How Does Avvo Work?

Avvo is where a lot of consumers start when they need a lawyer and don’t already have one — searching by practice area and city, then comparing attorneys on whatever the platform shows them. What it shows them is more layered than a typical directory: an algorithmic 1.0-to-10.0 Avvo Rating, separate client reviews, and separate peer endorsements from other attorneys, all displayed together but calculated independently.

Understanding that separation is the whole key to using Avvo well. This guide covers what the Avvo Rating actually measures, how client reviews and peer endorsements work alongside it, how a firm can request reviews compliantly, and the bar-ethics constraint that shapes every public response an attorney writes.

Three signals, one profile: the Rating, reviews, and endorsements

A prospective client landing on an Avvo profile sees three distinct things at once. The Avvo Rating is a proprietary algorithmic score from 1.0 to 10.0, calculated from an attorney’s experience, education, credentials, disciplinary and bar history, professional achievements, and publications. Client reviews are ordinary written feedback from people the attorney represented. Peer endorsements are other attorneys vouching for a colleague’s skill in a specific practice area.

The critical thing to understand is that these three don’t feed into each other. A high volume of five-star client reviews does not raise the Avvo Rating, and a strong Avvo Rating doesn’t generate reviews or endorsements on its own. A prospective client comparing attorneys is effectively reading three independent data sources and forming one impression from all of them together.

How the Avvo Rating actually gets calculated

The Rating is algorithmic and credential-driven: years in practice, case types handled, law school and bar admissions, industry recognition, speaking engagements and publications, and disciplinary or bar record. Profile completeness is itself an input — an attorney who claims their profile and fills in verified experience, education, and achievements gives the algorithm meaningfully more to score than one who leaves the default, unclaimed profile in place.

This is why two attorneys with identical five-star review averages can carry very different Avvo Ratings: the Rating simply isn’t reading the reviews. It’s reading the credential data, which is a separate maintenance task from asking clients for feedback.

How client reviews and peer endorsements get submitted

Client reviews come through Avvo’s standard review flow: a former client rates and writes about their experience with the attorney. Peer endorsements work differently — another attorney who has worked alongside or against the reviewed attorney in a practice area can vouch for their skill, which Avvo displays as its own distinct signal rather than folding it into the client-review average.

Avvo moderates both against its posting guidelines rather than removing content simply because an attorney disagrees with it, and expects reviews to come from genuine former clients rather than solicited endorsements dressed up as client feedback.

Requesting reviews compliantly, and the bar-ethics constraint on responses

Requesting reviews from real former clients is standard, expected practice — but it has to follow the integrity rules every legitimate review platform enforces, plus a layer specific to legal practice.

• Request reviews only from genuine former clients, at the natural point when a matter closes.
• Ask every recently closed client, not a filtered list of the ones the attorney is confident were satisfied.
• Never incentivize a review with a discount, gift, or other benefit.
• Never disclose confidential client or case information in the request itself.

A strong Avvo presence is built from treating the Rating, reviews, and endorsements as three separate, ongoing efforts: keeping the credential profile complete and current, requesting genuine client reviews after every closed matter, and building peer endorsements from attorneys the firm has actually worked with. None of the three substitutes for the others, and neglecting one leaves a visible gap for a prospective client comparing attorneys side by side.

For the full picture on prioritizing profile completion against review generation, see our Avvo reputation management overview.