I received an e-mail on Friday from a peer at LexisNexis’ Martindale division notifying me that not only was she let go, so was her entire department.I want to let you know that I will be leaving Martindale-Hubbell at the end of the month. The Rating Specialist positions for Martindale-Hubbell have been eliminated, so that means that I will not be coming to visit you to review your firm’s ratings initiatives. I am told that some of the other people who visit your firm from Martindale or LexisNexis may add the ratings items to their meetings with you.
I don’t know if this is a case of chicken or the egg, but by eliminating the Rating Specialist positions, LexisNexis has shown what their commitment to the Martindale-Hubbell Ratings System product is. Or, was it our lack of support for the Ratings product what prompted LexisNexis to abandon it?
Either way, it appears that the Martindale-Hubbell AV Ratings System is officially dead, or, at the least, on "dissolution watch."
Either way, it appears that the Martindale-Hubbell AV Ratings System is officially dead, or, at the least, on "dissolution watch."
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5 comments:
Someone must have finally let M-H know that AV died a few years back. This is funny (but for people losing their jobs).
Thanks for sharing.
Toby
It would be interesting to see the "internals" of M-H and this decision. It seems that the AV rating had value at sometime for high-end client development (i.e., big corp. counsel). However, it just didn't seem to evolve with the technology. I also think that M-H didn't seem to see the writing on the wall that firms were abandoning the AV ratings because I've heard anecdotal story after story of how firms were dropping it, but that M-H was continually increasing the price for the product, without much improvement in the final result.
I received a different communication, one with not quite so dire a message. It was from LexisNexis notifying me that the Ratings Specialists were not going to be around, but that the ratings process was to continue unabated. I emailed back a quick question, but have yet to hear from them whether they are making the changes I suggested in the online system, which now is difficult to use and asks for possibly unethical information...such as judges' emails. Any courts in your area ever give those out? Not mine.
No doubt the ratings process has some issues, but credibility is not one of them. Competition, now there's a real problem for the peer review system, when every publisher from Super Lawyers to AVVO claims to have a corner on the right way to evaluate an attorney's credentials. The only metric that matters in this little fight is what makes the buying decision easier for corporate counsel. That's the system I want my attorneys in.
Greetings from LexisNexis and Martindale-Hubbell.
I wanted to address your speculation about Martindale-Hubbell ratings from your original post above and provide access to more information.
So your readers have the facts, Martindale-Hubbell is fully committed to providing the most complete, objective and reliable ratings for lawyers - including the valuable "AV" rating - and will continue to do so.
Also, there is information about why changes are happening available here:
(http://www.martindale.com/blog/BlogComments.aspx?bid=22414&tid=212&ct=15)
Carlton Dyce – Martindale Hubbell
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