Don't Use Yelp to Hire a San Francisco DUI Attorney

I, like many of you, use Yelp all the time. When it comes to finding a good restaurant or some other local service, Yelp is incredibly useful. However, hiring a DUI attorney is not something that Yelp is designed to do. Case in point: I'm a very fortunate DUI lawyer in that I've been able to get over 40 positive reviews on Yelp. Unfortunately for the prospective DUI client, there are numbers of "DUI" lawyers who allegedly have 100's of reviews and therefore these attorneys are always listed near the top. While this may be good for a restaurant, not so for a DUI attorney. Make sure you actually read a DUI attorney's Yelp reviews! Of the lawyers with 100's of reviews you'll find that almost none of those reviews actually pertain to a DUI case.

The truth is that it's very hard to get Yelp reviews from client's who've been arrested for DUI. for pretty obvious reasons. That said, Yelp prioritizes number of reviews, not quality of reviews. The "top" lawyers on Yelp are NOT the top DUI lawyers, just the lawyers with the most reviews. So how do you get a 100 reviews on Yelp? It's pretty simple. The "top" lawyers on Yelp are actually NOT DUI lawyers, but lawyers who handle a large number of TRAFFIC INFRACTIONS, i.e. speeding tickets. There's little social stigma for speeding tickets and since they're dismissed when the officer fails to show up, it's quite easy to get lots of these clients to write Yelp reviews. These reviews, however, are for a completely different kind of legal work than DUI defense, which is much more complicated that traffic tickets. That said, don't trust the "highest rated" "DUI" lawyer on Yelp.

I can say from experience that the best DUI lawyers, many of which are listed on Yelp, typically have the fewest reviews since they're usually from an actual DUI client. Considering that a Yelp reviewer has to leave their identity on their review, a true positive Yelp review from a DUI client is a rare and impressive thing. Whether you're looking for a DUI attorney or any kind of lawyer, I always recommend that you begin your search on Avvo.

Nors Davidson

www.sanfranciscoduicrimedefense.com