A recent post by Dustin Christensen on the popular Lawyerist blog points out that including the badge that lists your Avvo rating can actually promote competing lawyers. “If you have claimed your Avvo profile, you have probably seen links to claim your badge, which you can add to your website in order to show visitors your Avvo rating,” Christensen writes. “To do this, Avvo gives you a code you can copy and paste into your website to display your badge.”

As he notes, “Avvo says the badge will send visitors ‘to your Avvo profile where they can review information about you and likely contact you for help to solve their legal needs’….What Avvo doesn’t tell you is that the badge also includes a link to an Avvo directory page specific to your city and practice area. That’s right: the badge includes a link to a list of your competitors,” Christensen writes.

Fortunately, he says, “you can use the badge without having to copy Avvo’s questionable website code. All you need is an image of your badge and the URL of your Avvo profile. To get this, take a screenshot of your badge preview in your Avvo dashboard and put that on your website, linked to your profile. The only downside to this method is that you will have to update your image if your rating changes.”

Read the full post for more, including an interesting exchange in the comment string between an Avvo rep and Lawyerist’s Sam Glover. For more about Avvo, see Janan Hanna’s cover story in the March 2014 Illinois Bar Journal.