Comments left elsewhere…

On the Web Worker Daily blog:

Thanks for the post,–this is an area I am very concerned about and am blogging the issue of Law 2.0, so I’d really love to hear what you think about it. You can see my thoughts at two places: Mullen on Law 2.0+ (for technical web 2.0 + law) and Illegal Patterns (for litigation issues).

I agree that web 2.0 is a reality, but web 2.0 technology is barely scratching the surface with the Avvo site. What they’ve done is impressive, but it’s really a value-added legal directory. What I’m looking for is a substantive approach of taking public data and using it to actively help clients understand and participate in the LAW, not just having a sense of who lawyers are. There’s where real change will occur.

A rating system is helpful, but does it reduce litigation (generally seen as a good thing)? Does it help consumers avoid legal pitfalls? Not really. I prefer the Nolo approach, but also find that Avvo is adding value,–it’s too early to tell yet where that value will truly be. The cool thing about web 2.0 is that it’s a lot easier to turn on whatever dime they need to in order to provide significant value to the legal market.

How many Digg clones really add value? It’s not easy to do, but they’ve made a valiant effort and I’m sure we’ll see many more of the same in the next year as techies figure out what to do and how to do it.