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Web Directory Of Attorneys Upsets D.C. Bar

9 points by justinweiss 18y ago

gills 18y ago
Dear Random Gatekeepers, We don't need you between us and our information anymore. Thanks for all the fish. Sincerely, The World
- brandnewlow 18y ago
  Dear entrepreneurs, Don't be surprised when you get sued for using someone else's data without their permission to jump start your startup. Sincerely, Content Creators
  - kirubakaran 18y ago
    It will be very interesting if the court rules in favor of the startup.
  - frig 18y ago
    Try to read faster than your knee can jerk. quoted from page 2 of the article: The Client Protection Fund of the Bar of Maryland, the state's legal licensing body, provides Avvo with information for 34,000 lawyers, including the name, address and date of admittance to practice in the state. Avvo pays a standard fee for the agency to produce the list. So far, none of Maryland's members have complained, according to the bar's administrator. A shiny virtual nickel to someone who shows me how to quote text on this website. Edit: it's unclear how the directory of DC Bar (as opposed to Maryland bar) was obtained and what specific claim the DC Bar is alleging. As a general rule within the USA there's no copyright in raw facts (themselves), though there is in any presentation of said facts. Thus if AVVO got a printed copy of the DC Bar's printed members' directory and then hired some people to type it up, they'd be fine. Where they might not be fine is if the DC Bar had some kind of terms-of-use on their site that says "you can't use this site except for personal use" and then the DC Bar could show that Avvo obtained the information via the website. The first point seems to be true: http://www.dcbar.org/copyright.cfm http://www.dcbar.org/copyright.cfm (for background: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.dcbar.org/copyright.cfm http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.dcbar.org/copyright.... ) The second point -- whether or not the Avvo obtained their listings via the site or not -- is clearly a point of contention. Given the previous willingness to legally obtain the listing (even paying actual money) I'd be surprised if the Avvo founders haven't dotted their i's and crossed their t's on this one.
    - brandnewlow 18y ago
      Yes, that was what I was getting at. Paragraph 4 from the article: "This has nothing to do with obstructing access to information," said the bar's spokeswoman, Cynthia Kuhn. "It has to do with a commercial company taking this information without authorization and in some cases perpetuating misinformation" by not updating the data frequently enough." Now, whether or not they have a case remains to be seen. Their willingness to pay for some of their data bodes well for Avvo, agreed. But the original commenter was painting this story as if it was about an organization trying to limit public information a la realtors with housing info. That may be the case. But my comment was meant to point out that the other side is arguing that this is a case about theft and misuse of proprietary data.
      - frig 18y ago
        But now we come full circle: The underlying data: not proprietary (do you really think membership in the DC Bar, of all things, is "proprietary"?). The presentation of said data on the DC Bar website: presentation is proprietary, data is still not. But additionally: DC Bar says "if you get this information via this venue, then you're accepting our terms of use which say you can't use the information obtained via this venue to, eg, compile an AVVO-like site." So on the face of it: only if Avvo is crazy-stupid will Avvo get burned here: the only scenarios in which Avvo gets burned are somewhere between (a) the DC Bar can show suspicious access patterns that either come from Avvo or come at suspicious times vis-a-vis Avvo's updates (b) Avvo doesn't have any internal documentation demonstrating from whence they obtained the information that's ticking off the DC Bar (ie: we paid some dudes to re-type the relevant phonebook sections, or paid some dudes to re-type the printed member's directory, etc.) So the whole thing is pretty silly (at least until more facts emerge). Edit: Because without some mix of (a) and (b), the DC Bar is ultimately going to have to claim something like "there's no possible way they could have gotten that information besides misusing our site", which I doubt would play well.
