys – SCAM
National Academy of Family Law Attorneys – SCAM
National Academy of Criminal Defense Attorneys – SCAM
National Academy of Personal Injury Attorneys – SCAM
Million Dollar Advocates Forum – SCAM
Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum – SCAM
Best of the Best Attorneys – SCAM
Best Attorneys of America – SCAM
American Academy of Attorneys – SCAM
American Association of Premier DUI Attorneys – SCAMAmerican Society of Legal Advocates – SCAMLawyers of Distinction – SCAMNational Academy of Jurisprudence (formerly American Academy of Trial Attorneys) – SCAMNational Academy for DUI Defense – SCAM
National Association of Distinguished Counsel – SCAMNational League of Renowned Attorneys – SCAMTop American Lawyers – SCAM
American Jurist Institute – SCAM
America’s Top 100 Attorneys – SCAM
https://www.internetlava.com/news/lawyer-ego-scams-what-you-need-to-know/
wyer Awards Are (Mostly) Bullshit, Unless They’re Given to Me – American Institute Scam
William Peacock
More of My Jibber JabberI am one of the top ten Family Law attorneys in California.
Check that: I’m one of the “Ten Best” Family Law Attorneys for Client Satisfaction in California [if I pay for a membership in some organization that nobody has ever heard of]. A skeptic, as many a Missourian will be, might instinctively utter “bullshit” at such an award, and indeed, as much as I work to do my best for my clients, I have such a limited caseload that whomever was in charge of building the short list must’ve celebrated Cinco de Mayo a little too hard before drafting the list.
Are these random lawyer awards, a few of which I have been offered in the sixteen months since I made the jump to full-time legal practice, really worth anything?
Step 1: Create an Official-Sounding Organization and Award
Step 2: Appeal to Lawyers’ Vanity and Marketing Ignorance
Step 3: $
American Institute of Legal Scams
The organization behind my most recent, most prestigious award, is the American Institute of Family Law Attorneys. Who is AIFLA? The Better Business Bureau cared enough to do some research recently and said this:
American Institute Group, which uses several other names including American Institute of Criminal Law Attorneys, American Institute of Family Law Attorneys, American Institute of Bankruptcy Attorneys,American Institute of Elder Law Attorneys and American Institute of DUI/DWI Attorneys. [Ed. note: don’t forget American Institute of Personal Injury Attorneys! They’ll buy anything!] American Institute Group was registered in the state of Hawaii in July 2014 and lists Cynthia Stanley of Honolulu as its only member. In a recent nomination letter, Stanley called American Institute of Family Law Attorneys an impartial third-party rating service “recognizing excellence of practitioners in the field.” American Institute Group has not responded to a BBB request for information about the organization.
Certainly, the age of the organization provides some grounds for skepticism. But here’s my red flag: you don’t get to keep the award unless you pay for a membership to the AIFLA.
A tip to all the young lawyers out there: if you pay for an award, it is bullshit — period. If you receive these letters, it is a scam — period:
Perusing “American Institute” sites is almost a tragic experience: there are so many lawyers that fell for this scam and now have their faces plastered on these hall-of-sucker sites. And AIFLA/AIDUIA/AILegalCounsel/AIOPIA/AIOCLA/etc.has come up with an infinite variety of faux awards it seems: 10 Best Firms, 10 Best Under 40, 10 Best Female, 10 Best By State, and I believe mine was 10 Best for Client Satisfaction, across a handful of practice areas each, updated annually (of course).
How Do These Awards Stack Up With The Classics?
Lawyer awards aren’t a new thing: anyone remember Martindale Hubbell? Sure, they’re about as relevant as Pogs nowadays, but at one point, an AV-Rating was something to brag about. Was it something more than a vanity placard or was it simply an earlier incarnation of these arguably worthless awards?
I recently contacted Martindale to find out. And the selection process surprised me: submit a list of eighteen references (from outside your firm) to vouch for your abilities as an attorney.
That’s it. Have 18 friends.
And SuperLawyers? SuperLawyers is similar: all attorneys in a geographic area (such as Southern California) are eligible to submit a ballot listing ten in-firm attorneys who are “SuperLawyers,” ten out-of-firm attorneys who are “SuperLawyers,” and ten young “Rising Stars.” If you’re a shameless campaigner, it’s not too different from Martindale: have friends who will vouch for you.
Both are popularity contests. Is that better than a random organization picking names out of a hat using their own proprietary selection criteria for award recipients? Maybe a bit — at least the selectors are members of the profession who are arguably better equipped to differentiate between “good” and “bad” attorneys.
Here’s the big difference though: you don’t have to pay to keep your award (even if they do sell memorabilia and ad space for braggards).
Do These Awards Have Any Value for Attorneys?
The marketing term for these types of awards is “trust signals.” By appealing to third-party sources that vouch for your credibility, one can convince a prospective client or customer that you are, in fact, credible. Citing positive Yelp reviews is one way of doing this. Avvo client reviews and scores are yet another. Martindale ratings and SuperLawyers badges are too, of course.
What about these new awards? Do they serve any purpose? They might boost your Avvo score — which is a 1-10 rating based on awards, endorsements from fellow attorneys, publications, speaking engagements, and experience — if Avvo recognizes them. (Martindale and SuperLawyers certainly count.) And to a client who doesn’t know anything about lawyer awards (read: all of them), there is no way to differentiate between a “real” award and a paid one — you might sway an on-the-fence client if you display enough badges.
(the video makes sense if you wait for the 1:00 mark)
Besides that, do these awards trigger anyone else’s “ick” factor? (For a marketing tool to trigger a marketing guy’s ick factor, you know it has to be bad.) Promoting oneself as a “Top Attorney” when you know the award is simply a money grab tossed out willy-nilly to a number of attorneys who they hope will send back a check for $250 feels like a Nigerian scam for the lawyers and false advertising to potential clients. It may even be, gasp, unethical.
I passed on my AIFLA award. I have an Avvo 10.0 based on publications, endorsements, and speaking engagements. I have perfect client reviews to date. I’ve earned those awards and, as preachy as it might sound, faux trust signals just don’t feel right.
This was originally written in May 2016. I recently updated it in 2018 after stumbling across a couple other American Institute offshoots.
ATTORNEY PROFILE: TRICIA DWYER
|
DWYER FAMILY LAW & CRIMINAL DEFENSE, a PLLC
Bar Admissions
Professional Associations, Memberships
Education
Awards, Commendations
Some Other Credentials, Specialized Training
Community Involvement
Privacy Policy: This website provides general info'; it is not legal advice. Choose one attorney you can trust to help you. The Contact Form on this website is private. |
|