A Florida lawyer has sued Avvo for libel, arguing that the Seattle online attorney rating service published inaccurate information about him and engaged in a practice of blackmail in order to get him to participate on the site. Larry Joe Davis Jr., a St. Petersburg lawyer who has a 3.7 rating on Avvo, argues in the suit that the site inaccurately listed him as having a practice in the "employment/labor" area when in fact he specializes in health law. He also alleges that Avvo engaged in unfair acts of trade or commerce.

"Avvo has a routine business practice of publishing false and misleading information regarding attorneys, and by doing so attempts to coerce their participation in exchange for improving (making accurate) their Avvo.com listing and rating," the suit says.

In an interview, Avvo CEO Mark Britton said that the allegations are not based in fact and in many instances "make no sense." In fact, Britton says that Davis is simply attempting to bully the online attorney rating service because he didn't like his ranking.

"Sadly, not a word of it speaks to the real issue: that Mr. Davis was sanctioned by the Florida State Bar in 2007 and he doesn’t want you to know about it," writes Britton in a blog post. "And I get it — Mr. Davis has had some serious problems involving child support payments – so much so that he was twice convicted and spent eight days in the pokey (you can read more about it here). I wouldn’t want people to know about that either."

This isn't the first time that Avvo has been sued by an angry lawyer. Nine days after the company launched, a Seattle attorney by the name of John Henry Browne sued the company over his poor rating. A federal judge later tossed out the suit.

Avvo claims that it is doing a public service by pointing out the misdeeds of lawyers.

"As I have said many times before, we are shining a flashlight in dark places," said Britton. "Not surprisingly, some are more comfortable in the dark."

Britton also compares Avvo -- backed by the likes of Ignition Partners and Benchmark Capital -- to online rating services such as Yelp, TripAdvisor and Zillow.com. He says those sites (and Avvo) have prospered because they provide consumers with more information and better guidance, whether it be a restaurant a hotel or a home. He continues:

Thanks in large part to the informational behemoths like Google and Microsoft, all sorts of information that was once locked away is being digitized and democratized for consumers. What once may have taken a trip to the courthouse or a public information request is now a simple Google search away. Those that have something to hide hate this. Those that don’t range from ecstatic to indifferent.

Davis, on the other hand, questions the methodology by which Avvo derives its ranking. He noted that his ranking on Avvo dropped from 5.0 to 3.7 after he attempted to remove information from the public profile. He concludes that this amounts to coercion, essentially punishing a lawyer with a lower ranking if he or she fails to participate.

"Avvo.com's manipulation of lawyers via the join-us-and-fix-it-or-else strategy is beyond unfair and and approaches actionable blackmail and is an actionable trade practice," the suit says.

Britton says that's hogwash, noting that lawyers do not have to "claim" their profiles in order to change information on the page. He said they routinely correct information on lawyer profile pages.

"We are very diligent in investigating and correcting any information flagged as outdated or otherwise incorrect in a profile. With 1.2 million lawyer records, we often get these requests for info changes, whether it be from our own systems, the profiled lawyer, competitors of the profiled lawyers, marketing directors, etc.," he said. "We diligently handle these requests and only two times have they resulted in a lawsuit – interestingly both by sanctioned lawyers."

Furthermore, he said that rankings do not change simply because a lawyer claims his or her profile. "Absolutely not," he said when asked if a lawyer can manipulate the ranking simply by claiming the profile.

Davis also alleges that Avvo used an unauthorized picture of him and that his participation in the site resulted in advertisements appearing next to his profile page from competing lawyers in the health law field. In placing the ads from competing lawyers, Davis argues that Avvo is "harming the person whose name was being searched."

[Full suit here]