Martindale Hubbell Not Dropping AV Rating

There was a great hubbub a week ago about Whether Martindale Hubbell was dropping their Peer Review Rating system.  I wrote about it and just could not understand why, from a business perspective, they would give up on something that is their one solid point of differentiation in their market.

Well, it appears I was right, Martindale is not dropping their Peer Review rating system.  They acknowledge terminating several positions in the department but insist they are continuing with their rating system in an article in the National Law Journal.  Martindale plans, according to the article, to be changing the way they gather information and there is a hint that they intend to include more information with their ratings.

This makes business sense.  However, if Martindale intends to compete in the market attorney referral market with the likes of Google to AVVO.com, they need to continue the transition from the print business model they have had to the online model they building.  It looks like they are trying to do that by not dumping the Peer Review Rating system but by building on it.  This may all be too little too late, but it indicates that Martindale is at thinking of the new market they find themselves in.

- Peter H. Berge

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