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Avvo's new competitor It has been a few weeks since I mentioned Avvo, the controversial Seattle online attorney rating service that was promptly sued after its debut in June. Now, it turns out that Avvo will be facing some competition from an Arlington, Va.-based startup called HireTrade that has created a "legal marketplace" in which attorneys can post online profiles and clients can attempt to find attorneys to work on their cases. For now, the company is focusing on the legal markets in Washington, D.C., New York and Philadelphia, but it plans to expand to other geographic areas in the future. HireTrade says its HourlyValue Ratings System taps the knowledge of clients to rate attorneys, a method that it believes is more effective than a 1 to 10 rating scale like what Avvo employs. (HireTrade says it will not post a rating of an attorney until it accumulates three projects/reviews of the attorney.) At the present time, HireTrade's database does not appear to be as robust as Avvo's. I searched for three different attorney names and did not get a result or an attorney rating. (Similar searches on Avvo returned hundreds of attorneys.) Still, I asked HireTrade Chief Executive Neil Sandhu how his company is different from Avvo. Here's what he said: We think that existing professional ratings systems, including most numerical ratings systems, result in arbitrary values as it is impossible for a numerical algorithm to really capture every single nuance of a professional's background or decide what is the correct weight to place on different items of information such as experience, education, etc. (not to mention the fact that it appears that some of these systems merely assign higher scores to those professionals who take the time to fill out their profiles in more detail). Thus, meaningful comparisons are difficult to draw from the numerical values that result. Furthermore, there is very little actual intrinsic value in any number generated by such a system. And he continued: But what does a 5.0, 7.5, or 10 really signify when it comes to the seller of a service and, even if a numerical system was somehow perfect at capturing and interpreting data, can you really effectively compare someone who has a 8.8 to someone who has a 9.5--what if the person with an 8.8 has worked on more difficult matters and the person with the 9.5 has worked a long time and done very well with less difficult work? When the service is at the heart of what is being sold, we think an entirely different system must be used. Those are also some of the arguments made in the lawsuit against Avvo. Posted by document.writeln(showE2("johncook","seattlepi.com","John Cook"))John Cook John Cook at August 27, 2007 11:35 a.m.Category: Avvo Comments #48664Posted by unregistered user at 8/27/07 8:33 p.m.hey. i told those guys to turn their site into a myspace for lawyers but nooooo. what do i know Report violation #48671Posted by unregistered user at 8/27/07 9:31 p.m.Avvo's primary competition is certainly their own misguided idea and the shark who pounced on their inane offering. Report violation

When to Go VoIP? That Is the Question By Edward J. GrubbThe Legal IntelligencerAugust 9, 2007 Chances are you know someone who's using free or consumer-class Voice over Internet Protocol solutions and making long-distance calls for "free." But is this VoIP technology suitable for a law firm like yours? Will it provide the business-class security and reliability you expect in your firm's phone system?

Autonomy Buys Zantaz By Phineas LambertThe DealJuly 19, 2007 Enterprise infrastructure software maker Autonomy Corp. PLC on Tuesday, July 3, agreed to buy U.S.-based archiving company Zantaz Inc. for $375 million to exploit the growing electronic discovery market. Pleasanton, Calif.-based Zantaz provides content archiving, electronic discovery products and software to enable organizations to retain and retrieve unstructured digital information, while Autonomy sells the platform for accessing such information. Zantaz generated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $5.2 million on revenue of $100 million for the year ended Dec. 31. In the 11 years since it was founded, its VC backers have included General Atlantic Partners LLC, Athena Technology Ventures, Red Rock Ventures, ComVentures, Pyramid Technology Ventures, Geneva Venture Partners and Novus Ventures. The purchase will be Autonomy's largest since it bought data retrieval software maker Verity Inc. for $507 million in cash at the end of 2005. "We have been greatly impressed by Zantaz's products and will be continuing to develop and support the whole range," said Autonomy CEO Michael Lynch in a statement. "Our combined solution will be unique in offering our existing 17,000 customers end-to-end information rich risk-management solutions." Cambridge, U.K.-based Autonomy said the acquisition will be partly funded through the placing of 12.7 million shares and a term loan. On completion, Autonomy said it expects to have about $75 million in cash on its balance sheet. Shares in Autonomy were up almost 9 percent, or 64.5 pence, to 792.5 pence in London, giving the company a market cap of £1.67 billion ($3.36 billion). The announcement coincided with news that Autonomy expects record second-quarter 2007 results, with pretax profit and revenue ahead of the top end of analysts' forecasts. Derek Brown, an analyst at London-based Seymour Pierce Ltd., noted that the market for electronic discovery has been fast-growing since the revised Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require businesses to make readily accessible all relevant information from unstructured data like e-mails. "The deal provides a unique offering in the market: a hosted service for archiving combined with the applications for customers to choose which route to go by," Brown said. "There's a good cross-selling opportunity here." Autonomy expects the acquisition to be earnings accretive in the first six months and generate costs synergies of about $25 million per annum. Tax loss carry-forwards will be assumed with a net present value of about $45 million, it added. Steve King, the target's CEO, will keep his position as chief executive of the Zantaz division of Autonomy. Deutsche Bank AG acted as financial adviser to Autonomy. The deal, subject to regulatory approvals, is expected to be completed by August. Zantaz has agreed to pay a $10 million breakup fee to Autonomy, should it terminate the agreement.