        brandnewlow 18y ago
        Whether or not the underlying data is proprietary is a matter for the courts to decide. One side says it is, the other says it's not. As for whether or not that argument would play well, I don't know, I'm not a lawyer. I merely want to point out that the DC bar is trying to make this into a "they're stealing our data" case while the Avvo guys are trying to make this into a "they're just being lame" case.
  - gills 18y ago
    I based my snarky remark on this from the article: "Avvo.com, the site posting the profiles, says it's simply using public data to help consumers find lawyers and their track records. "There's no reason why lawyer-licensing records should be treated any differently than records for any other profession," said Joshua King, general counsel for the Seattle start-up. "The bar doesn't like the fact that the information is out of its control." "
    - iamwil 18y ago
      Right, so I don't understand brandnewlow's stance. If Avvo is using public data, since when does anyone get to lay claim on public data? Sounds to me that they're more upset about potentially being mis-rated, rather than the information itself. If the rates gave them more clients across the board instead of the negative reviews, I doubt they'd be complaining.
      - brandnewlow 18y ago
        Paragraph 4 has the lawyer for the DC folks saying they're misusing their data. I was alluding to her stance in a way I thought was colorful.
      - antiismist 18y ago
        FWIW I find avvo to be pretty sleazy. I am a lawyer but haven't ever practiced law nor do I intend to. Nonetheless, avvo has created a profile for me that lists out my personal info (name, address, phone number, graduate school, undergrad), lets people review me, and spams me to get me to claim my profile. I think it's one of those things that sounds great theoretically but isn't so great when it happens to you. Not saying that I am going to sue, but I find it in pretty poor form.
        iamwil 18y ago
        I'm not in the law profession, but is that (name, address, phone, etc) public information? I can imagine personal info being disconcerting. While I've never visited Avvo's site, according to the article, there are other pieces of information there. What about the history of which cases a lawyer has won or lost? Is that public info? What about ratings and comments generated by past clients on a public website? It seemed to me the bar was miffed about that too, even though I've venture to say that's for all intents and purposes, public. Other than your name, and perhaps where you attended law school, I'd agree that personal info shouldn't be on there. But I don't think use of public info is unfair. I'm not sure the public rating of lawyers in the form they implemented to be the best way or even a good way of finding and evaluating lawyers. But I don't think it's bad to try or use public information to do so.
mhb 18y ago
It would also be nice if the bar associations didn't use the dues that lawyers are required to pay for their own political agenda.
phillian 18y ago
Wouldn't publicly available information (e.g. the kind you would have found in a phone book 20 years ago) be allowable under the laws of Fair Use? The only reason I can see a directory being disadvantageous is because it undermines all the money-spent-on-education/ years-spent-ass-kissing to get into "the network" of good-old Washingtonites and the referrals they bring.

