Bar Exam Copying Punished and Punished Hard

The following is a bit off-topic but most interesting nonetheless.

Here are a few excerpts from Geri L. Dreiling, A Costly Case of Cribbing: Judge Orders Company to Pay $12 Million for Copying Questions From MBE, ABA J. e-Report, Sept. 1, 2006:

The Philadelphia federal judge concluded that Multistate Legal Studies Inc., which does business as the Preliminary Multistate Bar Review or PMBR Multistate Specialist, copied more than 100 questions prepared by the National Conference of Bar Examiners for the multistate bar exam, infringing on its copyright. National Conference of Bar Examiners v. Multistate Legal Studies Inc., No. 04-03282-JF (Aug. 22).

In addition to awarding money damages, Judge John P. Fullam Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania prohibited PMBR employees from sitting for the bar exam for any purpose other than obtaining admission into the jurisdiction.

Fullam wrote that PMBR founders Robert Feinberg and Dona Zimmerman took the MBE 20 and 12 times, respectively, in different states. He also cited their “strikingly high” failure rate, noting, “Once an applicant passes the bar in a given jurisdiction, he may not take it there again.