Avvo to Discontinue Controversial Legal Services Offering
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Avvo headquarters in Seattle, Wa.[/caption] After a long battle with state bar associations over propriety and fee splitting, online legal services organization Avvo will sunset its fixed-fee legal services package, Avvo Legal Services, at the end of July.In a letter to the North Carolina State Bar Authorized Practice Committee, Internet Brands general counsel B. Lynn Walsh wrote that although the company shared the opinion previously put forth by Avvo that the Avvo Legal Services offering does not constitute an unauthorized practice of law, Internet Brands has ultimately decided to suspend the program. Internet Brands acquired Avvo for an undisclosed amount in January 2018. “As part of our acquisition of Avvo, we have evaluated Avvo product offerings, and adjusted the Avvo product roadmap to align more comprehensively with our business and focus. Accordingly, we have decided to discontinue Avvo Legal Services,” the letter states. Avvo has faced a number of bar association challenges to its Avvo Legal Services offering specifically. The New Jersey Supreme Court issued an ethics opinion last year barring the service from the state because of the offering’s use of what they determined was improper fee splitting; the court opted not to review the decision last month. State bar groups in New York, Virginia, Ohio, South Carolina and Pennsylvania issued similar ethics orders.State groups haven’t been completely united in their rejection of the service. The North Carolina State Bar found the offering permissible under certain circumstances. Similarly, the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, the group responsible for attorney discipline in the state, recently issued a report recommending that Illinois relax its rules of professionalism to allow for programs like Avvo Legal Services. Upon acquisition, Internet Brands planned to fold Avvo into its other legal services portfolio alongside brands like Lawyers.com, Nolo and Martindale-Hubbell. By April, most of Avvo’s leadership, including former CEO Mark Britton, CFO Monica Williams, CPO Sachin Bhatia, CTO Kevin Goldsmith, and chief legal officer Josh King, had made plans to leave the company.In an interview following the acquisition, Britton told LTN that Avvo had no plans to move away from its bespoke legal services offerings. “In our packaged legal services products, Avvo Advisor, anything we’ve done that has led to different conversations with state bar associations, those needs will never go away and will continue to evolve,” he said. Prior to his departure, King was a strong proponent for Avvo’s bespoke services model in the face of bar association criticism. “It’s a shame because when the rules get rigidly applied like this, it has two really bad effects. One is really good lawyers pull back. And the second impact it has is it makes it harder for consumers to get access to legal services,” King previously told Corporate Counsel.
