Almost a year ago, I was gushing about how wonderful Justia was (see this post) by offering law firms across the country access to a directory where they could list their firm for free while leveraging the power of the Justia URL.

You could set up a profile about your firm and even set up links to point at your website a blog – a huge help in solid search engine ranking.

It was so refreshing to see a competitor of Findlaw offer this service as a counter to the Findlaw directory where they charge an arm-and-a-leg to take advantage of the benefits their directory offers for search engine rankings.

Well, in the no-to-distant past, Justia has turned to the dark-side. They set their techs loose and did some black-box magic which resulted in this….

Unless you are a paying client of Justia, you will not get any help from being in their directory. Those that are Justia clients get a lot of Google love. Those that are not….get none.

In fact, Justia sales reps are now using scare tactics in an effort to force clients to stay with them.

Yep, I’ve had two law firms call me recently – both said the rep indicated that if they left Justia, their directory profile would be impacted and their web presence would disappear.

Shame on you Justia….for changing how your directory was managed internally…and by threatening clients.

You’re no better than Findlaw….and if you read this Tim, that’s a shame, because at one time, you had an ethical and honorable company.