About Us

Our Mission and Principles
At Avvo, our mission is to help people navigate the complex and confusing legal industry. Choosing a lawyer is an incredibly important decision—yet most people have no idea how to go about doing it, and resources to guide them are scarce.

Avvo is guided by two basic principles:

1. Focus on the needs of regular people.

Many of the resources available today were developed for people who are already legal industry “insiders”—but Avvo was created specifically to help people who know very little about the law and may have no experience choosing a lawyer.

2. Provide information, as well as guidance. 

We believe that providing open access to information about lawyers, coupled with guidance on how to use that information, is the best way to help people choose the right lawyer. Information is empowering: the more people learn more about attorneys and how to select an attorney, the more comfortable and confident they’ll feel seeking legal help—and we think this will benefit both clients and lawyers.

Our Service
Avvo rates and profiles every attorney, so that people can choose the right attorney. Lawyer profiles contain helpful information including a lawyer’s experience, areas of practice, disciplinary history, and ratings from clients. Profile data comes from many sources, including state courts and bar associations, lawyer websites, and information provided by lawyers.

Information meets guidance in the Avvo Rating—our effort to evaluate a lawyer's background using a mathematical model that considers the information we know about a lawyer. This information is shown in the lawyer's profile, including a lawyer's years in practice, disciplinary history, professional achievements and industry recognition - all factors that, in our opinion, are relevant to assessing a lawyer's qualifications. We also provide a 3-Step Guide to Choosing a Lawyer, with plenty of helpful tips for narrowing in on the right attorney for the job.

Avvo will continue to grow, so if you have ideas, suggestions, or even criticism for us, we’d love to hear from you. Feel free to send us feedback any time.

Our Story
Avvo co-founder Mark Britton, an attorney for 15 years and formerly the top lawyer at Expedia.com, knows firsthand the challenges people face in finding the right attorney. Not only has he hired hundreds of attorneys throughout his career, but he noticed something peculiar while he was spending a year in Italy with his family.  Even though he was gone for a year and was on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Mark was repeatedly contacted by friends, family, and acquaintances—all seeking his advice about how to choose a lawyer. It was clear that there was an unfulfilled need for advice and guidance, so upon returning to the U.S., Mark partnered with Paul Bloom, a veteran of Microsoft’s Consumer Division. The two quickly assembled a world-class team with deep expertise in law, consumer products, and technology, and Avvo—short for avvocato, lawyer in Italian—was born.