"Avvo.com, the site posting the profiles, says it's simply using public data to help consumers find lawyers and their track records.
"There's no reason why lawyer-licensing records should be treated any differently than records for any other profession," said Joshua King, general counsel for the Seattle start-up. "The bar doesn't like the fact that the information is out of its control." "
Sounds to me that they're more upset about potentially being mis-rated, rather than the information itself. If the rates gave them more clients across the board instead of the negative reviews, I doubt they'd be complaining.
I think it's one of those things that sounds great theoretically but isn't so great when it happens to you. Not saying that I am going to sue, but I find it in pretty poor form.
While I've never visited Avvo's site, according to the article, there are other pieces of information there. What about the history of which cases a lawyer has won or lost? Is that public info? What about ratings and comments generated by past clients on a public website? It seemed to me the bar was miffed about that too, even though I've venture to say that's for all intents and purposes, public.
Other than your name, and perhaps where you attended law school, I'd agree that personal info shouldn't be on there. But I don't think use of public info is unfair.
I'm not sure the public rating of lawyers in the form they implemented to be the best way or even a good way of finding and evaluating lawyers. But I don't think it's bad to try or use public information to do so.