En Passant

Great story in tomorrow's New York Times

about the allegedly illegal acts of monopolization by the BAR/BRI Bar Review Course.  Click here for the article.  Click here for the complaint.

Today's Los Angeles 'Daily Journal' has an excellent story about the allegedly illegal acts

committed by The Washington Post's Kaplan and West Publishing Company's BAR/BRI Bar Review.  Click here (PDF format).

West Publishing's BAR/BRI and The Washington Post's Kaplan

have been sued again for committing allegedly illegal acts.  The complaint says that BAR/BRI and Kaplan illegally eliminated competition in the bar review business, after which BAR/BRI raised prices charged law school grads. Kaplan allegedly backed out of its letter of intent to buy the assets of the West Bar Review course, and, in exchange, BAR/BRI allegedly closed down its LSAT course and paid Kaplan more than $500,000 a year. The complaint (PDF file).

The bar exam grader who lost the bar exam answers was reportedly in a bar (as in "tavern")

when the papers were stolen.  He had put all the answer books in a backpack, and put the backpack in his car.  He reportedly parked the car, left the backpack, and went inside to imbibe.  When he returned, the bar exam answers were gone.  [More to follow.]

Remember the story about the California bar exam answers that were stolen?

Well, one law school grad who failed the bar exam when the score on his stolen answer was "imputed" by the bar examiners, has sued, seeking damages of $43 million.  You must read his complaint.

The New York Court of Appeals has just ordered further study

before changes are fully implemented increasing the passing score on the New York Bar Exam.

Amended complaint makes new allegations against Bar/Bri

The class-action lawsuit against West Publishing Company's Bar/Bri Bar Review and The Washington Post Company's Kaplan, Inc., has been expanded to include additional plaintiffs and additional allegations of unlawful activity.  Among the new claims are:

1. that Bar/Bri secretly paid a law school to close down its bar review course, thereby giving Bar/Bri a monopoly in which Bar/Bri immediately doubled the price charged law students,  2. that Bar/Bri secretly paid Kaplan more than $500,000 a year to stay out of the bar review business,  and 3. that Bar/Bri paid "consulting fees" to certain law school administrators in exchange for preferential treatment at their law schools.  For links, click here.

Lawsuit says Bar/Bri overcharged lawyers and law students

by $300 million for bar review courses.  Link

If bar review courses adopted the Boeing policy

and fired executives who had sexual relations with subordinates, there would be fewer people in the bar review business.

A question you won't see on the bar exam

The bar exam pass rate in California and elsewhere keeps dropping.  Examiners wonder if the exam has gotten too difficult.  Yet New York proposes making the exam even more difficult.  And Florida has already made its exam harder to pass. 

Another (albeit unspoken) theory of the decline in the California pass rate is that the dramatic reduction in bar review competition since West Publishing bought competing bar review courses, then shut down what had become the nation's second largest bar review course, and then bought the nation's largest bar review course has caused law students to be less prepared for the MBE and the local portion.