The suit claims that Avvo, which tries to affix a score of 1 to 10 on thousands of attorneys in 10 states, violates the state's Consumer Protection Act. The suit does not ask for a specific monetary amount, though Berman is asking the court to shut down the site. He also is considering seeking a temporary restraining order and the possibility of adding more attorneys who have "impeccable reputations" to the suit.

"The bottom line is the Avvo rating isn't a true representation of one's ability to practice law and deliver positive results to their client -- it dupes consumers into thinking the site is an accurate reflection of an attorney's ability," Berman said in a news release.

Named as plaintiffs are Seattle attorneys John Henry Browne and Alan Wenokur, with the suit listing several alleged inaccuracies about rankings of other attorneys.

It says that Bellevue attorney Enrico Salvatore Leo was able to boost his score on Avvo by updating his profile with softball awards, with the score later dropping after he removed the achievements from his profile. And it says attorneys now serving prison terms score higher on Avvo than some Supreme Court justices, and several attorneys connected to Avvo have higher rankings than law school deans.

Avvo Chief Executive Mark Britton had yet to digest the entire 25-page lawsuit as of Thursday afternoon, but he had read enough to dispute claims that his newly launched rating system was misleading consumers.

In an interview, Britton said the suit was brought because Browne didn't like his Avvo score. The Seattle criminal defense attorney -- who has been quoted in P-I stories about the new online service -- has an Avvo score of 5.2, or "average," partly because of a 2005 disciplinary action he received from the state bar over compensation issues.

"I think that because Mr. Browne did not like his rating, they are filing this suit in an attempt to chill our rating system," said Britton, the former general counsel at Expedia who founded Avvo in February 2006. "All I can say is that I believe the First Amendment is alive and well, and certainly within that amendment and the defenses that go with it, we are able to make an opinion, to make an assessment regarding how well a lawyer might represent someone."

Berman said the case is not just about disgruntled lawyers who don't like their scores, contending there is evidence that attorneys can manipulate their scores on Avvo in order to boost their rankings. Since Avvo received media attention last week, Berman said he has been contacted by numerous attorneys from across the U.S.

Britton said the company, backed with $13 million from Benchmark Capital and Ignition Partners, had not earmarked a certain portion of the venture funds for legal defense. But he planned to file a response in a timely manner under Washington law.

In addition to Avvo and Britton, the suit also lists 25 John Does as defendants. Those include law firms and venture capital firms who could be added to the suit if it is proved they "aided and abetted" certain conduct. In a P-I story earlier this week, Berman said he did not plan to go after Avvo's venture backers.

On Thursday, Berman said he changed his mind on that issue because new information became available.

The suit claims that Avvo violates the state's Consumer Protection Act because it is not an objective or unbiased resource, even though the startup says its ratings benefit consumers.

"We are trying to get consumers more information than they ever had before," Britton said. "Before Avvo was launched, everybody was pretty much going to the Yellow Pages and search engines, which are not the most efficient places for people to find a lawyer. By providing that information and guidance, it just helps consumers get the legal help they need."

The suit also claims that Avvo holds attorneys hostage by forcing them to hand over credit card information to update their profiles.

Britton said that the credit card information is a security measure in order to guard against "hacker bots" and other people claiming profiles that are not theirs.

"There is nothing nefarious that we do with the information," he said. Still, Britton said the company is working on a new system to verify attorneys in ways that do not use credit card information.

The lawsuit also claims that Avvo uses a secretive method to come up with its rankings.

Asked about adding more transparency, Britton said that they would consider doing that, but they are most concerned about people "gaming the system." Disclosing the method by which it comes up with the rating could lead to people manipulating the score, he said.

Avvo continues to make changes to the Web site based on the feedback from lawyers and consumers, something Britton said Berman chose not to do.

"He chose rather just to file a complaint," said Britton.

In a Monday interview, Berman told the P-I that he views this as an important case because those who are in need of legal advice should be able to get trustworthy information. "If you are going to have a service out there, it should be reliable and it should be trustworthy, and this site is neither," said Berman.

"If rigorous rules like the one applied today are thought to be inequitable, Congress may authorize the courts" to adopt more lenient rules, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority.

