There's an article in the January 26, 2007 issue of the ABA Journal E-Report on the status of Park v. Thomson Corp., No. 05 Civ. 2931 (SDNY 2005). Park is a class action suit against BAR/BRI. In short, the suit alleges that more than 300,000 students and lawyers were monopolistically overcharged about $1,000 apiece for BAR/BRI bar review courses. That's a lot of damages. The ABA Journal reports that the SDNY has denied a motion to dismiss the claims. A similar article appears on Law.com--which goes into more detail than the ABA Journal article. Particularly interesting to me is how Judge Learned Hand's classic "30/60/90 rule" from the Alcoa case is relevant here: that 30% market share presumptively is not a monopoly, that 60% may or may not be, and that 90% market share presumptively indicates a monopoly. In this case, BAR/BRI has 80 to 90% of the bar prep market.
As for blogging about this case, perhaps the experience of Law Prof Eric Goldman should wave me off. He blogged about this case a few months ago; look what happened to him. Maybe I should proclaim my ignorance too.
Scratch everything I just said in this post.
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