9 points by justinweiss 18y ago

gills 18y ago

Dear Random Gatekeepers, We don't need you between us and our information anymore. Thanks for all the fish. Sincerely, The World

brandnewlow 18y ago
Dear entrepreneurs, Don't be surprised when you get sued for using someone else's data without their permission to jump start your startup. Sincerely, Content Creators
- kirubakaran 18y ago
  It will be very interesting if the court rules in favor of the startup.
- frig 18y ago
  Try to read faster than your knee can jerk. quoted from page 2 of the article: The Client Protection Fund of the Bar of Maryland, the state's legal licensing body, provides Avvo with information for 34,000 lawyers, including the name, address and date of admittance to practice in the state. Avvo pays a standard fee for the agency to produce the list. So far, none of Maryland's members have complained, according to the bar's administrator. A shiny virtual nickel to someone who shows me how to quote text on this website. Edit: it's unclear how the directory of DC Bar (as opposed to Maryland bar) was obtained and what specific claim the DC Bar is alleging. As a general rule within the USA there's no copyright in raw facts (themselves), though there is in any presentation of said facts. Thus if AVVO got a printed copy of the DC Bar's printed members' directory and then hired some people to type it up, they'd be fine. Where they might not be fine is if the DC Bar had some kind of terms-of-use on their site that says "you can't use this site except for personal use" and then the DC Bar could show that Avvo obtained the information via the website. The first point seems to be true: http://www.dcbar.org/copyright.cfm http://www.dcbar.org/copyright.cfm (for background: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.dcbar.org/copyright.cfm http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.dcbar.org/copyright.... ) The second point -- whether or not the Avvo obtained their listings via the site or not -- is clearly a point of contention. Given the previous willingness to legally obtain the listing (even paying actual money) I'd be surprised if the Avvo founders haven't dotted their i's and crossed their t's on this one.
  - brandnewlow 18y ago
    Yes, that was what I was getting at. Paragraph 4 from the article: "This has nothing to do with obstructing access to information," said the bar's spokeswoman, Cynthia Kuhn. "It has to do with a commercial company taking this information without authorization and in some cases perpetuating misinformation" by not updating the data frequently enough." Now, whether or not they have a case remains to be seen. Their willingness to pay for some of their data bodes well for Avvo, agreed. But the original commenter was painting this story as if it was about an organization trying to limit public information a la realtors with housing info. That may be the case. But my comment was meant to point out that the other side is arguing that this is a case about theft and misuse of proprietary data.
    - frig 18y ago
      But now we come full circle: The underlying data: not proprietary (do you really think membership in the DC Bar, of all things, is "proprietary"?). The presentation of said data on the DC Bar website: presentation is proprietary, data is still not. But additionally: DC Bar says "if you get this information via this venue, then you're accepting our terms of use which say you can't use the information obtained via this venue to, eg, compile an AVVO-like site." So on the face of it: only if Avvo is crazy-stupid will Avvo get burned here: the only scenarios in which Avvo gets burned are somewhere between (a) the DC Bar can show suspicious access patterns that either come from Avvo or come at suspicious times vis-a-vis Avvo's updates (b) Avvo doesn't have any internal documentation demonstrating from whence they obtained the information that's ticking off the DC Bar (ie: we paid some dudes to re-type the relevant phonebook sections, or paid some dudes to re-type the printed member's directory, etc.) So the whole thing is pretty silly (at least until more facts emerge). Edit: Because without some mix of (a) and (b), the DC Bar is ultimately going to have to claim something like "there's no possible way they could have gotten that information besides misusing our site", which I doubt would play well.
      - brandnewlow 18y ago
        Whether or not the underlying data is proprietary is a matter for the courts to decide. One side says it is, the other says it's not. As for whether or not that argument would play well, I don't know, I'm not a lawyer. I merely want to point out that the DC bar is trying to make this into a "they're stealing our data" case while the Avvo guys are trying to make this into a "they're just being lame" case.
- gills 18y ago
  I based my snarky remark on this from the article: "Avvo.com, the site posting the profiles, says it's simply using public data to help consumers find lawyers and their track records. "There's no reason why lawyer-licensing records should be treated any differently than records for any other profession," said Joshua King, general counsel for the Seattle start-up. "The bar doesn't like the fact that the information is out of its control." "
  - iamwil 18y ago
    Right, so I don't understand brandnewlow's stance. If Avvo is using public data, since when does anyone get to lay claim on public data? Sounds to me that they're more upset about potentially being mis-rated, rather than the information itself. If the rates gave them more clients across the board instead of the negative reviews, I doubt they'd be complaining.
    - brandnewlow 18y ago
      Paragraph 4 has the lawyer for the DC folks saying they're misusing their data. I was alluding to her stance in a way I thought was colorful.
    - antiismist 18y ago
      FWIW I find avvo to be pretty sleazy. I am a lawyer but haven't ever practiced law nor do I intend to. Nonetheless, avvo has created a profile for me that lists out my personal info (name, address, phone number, graduate school, undergrad), lets people review me, and spams me to get me to claim my profile. I think it's one of those things that sounds great theoretically but isn't so great when it happens to you. Not saying that I am going to sue, but I find it in pretty poor form.
      - iamwil 18y ago
        I'm not in the law profession, but is that (name, address, phone, etc) public information? I can imagine personal info being disconcerting. While I've never visited Avvo's site, according to the article, there are other pieces of information there. What about the history of which cases a lawyer has won or lost? Is that public info? What about ratings and comments generated by past clients on a public website? It seemed to me the bar was miffed about that too, even though I've venture to say that's for all intents and purposes, public. Other than your name, and perhaps where you attended law school, I'd agree that personal info shouldn't be on there. But I don't think use of public info is unfair. I'm not sure the public rating of lawyers in the form they implemented to be the best way or even a good way of finding and evaluating lawyers. But I don't think it's bad to try or use public information to do so.

mhb 18y ago

It would also be nice if the bar associations didn't use the dues that lawyers are required to pay for their own political agenda.

phillian 18y ago

Wouldn't publicly available information (e.g. the kind you would have found in a phone book 20 years ago) be allowable under the laws of Fair Use? The only reason I can see a directory being disadvantageous is because it undermines all the money-spent-on-education/ years-spent-ass-kissing to get into "the network" of good-old Washingtonites and the referrals they bring.