[Ted S]

Given that the people you conducted the work for are attorneys it makes any legal action much different than in a normal situation. Assuming you feel this issue is worth pursuing (i.e. there was enough damage caused to bother fighting) you would want to contact an attorney of your own to have them evaluate your legal standings. You really should not be sending out anything or taking any legal action without proper legal advise which only an attorney can give you. It's unfortunate that these sort of things happen but they do... having a contract really is a must do.

Originally Posted by gio~logist

Have you given them all the .psd files as well? Do not forget that such thing exists as a poor man's copyright. If you still have .psd's and perhaps other proof and records of you creating the website and them hiring you to do so, you should be able to take action.

There is actually no such thing as the poor man's copyright (at least not in the US). Copyrights are assigned the moment you put a work into a fixed or permanent state (as would be the case when you save the file). It's pretty safe to assume that he can prove he did the work, the question is can he prove they don't have the right to use it.