An attorney has filed a class action lawsuit against Lawyer.com LLC and World Media Group LLC, for using attorneys’ personal information without their permission and selling a false rating system to users of the Lawyer.com website.
The Lawyer.com privacy and false advertising class action lawsuit states that the website claims to be the “#1 Lawyer Matching Service” and allows users to find “top rated lawyers” in multiple practice areas and geographic locations.
The complaint claims that Lawyer.com lists profiles for more than one million attorneys throughout the United States, and alleges that most of those profiles were made without that attorney’s permission or consent.
The class action contends that Lawyer.com also makes money from paid advertising on those attorneys’ profiles.
In addition, most of the profiles on Lawyer.com grade non-customer attorneys with a ‘D’ or ‘F’ rating, according to the class action.
The complaint lists several high-profile attorneys, such as current Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with scores of 14 out of 100 “LawPoints” on the website.
The class action asserts that “[t]he actions of Defendants with their publication of Lawyer.com cause damage to the reputations of Plaintiff White and other members of the proposed class, particularly in a profession that relies heavily on public opinion and reputation.”
The lawsuit claims that attorneys can improve their rating by paying Lawyer.com for a pricy monthly subscription of $299 per month for individuals or $999 per month for law firms.
“As a result of its rating practice, which is heavily skewed toward lawyers with paid memberships, Lawyer.com promotes the names of attorneys and law firms based solely on how much money they have paid to Defendants, to the detriment of other attorneys, including Plaintiff White and members of the proposed class,” according to the complaint.
Plaintiff Alex R. White states that he is an attorney in Kentucky, and currently has a profile on Lawyer.com with a score of 17 “LawPoints” and a “D” grade.
White claims that he never created a profile on Lawyer.com, and likewise never gave his permission to the website to use his personal information.
The class action lawsuit alleges that Lawyer.com violates attorneys’ right to privacy under New York law.
Moreover, Lawyer.com violates the New York Deceptive Practices Act by giving false “ratings” for non-customer attorneys, holding out those ratings as an accurate indication of their legal skills and reputation when it is not, according to the complaint.
The privacy and false advertising lawsuit seeks to certify a Class of “[a]ll Attorneys in the United States listed on Lawyer.com who did not provide written consent to Lawyer.com to utilize their name and biographical information for advertising purposes.”
The class action wants damages, including profits from the company’s advertising, as well as an injunction stopping Lawyer.com from continuing its allegedly unlawful advertising.
White is represented by Paul C. Whalen of the Law Office of Paul C. Whalen, P.C., and Jasper D. Ward IV and Alex C. Davis of Jones Ward PLC.
The Lawyer.com Privacy and False Advertising Class Action Lawsuit is Alex R. White v. Lawyer.com LLC, et al., Case No. 16-cv-6617, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
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