BarBri
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
BarBri is a company in the United States that offers the most widely used bar exam preparation course in the country. A substantial majority of American recipients of a Juris Doctor degree attend a six-week course provided by this company, which features lectures by law professors on the six major areas covered on the Multistate Bar Examination - torts, contracts, real property, evidence, criminal law, and constitutional law — along with additional lectures on the specific law of the state. Most of the lectures are presented by videotape. Like other bar preparation courses, BarBri also supplies participants with outlines of the topic areas, and several hundred sample multiple-choice questions.
More than 800,000 students have taken BarBri courses, and the company now also offers prep courses for entering the first year of law school.
[edit] History
In 1967, the company's predecessors were founded by William A. Rutter, who is still with West Publishing, and by three attorneys in Chicago. In 1974, both San Francisco-based "Bay Area Review" and Chicago-based "Bar Review Institute" were bought by publishing giant Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, and promptly merged. The new subsidiary was officially known as "Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Legal and Professional Publications," but was marketed under the brand name BarBri. Rutter became Chairman and CEO and Richard J. Conviser became president of the merged subsidiary.
Over the years, BarBri has engaged in some rather controversial tactics to reach its current position of market dominance. For example, on November 26, 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that as a matter of law, BarBri's 1980 agreement with its Georgia franchisee was an unlawful restraint of competition on its face. Palmer v. BRG of Georgia, Inc., .
After a bizarre series of business transactions in 2000 and 2001, the company is currently owned by The Thomson Corporation, the owner of the well-known Westlaw legal research system. In its literature, it refers to itself as "BarBri, a Thomson business," or "Thomson BarBri."
[edit] Law Suit
BarBri's courses are currently the subject of a pending class action lawsuit. The lawsuit was brought in the United States District Court for the Central District of California and is captioned Rodriguez, et. al v. West Publishing Corp., d/b/a BAR/BRI, and Kaplan, Inc.
The plaintiffs allege that BarBri violated federal antitrust laws by colluding with Kaplan, Inc. Plaintiffs specifically allege that BarBri agreed not to compete in the LSAT business and Kaplan agreed not to compete in the bar review business, thereby allocating to BarBri the market for full-service bar review courses in the United States, thereby preventing a competitive bar review course from being marketed and sold. West Publishing Company, named as a defendant with Kaplan, Inc., denies the allegations.
A jury trial was originally scheduled for September 12, 2006, but the court has rescheduled the trial date to February 13, 2007. [1]
