This week on the legal affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer, we speak with attorney John Henry Browne, a lead plaintiff in the lawsuit against the new lawyer rating service Avvo. Also joining us to discuss the legal and professional issues surrounding Avvo are bloggers Denise Howell and Carolyn Elefant.

We invited…

As was announced yesterday, Seattle lawyer Steve W. Berman filed this lawsuit against controversial lawyer-rating site Avvo. Later, Avvo CEO Mark Britton issued a statement in response to the lawsuit. I have not been able to find it online, so here is what he said:

“Avvo.com is designed to give consumers information

Lawyers in Massachusetts have been able to access Loislaw from their home or office computers through an arrangement with the Massachusetts Trial Court Law Libraries. But as the libraries’ blog announced this week, that remote access is ending as of July 1. (Apparently, lawyers will still be able to access Loislaw from…

I wrote in March 2005 about the public-records search engine Pretrieve. A major appeal of the site was that it was free. Go to Pretrieve today and the front page still describes the service as free — even highlighting the word free in red type — but it lies. Enter a query and…

The Massachusetts legislature holds an important hearing tomorrow on a bill to create a journalists’ shield in Massachusetts. Details at my Media Law blog.…

Score another glitch for the new lawyer rating site Avvo: According to the Avvo profile of lawyer and blogger J. Craig Williams — my colleague in hosting Lawyer2Lawyer — he is, shall we say, no longer with us. Click on the “Experience” tab in Craig’s profile, and it lists him as…

This week on the legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer, we discuss opportunities for U.S. lawyers in China. Our show features three U.S.-based lawyers who recently traveled to Hong Kong and mainland China on behalf of the Los Angeles County Bar Association as well as a lawyer who is a Hong Kong native and has practiced…

Today’s debut of Avvo may have been the most hyped new-product launch the legal field has seen in years. With $14 million in venture capital, a board of directors that includes former LexisNexis CEO Lou Andreozzi, and an advisory board made up of former ABA president Robert Hirshon and Stanford Law professor Deborah Rhode,…

I have posted photos of my recent trip to Russia in this gallery. They include photos of the Siberian city of Tomsk as well as pictures of Moscow taken during stopovers there.…

One of my favorite features of Amazon.com’s A9 search engine was its ability to display maps with block view images. Unlike the aerial views shown by other mapping sites, it took you to street level, linking map addresses to photographs of the actual streets and buildings in 22…

When someone dies without a will, the impact on his or her estate depends on the state in which the decedent resided. A handy new intestacy calculator — the central feature of a Web site called MyStateWill.com — helps determine the outcome of intestacy on a state-by-state basis.

The calculator is the work…

This week on the legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer, we talk to the lawyers who defend high-profile celebrities in criminal cases. Why is the public so fascinated with stars in legal trouble? What challenges do lawyers face in representing a high-profile client? Can celebrities ever get a fair trial?

Joining cohost J. Craig Williams…