Your Avvo Rating is a single number that gives prospective clients a quick snapshot of your professional background. You can't buy a higher score, but you can make sure it accurately reflects your career.
At a glance: Your Avvo Rating checklist
- Claim your free profile
- Complete your profile
- Add your achievements
- Get peer endorsements
- Check your public records
- Keep it current
1. Claim your free profile
Claiming your profile is free and gives you direct control over how you appear to potential clients.
2. Complete your profile
Go section by section and make sure nothing is missing:
- Years licensed and jurisdictions. List every bar admission. The rating factors in both tenure and breadth.
- Work experience. Include your legal-related roles since law school, such as firms, in-house positions, government roles, and leadership in bar organizations.
- Education and credentials. Confirm that your law school, degrees, and any certifications are complete and accurate.
- Practice areas. Keep these current so the rating model captures the full scope of your work.
Pro tip: Always include dates. Without them, the system may default to the oldest possible date, which can reduce how much credit an entry receives.
3. Add your achievements
The rating takes into account many forms of professional engagement you may already be doing. Add them to your profile and keep it updated as you accomplish new things in your practice.
- Awards. Super Lawyers, Martindale-Hubbell ratings, and similar recognitions can all contribute to your score. Add new ones as you earn them.
- Publications. Law review articles, bar newsletter pieces, legal blog posts; list them all. Haven't published yet? A contribution to your local bar journal is a straightforward place to start.
- Speaking engagements. CLE presentations, conference panels, bar association talks. Teaching a CLE can also deepen your expertise.
- Bar and industry involvement. Memberships matter, and leadership roles carry even more weight, especially elected or appointed positions within professional organizations.
4. Get peer endorsements
When prospective clients see that other attorneys have endorsed you, it reinforces your professional reputation. Endorsements also factor into your Avvo Rating, so they influence both how peers and consumers view your profile.
- Think about who's seen your work. Co-counsel, opposing counsel, bar association colleagues, and mentors all make strong endorsers.
- Aim for more than just a handful. Consumers browsing profiles notice when an attorney has strong peer support. A robust endorsement section signals that you're well-regarded in the legal community.
- Make the ask specific. A personal note explaining why you value their perspective gets better results than a generic request.
5. Check your public records
Your rating also pulls data from bar associations, courts, and regulatory agencies. If any of those records contain an error, like an incorrect disciplinary entry or a missing admission, it could be lowering your score.
The fix: Contact the issuing organization directly to correct the record. Once it's updated at the source, future data refreshes will reflect the change on your profile and in your rating.
6. Keep it current
Set a calendar reminder—after your annual bar dues, after a big case closes, or at the start of each quarter. Even a brief update can improve how accurately your profile reflects your current practice.
- Add new awards, publications, and speaking engagements.
- Update practice areas if your focus has shifted.
- Confirm that all existing information is still accurate.
The algorithm weighs recent activity more heavily than older entries, so a profile that reflects where you are today will always perform better than one that is out of date.
Frequently asked questions
Will advertising with Avvo raise my rating?
No. The rating is driven by a mathematical model applied the same way to every attorney. Paid products and advertising have no influence on the score.
Do client reviews affect my rating?
No. Reviews are extremely important to prospective clients evaluating you, but they're entirely separate. The rating measures your professional background; reviews measure the client experience. Both show on your profile, and both matter, but they don't overlap. For the full breakdown, see Reviews and the Avvo Rating.
Why won't Avvo share the exact formula?
We publish what the rating evaluates but keep the exact weights confidential to prevent gaming the system. Learn more at What is the Avvo Rating?.