In dissent, Justice David H. Souter wrote: "It is intolerable for the judicial system to treat people this way." He faulted the majority for "condoning this bait and switch."

It is the second time in a month that the court split along conservative-liberal lines over an issue of deadlines. In a 5-4 ruling that was seen as a setback for women's rights, the court overturned a pay-discrimination verdict in favor of the lone female supervisor at a Goodyear Tire plant because she had not pointed to unfair pay decisions within the time limit of 180 days prior to the filing of her suit.

In the case decided Thursday, Kevin Bowles was convicted of murder in 1999 for taking part in the beating of another man, and his appeals were rejected by the Ohio courts. His initial appeal was rejected by a federal district judge.

His lawyer sought to reopen his appeal, and under a federal rule of civil procedure he had 14 days to file a notice. The judge granted his motion to reopen the appeal on Feb. 10, 2004, but inexplicably said his notice must be filed by Feb. 27.

Bowles' notice was filed on Feb. 26, the day before the judge's deadline. But this was 16 days after he had granted the motion, or two days beyond the legal deadline.

State prosecutors insisted Bowles' appeal should be thrown out because of the missed deadline. And they argued that the appeals court had no legal authority to hear his case.

The appeals court agreed, and the high court upheld that decision Thursday in Bowles vs. Russell.

"Time limits for filing a notice of appeal are jurisdictional in nature," Thomas said, and therefore cannot be waived by judges for reasons for fairness. "We hold that [Bowles'] untimely notice — even though filed in reliance upon a District Court's order — deprived the Court of Appeals of jurisdiction." He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito.

Souter called the court's handling of the issue "puzzling" and "incoherent."

"Congress put no jurisdictional tag on the time limit here," he said, and the court was wrong to add one.

Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer joined the dissent.

"They (jurors) didn't review any documents, transcripts or exhibits, which were considerable," Osio said. "They took the shortcut and rushed to judgment without proper deliberation. We are concerned that the prosecutor's very inflammatory closing argument and mischaracterization of the evidence was very prejudicial."

Prosecutors contended that Osio embezzled the money from a trust fund he was hired to set up for Alicia Waters and her husband, Henry, in 2002. She discovered the money missing after her husband's death, authorities said. She died in 2005 at age 92.

Osio was convicted of one count each of grand theft, theft from an elder, forgery and perjury.

He remains free on bail but could face up to six years and eight months in state prison when he is sentenced next month.

A federal judge Friday requested that the U.S. attorney prosecute prominent Mississippi attorney Richard F. Scruggs and his law firm for criminal contempt in a Hurricane Katrina insurance dispute.

U.S. District Judge William M. Acker Jr. said if the federal prosecutor in Birmingham declines the court's request, Acker will appoint another attorney to handle the prosecution.

Acker ruled that Scruggs "willfully violated" a Dec. 8, 2006 preliminary injunction that required him to deliver "all documents" about State Farm Insurance Co. that whistleblowers Cori and Kerri Rigsby secretly copied after Katrina. Acker's ruling came in a suit by E.A. Renfroe and Co. Inc., a claims adjusting firm that fired the Rigsbys after finding out they had taken internal documents. Renfroe and Co. worked for State Farm, and the sisters were heavily involved in processing claims for the insurance giant.

"It is undisputed that Scruggs had in his possession the exact documents that fell within the scope of the injunction and that were and are the whole subject of the controversy," the judge wrote in his order. Instead of complying, Scruggs promptly sent the documents to Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood's office, Acker says, "for the calculated purpose of ensuring noncompliance with or avoidance" of the injunction.

He said Scruggs's motive seems clear from the undisputed facts. "Even after Hood `voluntarily' sent the documents to counsel for Renfroe at Scruggs's request, Scruggs wrote to Hood requesting another copy of the same documents for himself and ostensibly for the Scruggs Katrina Group," the judge wrote.

He called Scruggs' action a "brazen disregard" of the court's order, calling it "precisely the type of conduct that criminal contempt sanctions were designed to address." Richard Scruggs called the judge's actions "bizarre." "Our firm fully cooperated with the court's injunction. We did what was asked of us and the information that we turned over was strong evidence of fraud by the insurance industry," Richard Scruggs told The Associated Press Friday evening. "We're going to vigorouly oppose it and we are willing to accept what consequences this Alabama judge might impose for complying with his own injunction," he said. Zack Scruggs, his son and law partner in Oxford, Miss. said an appeal of Acker's ruling is possible.

