_{A mock-up which the company provided to a client. ROF added the stamp.}

Law.com has severed ties with its advertising partner after it was found to have wrongly promised clients that their campaigns would appear in publications including RollOnFriday.

The legal news company, which owns The American Lawyer (ALM) and Legalweek, has also wiped as many mentions as possible of its partnership with iCrowdNewswire and shuttered the newswire service.

The issue came to light when a company which provides training to lawyers and law firms asked ALM to promote its products over Law.com’s ‘Legal Newswire’ on sites including ROF.

Skillburst’s staff grew suspicious when they requested a screenshot of their advertisement and were given a crude mock-up of a banner on ROF.

When Skillburst complained to ALM, it produced a report which purported to show that the company's advert had run as promised.

ICrowdNewswire President and CEO Hector Botero inadvertently proved there was a major issue when he insisted the impossible had occurred.

“We placed ads on a variety of media sites including ROF”, he told this publication, explaining that “we placed these ads through Google AdSense”.

Unfortunately for Botero, ROF doesn’t use AdSense, preferring to personally approve which adverts appear, and the exposure of the issue appears to have caused Law.com to ditch the project.

“I can confirm that ALM did not renew our license agreement with iCrowdNewswire”, Richard Caruso, the Senior Vice President of Legal Products at ALM, told ROF.

Law.com has also closed down its newswire service and dozens of posts promoting the product have been scrubbed.

Botero told ROF, "ALM and iCrowdNewswire have terminated their press release distribution agreement as part of a planned change in business model".

"The termination of the agreement was mutually agreed to prior to the contract expiration notice period", he said.

Following the original story, other clients got in touch with ROF and expressed their long-held doubts about the service. “I have had suspicions about whether they were indeed placing the ads everywhere they claimed”, said one law firm’s marketing head. “Now, Law.com has taken down every online mention they could.”

It is not known how many clients were impacted or the amount of money that may have been wrongly charged. It’s also not clear what ALM knew of this, although its lawyer did threaten this publication when it brought the issue to ALM’s attention.

ALM’s lawyer has been asked for comment.