 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
FALL 2006 NEWSLETTER
We hope you had a wonderful summer - both our classes this summer were full to capacity and more students than ever completed all aspects of our seamless process. In this newsletter, we cover six timely topics.
The Buzz From Our Summer 2006 Students Here are a few comments our Summer students made at the post-exam party, explaining why they chose Rigos.
- Everyone I know who has taken Rigos recommended it. Even my friends who took the other course recommended Rigos.
- A friend told me how Rigos’ individualized approach plus the 24 graded essays really helped her to pass the bar at the first sitting.
- I learned of the better and quicker grading of practice questions, smaller class size and more one-on-one mentoring.
- The personal attention is great! The material is more concise and focused on Washington law than that given to my friends in the other course.
We are also getting great feedback on our one-on-one mentoring program. It certainly contributed to our student satisfaction and pass rate for the winter course, and we are expecting great results this summer, too.
Pass Rates Later this month (October), the summer bar results will be published by the Washington State Bar for the July exam. We think that those results will be right up there for the Rigos students because a higher percentage than ever completed all components of our "seamless process"” Our last results from the February 2006 bar were stellar. 100% of the Rigos students who completed our "seamless process" passed. There are four core requirements to be in this "seamless process" group.
1. Attend all the live classes,
2. Summarize all the text chapters using our Magic Memory Outlines,
3. Complete all 24 essays and four practice exam sets, and
4. Meet with the grader / mentors.Internet Downloaded Lectures This summer we started to capture the class lectures and post them on our internet site. Many students really liked this feature and used it extensively to make up missed classes. Others used the lectures for reinforcement and review. One student said that what works best for him was to listen to the lecture while reading the book; his view was that the visual impression of the instructor was less important than following along in the text and periodically stopping the lecture to create the Magic Memory Outline. Other students downloaded the lectures to their iPods and listened to them while commuting.
This new feature has been so well received that beginning with the February 2007 exam cycle, we are offering a home-study course with the lectures. We hope this will be helpful for students who want the full Rigos lectures but find it too inconvenient to commute to our classes.
Downloaded Hornbooks Law students who register with us may now download free hornbooks from our web site. While we will be building the library, the following useful books are up now:
- Law School Survival Guide for brand new 1Ls
- Contracts & UCC Article 2 Sales for 1Ls
- Uniform Commercial Code for 2Ls
- Community Property, Family Law, Trusts, Wills, & Probate for 3Ls
New 2007 Exam News On the February 2007 exam, the bar exam is going to begin testing the new Washington Rules of Professional Conduct (RPCs) adopted by our Supreme Court. This is the first modernization of the Washington rules in a decade and adopts most of the ABA's model rules. We have re-written the chapter and added examples in the new areas.
On the July 2007 exam, Indian Law is being added in Washington as a separate topic. It is not yet clear what subtopics are to be fair game. We think that jurisdiction issues, such as choice of law, will be the big concentration. Stay tuned for more on this as we learn of it.
We receive many inquiries about the on-going anti-trust monopoly class action lawsuit pending in federal court against BarBri.
See http://www.lawschool.com/brewercomplaint.pdf. You should read the details yourself, but the allegations are that the monopolist is overcharging in markets where they have been successful in eliminating competition. In California, they charge some $3,200 while it is only $2,000 in Washington where they face competition. Quite disturbing is the allegation that they are paying law schools tens of thousands of dollars to restrict competition and market for them thereby working against the best interests of their own students.
The plaintiffs have successfully received certification of the class which includes all Barbri students in the last 10 years. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California has consolidated some five individual federal lawsuits for trial. The defendants' motions for summary judgment have been denied and trial is now set for early February 2007. Regardless of the outcome, the notion of an educational organization being sued by their students is very troublesome. Educators are supposed to help students, not rip them off. Beyond discrediting themselves, this Student v. Barbri action taints all ethical bar review courses.
In over a quarter century of providing professional review courses to over 100,000 students, Rigos has never been sued by a student, a competitor, or an affiliate (that group of enlightened academics who have joined our system, and use our material and software in presenting their independently owned courses). Our mission is to do the best we can to assist students as they enter our proud and noble legal profession. We encourage all review courses to adopt a student-oriented Code of Ethics as we have - see the front page on our web site at www.rigos.net. In the end, our ultimate professional objective must be to serve our students.