The elder Scruggs had argued that he did not violate the injunction because the injunction, as he interpreted it, contained an express "carve-out for law enforcement," Acker noted. But the judge wrote: "To read the preliminary injunction to permit Scruggs to deliver the documents to Hood rather than to counsel for Renfroe is such a strained construction and so contrary to the injunction's clear terms as to lack any credibility whatsoever."

The Rigsbys, from Ocean Springs, Miss., have admitted copying thousands of pages of records to back up their allegations that State Farm wrongly denied claims after Katrina. The sisters gave the documents to law enforcement agents and Scruggs, who signed them each to a $150,000-a-year consulting contract. The sisters say they made about 15,000 copies -- three sets of 5,000 separate records.

Scruggs, a highly successful plaintiffs' lawyer who is the brother-in-law of U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., is suing State Farm on behalf of hundreds of Mississippi residents.

"Mr. Nifong did not act as a minister of justice, but as a minister of injustice," state bar prosecutor Douglas Brocker said Saturday morning.

Brocker told the disciplinary hearing committee that as Nifong investigated allegations that a stripper was raped at a March 2006 party thrown by Duke's lacrosse team, he charged "forward toward condemnation and injustice," weaving a "web of deception that has continued up through this hearing."

The bar charged Nifong, a prosecutor in Durham County for his entire three-decade legal career, with breaking several rules of professional conduct, including lying to both the court and bar investigators and withholding critical DNA test results from the players' defense attorneys.

Those DNA tests found genetic material from several males in the accuser's underwear and body, but none from any lacrosse player. Even though he was aware of those results, Nifong still pressed ahead with the case and won indictments against Dave Evans, Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty.

State prosecutors later concluded the three players were "innocent" victims of a rogue prosecutor's "tragic rush to accuse."

Nifong acknowledged Friday he was likely to be punished by the disciplinary committee for maybe getting "carried away a little bit" when talking publicly about the case. He said he regretted some of his statements, including a confident proclamation that he wouldn't allow Durham to become known for "a bunch of lacrosse players from Duke raping a black girl."

Brocker pounded on such comments Saturday, saying Nifong had to have known he was making improper comments to reporters.

"They (were) clearly going to cause public condemnation of anybody who was charged," Brocker said.

Brocker also focused on when Nifong learned about the full extent of the DNA test results and when he shared that information with the defense.

Nifong gave defense attorneys an initial report on the DNA testing in May 2006 that said private lab DNA Security Inc. had been unable to find a conclusive match between the accuser and any lacrosse players.

But lab director Brian Meehan testified this week that he told Nifong as early as April 10, 2006 _ a week before Seligmann and Finnerty were indicted _ about the more detailed test results.

"The positive results were the truth," Brocker said. "They just weren't the whole truth."

Nifong testified that when he gave the defense the initial report, he "believed at the time that I had given them everything."

Nifong tearfully said Friday he would resign as district attorney, stunning his staff in Durham and his own attorneys. They had insisted for weeks their client had no plans to leave the office he was elected to for the first time in November.

"It has become increasingly apparent, during the course of this week, in some ways that it might not have been before, that my presence as the district attorney in Durham is not furthering the cause of justice," Nifong said, adding later: "My community has suffered enough."

Even if he is disbarred, Nifong's troubles aren't over _ the players' attorneys have pledged to seek criminal contempt charges next week in Durham.

The U.S. strengthened its offer of support for President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday, telling him an international aid embargo against the Palestinians would end as soon as he forms a new government without Hamas, aides to Abbas said.

The United States and European Union have backed Abbas in light of the upheaval that has remade the Palestinian territories. Jacob Walles, the American consul-general in Jerusalem, said Saturday he expects Washington to lift the 15-month economic embargo.

"I expect that we are going to be engaged with this government," Walles said. "I expect that early next week. There will be some announcements in Washington, specifically about our assistance and about the financial regulations."

The Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the Fatah-controlled West Bank have effectively become separate political entities, endangering the Palestinian dream of forming an independent state in the two territories.

Hundreds of Fatah gunmen stormed Hamas-controlled institutions across the West Bank on Saturday, seeking revenge for the Islamic group's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip.

Crowds of Gaza Strip residents converged on the border crossing with Israel desperate to leave the coastal strip, but they found locked gates. Israel, meanwhile, said it would allow food and other basic supplies into Gaza.

In Gaza, the deposed prime minister appointed a new security command to solidify control. Despite Hamas pledges to restore calm, looters attacked several prominent Fatah symbols, including the home of longtime Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

In the West Bank, Abbas' newly appointed Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, moved forward with plans to form an emergency government. Officials close to Abbas said the government would also include members from Gaza, underscoring Abbas' claim to lead all Palestinians. Hamas, which now claims its own government in Gaza, called the move illegal.

Abbas aide Yasser Abed Rabbo said the new government would be sworn in by Sunday. He also rejected negotiations with Hamas: "There will be no dialogue with killers who carried out field executions in Gaza."

Aides to Abbas said Walles pledged an end to the sanctions once the new Palestinian government is formed, aides to Abbas said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed.

The sanctions were imposed after Hamas, which the U.S. has branded a terrorist group, was elected in January 2006. Hamas and Fatah have been locked in a power struggle since then, especially over which group would control security forces.

A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said all restrictions will be lifted, including those on bank transfers. The EU's statement said the question would be discussed at a meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers in Luxembourg.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack described Fayyad, Abbas' new prime minister, as "a person that the international community has long experience with, has great confidence in."

In Gaza, deposed Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh who has ignored Abbas order firing him replaced security commanders loyal to Abbas, a spokesman aid.

Since seizing control of Gaza on Thursday, Hamas has tried to impose law and order in the area, in part due to fears of retribution in the West Bank. Saturday's attacks on Hamas targets were the most serious so far.

In Ramallah and Nablus, hundreds of Fatah gunmen took over the Palestinian parliament and other Hamas-controlled government offices, and said staffers with ties to Hamas could not return.

At the parliament, several hundred Fatah supporters chanted, "Hamas out," while gunmen climbed on the roof of the building and fired in the air. They also whisked the deputy speaker, a Hamas ally, out of the building, but were prevented from pushing him into a car.

Many government employees tied to Hamas, apparently fearing they would come to harm, never came to work Saturday, the start of the work week in the West Bank.

In Gaza, meanwhile, Hamas forces on Saturday blew up the home of a prominent Fatah family, collected rivals' weapons and deployed hundreds of security men at strategic locations.

"They are going to provide the people with all the security they have lacked in the past few years due to the bad behavior of some corrupt agents," said Abu Hilal, the Hamas spokesman.

With Hamas firmly in control, Gaza City's streets largely returned to normal Saturday. Outdoor markets were alive, and traffic jams clogged the streets a dramatic contrast to the street battles seen earlier in the week. Still, jittery residents stocked up on flour and other basic supplies in fear of further violence.

Hamas units took up positions at former Fatah security buildings. At the damaged headquarters of the Preventive Security Agency, Hamas said it found the bodies of seven people it claimed were executed by the pro-Fatah force before it was routed.

Despite Hamas' pledges of calm, looting persisted at key Fatah symbols, including the home of Arafat, the founder of Fatah who ruled the Palestinians for 40 years.

Witnesses said gunmen stormed the house early Saturday, taking furniture, including a bed, and three cars. Hamas security forces later arrived and locked the house. The home had been empty since Arafat left Gaza in 2001. He died in 2004. The witnesses declined to be identified, fearing for their safety.

Despite Hamas promises of amnesty, fearful Fatah supporters converged on the Erez border crossing with Israel in hopes of traveling to the West Bank. One young man shouted "bye, bye, Gaza," and waved as he walked through the covered walkway that leads to the Israeli side.

Israeli government spokesman Shlomo Dror said only a small number of "humanitarian cases" were allowed to pass. At the same time, hundreds of people looted police positions on the Palestinian side of Erez, and at one point Israeli troops fired in the air to keep the crowd at bay. The looters walked off with furniture and scrap metal.