law school admission council files suit against testmasters

[julie anne]

Just months after its battle with Blueprint LSAT Prep found TestMasters on the losing side, Testmasters and its founder Robin Singh may have to head back to court once again.

The Law School Admission Council filed a complaint Sept. 4 in a Pennsylvania district court seeking damages for  breach of contract and copyright infringement against TestMasters, confirmed an LSAC representative.

According to the complaint, which was posted to Scribd, the Law School Admission Council, beginning in 1992, granted TestMasters limited licenses to copy certain LSAT materials. These licenses had specific requirements that had to be met by TestMasters.

More recently, LSAC granted a license effective Aug. 1, 2007 to July 31, 2009 that required TestMasters to provide "an accounting of the number of students enrolled and questions used (as relevant), on or about February 1st or July 31st of each year."

The complaint states that TestMasters failed to account for the students and the questions used by the deadline, and further states that the company failed to pay a $900,000 licensing fee. 

LSAC seeks to stop TestMasters from further use of the test materials and to get them to destroy all the copies of LSAT materials in their possession.

What does that mean for law school hopefuls?

Users of Top Law Schools, an online forum where users discuss law school admissions, hypothesized that the law suit could mean shutting down TestMasters classes, even those that have already been paid for.

According to one user, who claims to have been the one to post the original complaint:

"I am the one who posted that information. I did it to warn potential LSAT students to be careful with their money. ... TestMasters is using these materials unlicensed *right now*, and they may be shut down at any moment."

Check out the complaint on Scribd.

Check out what users of Top Law Schools have to say.

(Hat tip to The Shark commenter "Merkin", who posted a link to the complaint)

Comments

[Irina Lymar]

TestMasters and the LSAC have settled their licensing dispute. Pursuant to the settlement agreement, the parties have filed a joint request that the court dismiss the lawsuit. TestMasters has paid the LSAC the full $1,047,490 owed under the previous license, and the LSAC has granted a new license to TestMasters.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/19856366/New- ... d-the-LSAC

TestMasters is not and has never been opposed to paying the LSAC for the right to use authentic LSAT questions. The crux of the dispute was that TestMasters did not want to pay licensing fees if its competitors and other third parties were not. The licensing fees are considerable, and fairness dictates that if TestMasters should pay, then everyone else should also pay. We are happy that we were able to reach an amicable resolution to this matter.

Irina Lymar
Programs Director
TestMasters

[Julie Fern]

Well.. Robin Singh allegedly argued that "he would pay up if he could but he cannot." Then, magically, he comes up with over a million dollars. What kind of person trained in logical reasoning would argue that 'he acknowledges the debt but would pay up if he could"? Looks like Robin Singh is strung out on too much Johnny Walker shots.

[Julie Fern]

Testmasters of Robin Singh fame (notoriety??) eats crow -- that would be a more appropriate title for this page.

[Merkin]

Johnny Walker shots? More like too much coke snorting. The whole company is going up his nose.

TestMasters will be out of business in a year.

[Cardinal]

TestMasters' licensing dispute with the LSAC was settled in less than two weeks. As a result of the settlement, the LSAC issued TestMasters a new license.

It seems that Julie Anne, a former Blueprint student, has quite an agenda against TestMasters, citing an anonymous post by a Blueprint agent on Top Law Schools' online discussion forum. Earlier this year a jury found Blueprint LSAT Prep owners Matt Riley and Jodi Triplett guilty of defaming TestMasters on a similar online forum. And the jury awarded TestMasters $45,000 in damages on the defamation claims. Apparently some people never learn.

Julie Anne's claim that TestMasters was on the losing side in the Blueprint litigation is laughable. In addition to the defamation judgments against Riley and Triplett, the other owner, Trent Teti, was found guilty of breach of duty of loyalty, breach of employment contract, and malice. The jury awarded TestMasters over $200,000 more on those claims. And the LA Superior Court issued over $1.6 million in sanctions judgments against Blueprint for committing perjury and destroying key evidence. Blueprint is very unhappy with the result at the trial court level and has appealed all of these judgments. If Blueprint cannot get these judgments overturned on appeal, their business will be in jeopardy.

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