Makers of LSAT file suit against tutoring services

The maker of the Law School Admission Test filed suit against two LSAT tutoring services last week in federal court, accusing the groups of using copyrighted versions of the test without permission. According to the first suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, College Bound, Inc. published material containing the copyrighted September 1989 version of the LSAT and distributed it to its customers. The attorney for Law School Admissions Services, Joanne Sommer, said yesterday that College Bound "xeroxed [an LSAT] in its entirety" and passed it off "as though it were their own." But an official at College Bound, which has offices in Philadelphia, insisted that the company "committed no actionable wrong." "The claims are baseless," said Scott Kornspan, director of field services for the Ronkin Educational Group, the division of College Bound that deals with the tutoring services. "We will defend this vigorously." The suit also alleges that College Bound took questions from various exams and retained the structure of the questions while just changing the names. Sommer said that LSAS is bothered by the actions of College Bound because of the amount of money and skill that go into putting together such an exam. "We're a little upset when someone comes along and uses our material [without paying for it]," she said. "If it had only been one question in the books, we wouldn't be pursuing it." The suit seeks a preliminary injunction against the use of the educational materials and ultimately seeks the payment of damages. Sommer added that while other testing agencies have had similar problems in the past, LSAS has not. The second suit, which was also filed in federal court in Philadelphia, alleges that LSAT Intensive Review, an Austin, Texas-based tutoring center, also used LSAT questions as the basis for their review materials. The owner of LSAT Intensive Review, Tom Lowry, said last night that he had not yet received notice of the suit. "I thought we had resolved our problems with LSAS, but apparently not," Lowry said. "This is bad news for me." College Bound's chairperson also told The Wall Street Journal that the Securities and Exchange Commission is currently investigating the company for circumstances not related to the lawsuit. The SEC's investigation is centered on questions surrounding the circumstances under which the company became a public company. Since Friday's close, College Bound's stock has lost almost 25 percent of its value.

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