The company that prepares most of the nation's bar exams filed a federal lawsuit Friday accusing a preparation service of stealing questions and undermining the integrity of the tests. The lawsuit was filed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners, or NCBE, a Chicago company that prepares the Multistate Bar Examination _ 200 multiple-choice questions administered to law graduates in 46 states. The suit accuses Multistate Legal Studies Inc. of Philadelphia and Santa Monica, Calif., of sending agents to purposely fail the bar exam, giving them the right to review the tests. While reviewing the exams, the agents memorized, photographed, hand copied or tape recorded the questions, according to the lawsuit. The suit names Multistate president Robert Feinberg as an agent. Feinberg, an attorney living in California, denied the allegations and noted that his company won a similar suit filed in 1978. The NCBE claims the ``integrity and quality of the process by which applicants are admitted to the practice of law'' was tainted by Multistate, which also operates under the name of Preliminary Multistate Bar Review. The suit seeks unspecified damages as well as injunctions against further copyright infringement. According to the suit, about 100,000 students in 40 states have enrolled in the courses with Preliminary Multistate Bar Review since 1977. The three- and six-day seminars cost $295 to $495 with an additional $395 for written materials, $100 for cassette tapes and about $50 for flashcards. The Multistate Bar Exam, used since 1972, is given twice a year on six subjects. About 58,000 applicants took the exam last year. Questions are prepared by committees of practitioners, judges and law professors and reviewed by others at a cost of about $250,000 per test form. The NCBE releases 50 questions to the public every other year, but does not reuse released questions. The NCBE also prepares other portions of the test, including a essay section and a section on professional responsibility. The Multistate Bar Examination is used in all states but Indiana, Iowa, Lousiana and Washington.
