US: Bar exam prep classes avoid $50m antitrust suit

A federal judge dismissed a US$50 million antitrust lawsuit claiming that Barbri colluded with law schools across the country to monopolize the bar exam-prep market aimed at foreign LL.M. students.

The decision by US District Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the Southern District of New York called into question the “internal contradictions and conclusory assertions” of a 78-page amended complaint leveled by LLM Bar Exam, an upstart exam-prep company that said its business has been unfairly thwarted by Barbri and the schools.

Failla also said, in dismissing all of LLM Bar Exam’s federal claims with prejudice, and its state-law causes of action without prejudice, that there was a “plain” reason why the law schools named as defendants, including Columbia, New York University and Harvard, treated LLM Bar Exam the way that they did over the years.

“Administrators at these schools were concerned about the quality of [LLM Bar Exam’s] LBE’s bar review course and the company’s business practices,” Failla wrote. The treatment did not have to do with antitrust, bribes or special agreements between Barbri and the schools, she said.

Full Content: New York Law Journal

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