website partnership and ownership

hello,
i need some advice concerning the my legal rights to a website i started with a friend in 2001. i purchased the domain name using my information, and at the time had little experience in web design, which is where my partner came in. we have always had the verbal agreement that we each own 50% of the site, and profits from advertising and our small online store would be split 50% as well. all profits were deposited in a joint bank account that we both have access to. our website now gets over 25 million hits a month and has a webforum with 5000 members.

due to outside related issues, my partner has decided to completely empty our joint bank account, and change the password to the ftp without my knowledge, in attempt to push me out of our co-ownership. after checking with godaddy.com (who i bought the domain name through), the domain email address was changed to my partners email, and i no longer have access to the domain name account. i have been trying to figure out if this domain name is still registered to me.

i would like to know what i can do legally. i do not have any signed contracts. the person that hosts my website is a friend of my partner, and refuses to give me the ftp password. the website code and content content was given to us contract and payment free from a friend. he has told me if need be he will request his content is pulled from the website, due to the fact that it is his intellectual property.

my main questions-
does a verbal agreement hold up in court?
if i was the original person to register the domain name, do i own it?
how can i find out if the domain name is registered under my name? (already did a WHOIS and there is a privacy protection implemented)
can anyone recommend a lawyer i can talk to that specializes in cases like this?

thank you for any and all help.

Wow, that's a whole can of worms right there.

You didn't say where you are, and the fact is that a big part of law is jurisdiction. The body of case law applied to internet issues is pretty slim so far since it's still in its relative infancy.

Old fashioned business/partnership type laws would still apply. You said he cleaned out your joint bank account, but I don't know the terms (even if verbal) that the two of you agreed to.

You really should talk to a lawyer. Most will give you a free consultation to see if you have a case.

sorry, we are in california.

the verbal agreement for the joint bank account was that any money taken from the account would be split 50/50, obviously this is not what has happened and i have gotten the short end of the stick big time.

i think i should talk to a lawyer as well, i am just looking for some recomendations as where to go.

You need to talk to a lawyer, advice from a forum thread isn't going to help you, this is a legal matter. It should not be difficult to demonstrate your connection with the site, although it may be difficult to establish the existence of the verbal contract.

Which means you have to talk to a lawyer, there's no way around it, your ex friend has already demonstrated that he is a total jerk and scumbag, assuming your version of this story is true, so there's no point in doing anything else without having legal help.