Not All Attorney Recognition Awards Are Created Equal
Recently, I was named to Superlawyers as a top attorney for the 17th year in a row. My partner, Ryan Huffman, was also selected, named as a Rising Star. Why should that be important to you when you are picking a lawyer? Because this is an award we were selected to receive by our peers and the judges we practice in front of based on our experience and the results we obtain – unlike many of the pay-to-play attorney recognition award offers that we receive.
Some years ago, I received a mailing informing me that I was being named as a top 100 attorney to a national organization I had never heard of. As you might imagine, I felt a sense of pride in being named to what appeared to be an elite group. I looked at their website to see if anyone else practicing in Arizona had made the list and found that they had more than 100 attorneys listed – in Arizona. I had a good chuckle at how easy it had been for them to stoke my ego and promptly threw the letter into the recycling bin. Why would they offer to award an attorney a meaningless designation? You’ve probably already guessed; the answer is money. But the bigger question is why so many attorneys would join that group and advertise that designation on their websites.
Pay-to-play companies offer lawyers the chance to be included on their website, a plaque they can display and a recognition badge for the attorney’s website – for a price. Some of these companies even make the offer to receive the designation contingent on paying them first. It’s not just that you won’t receive the plaque if you don’t pay; you don’t make their list and don’t receive the designation unless you pay. I have sympathy for anyone looking to hire an attorney and trying to decide who has the qualifications to best represent them or a loved one, because many lawyers litter their websites with badges from these groups. That can look impressive, even though all it means is that the lawyer paid to belong to the group in order to receive the badge that they are posting.
So how does someone trying to find an attorney with the qualifications and experience to handle their case determine whether the recognition badges on a lawyer’s website mean anything? Here are some basic guidelines.
Peer Reviewed Attorney Recognition Awards Are Meaningful
There are a few organizations who award peer-reviewed recognition that stand out in the legal field. Martindale Hubble has been in existence longer than I’ve been practicing law. They send out surveys to lawyers and judges and ask for their input on lawyers. Should the lawyer receive a ranking? If so, the survey recipient is asked to choose the ranking the attorney should receive (the rankings go from A-C). In addition, they ask if the lawyer meets the qualifications to receive a very high ethical ranking. The highest ranking they award is an AV Preeminent ranking. Some attorneys are resentful of their peers – if they have a BV ranking, no one who has been practicing law as long as they have should have a higher ranking than they do. So, if an attorney has an AV Preeminent ranking, it means that their work is of such a high quality, that the majority (if not all) of the lawyers surveyed believe they deserve the recognition - even attorneys who may harbor some jealousy against the attorney they are rating. Woodford-White’s Best Lawyers in America weighs this designation heavily in choosing who is awarded that designation.
As mentioned above, Superlawyers is also a meaningful designation (despite the silly name). This award is also based on the votes of other attorneys and judges familiar with the recipient’s work. To receive the award, a lawyer must be nominated and receive enough votes from their peers to be included on the list. Each year’s list is not based on a static, one-time vote. I have seen many lawyers included one year, only to not make the list the next year. To make the list repeatedly means the attorney must be continuously producing high quality work.
Board Certification as a Specialist Designations are Typically Meaningful
The Arizona State Bar offers the opportunity for attorneys to obtain legal specialization as a Board-Certified Specialist in a number of areas, including criminal law. To receive certification, the attorney must first submit an application, which is a grueling process. The lawyer must have litigated a specified number of trials, evidentiary hearings and/or appeals. They must list the cases by name and case number and provide the name of opposing counsel and the judge who presided over the matter. They must submit a list of attorneys and judges familiar with the lawyer’s work as references. They are vetted by an attorney who volunteers with the State Bar. They must also take an examination testing their knowledge of criminal law. There is (or at least was when I took the test), an appreciable failure rate for those being tested. Then they must demonstrate that they still meet these qualifications every five years.
The National College of DUI Defense similarly offers the opportunity for attorneys to obtain legal specialization in DUI Defense, and the procedure is very much the same. NCDD’s Board Certification is recognized by the American Bar Association.
There are organizations who offer board certifications recognized by no one but themselves. That’s fine if you are the State Bar. It doesn’t mean much if you are a private organization.
Client Reviews Provide Meaningful Information
Beyond award badges, most lawyers these days have client reviews on their websites, and on related websites – Google and AVVO - that allow clients to post reviews. While most reviews come from clients who have used the law firm’s services and offer insight about how the law firm works and the results they obtain, there are issues to watch out for. There are companies out there that attorneys can pay to challenge negative reviews (basically they get paid to dispute the review, without the oversite of the lawyer being reviewed). So, if you see an attorney who has nothing but five-star reviews, it’s likely that someone is challenging any negative reviews. After all, not everyone who takes the time to rate you is going to give you the highest rating possible. In general, if more than 10% of the reviews a law firm’s ratings are negative, that is pretty unusual and may be cause for concern.
On the other hand, some of the most negative reviews lack merit. We have a one-star review online claiming that we are judgmental people, and that if you hire us, you will get locked up. While that sure doesn’t sound like this person was represented by anyone in our firm, you could chalk it up to being an outlier – a very unusual situation where a client just had a really bad experience. But when I looked at the review, the reviewer had left a one-star rating for another criminal defense attorney on the same date and at same time they reviewed us. Did they really have both firms represent them at the same time? No. This was just someone posting reviews trashing criminal defense attorneys. It had nothing to do with how we handle cases. So, take one-star reviews with a grain of salt.
We are proud of being named to Superlawyers because it demonstrates recognition by the judges we practice in front of, and our peers, and will display it prominently on our website. But if you are looking for an attorney and reviewing the credentials of attorneys that you are considering, keep in mind that you can’t determine who the best lawyer is just by counting the number of recognition badges that they display on their website.
