Everyone who lives in a democracy has no choice but to trust their neighbours to pick their lawmakers – but their divorce lawyers? The bricklayer or the brain surgeon next door may do a perfectly good job choosing between Hillary and Mitt, or Barack or John. But when it comes to the really important things in life – cheating spouses, market losses, inheritance battles or breast implants that leak – the average American cannot rely on the collective wisdom of the neighbourhood to pick a lawyer. Some decisions are too important – or too sensitive – to trust to friends, family and the Joneses.

Choosing a doctor to deliver your child or a painter to whitewash your walls has long been a pretty well-informed process in America: even in the dark days before Web 2.0, plenty of publications ranked everyone from acupuncturists to pedicurists. But finding a good lawyer – which vast numbers of Americans are forced to do every day – was much harder. Lawyers sometimes ranked each other, but it was not easy to find a good impartial source to sort the good attorneys from the bad, based not just on peer reviews but everything from consumer feedback to disciplinary sanctions. Most Americans chose their lawyers based purely on the recommendation of a neighbour or friend: small wonder so many hate attorneys.