One More Thought on BarBri
Will Baude and Jason Czarnezki hint at one reason I was so happy to hear of the BarBri class action lawsuit. Besides truly despising the defendants, the lawsuit promised to make an interesting wrinkle in the class action settlement debate. As Will points out, there's a truly massive agency problem inherent in letting lawyers "represent" thousands of claims, and yet be paid in cash themselves while their "clients" get some trivial coupon. BarBri is different. Most people who subscribe to a BarBri course take it precisely once, and thus a coupon for future BarBri courses would be somewhat undesirable. So maybe, just maybe this case might settle for cold, hard cash? That would be fun.
Sadly, the West Publishing Corporation (owner of BarBri) has a diifferent coin o' the realm. As their never-ending stream of emails ceaselessly reminds me, after I (knock on wood) pass the bar, West will quite happily provide me with Continuing Legal Education courses from now until the fruits of my legal education wind up in probate. If no one has predicted this already, let me be the first to examine the messy entrails of this particularly grimy fowl and augur: when this one settles, we all get free CLE.