Federal Court Consent Judgment: Reed Bar Review Willfully Infringed Upon Bar Secrets' Copyrights
Sep 20, 2016
For the past nine months, Bar Secrets has been privately dealing with a troubling matter. Last week, on September 16, 2016, a federal court order has thankfully and finally enabled us to share this matter publicly.
Late last year, a former student alerted us to some materials that Chicago-headquartered Reed Bar Review was disseminating. After an investigation, we learned that these materials were our materials, only our copyright notices were removed and a Reed Bar Review logo and warning was added. Reed Bar Review did not have our permission, blessing, or otherwise to profit from materials we worked so hard to innovate. So in December 2015, our company, Applications of Psychology to Law, Inc. (APL), sued Reed Bar Review and its owner, Hubert "Hugh" Reed (collectively, Reed), for Copyright Infringement in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. In our Complaint, we alleged that Reed infringed upon our study materials, and in such a brazen manner.
The works at the center of our lawsuit are our iconcic "schemas"—our diagrammatical organizations of law subjects that look like schematics, loosely resembling flowcharts.
You can view an example of these schemas—and how they appear among Reed's materials—here.
On March 9, 2016, pursuant to the parties' joint motion, Judge Larry Alan Burns signed an order permanently enjoining Reed, as well as its officers, agents, servants, employees, and anyone in active concert with Reed, from distributing our study materials.
Last week, Judge Burns entered a consent judgment in our favor, on the basis that Hugh Reed and Reed Bar Review willfully infringed upon our study materials.
To the courageous student who alerted us, thank you. You know who you are. We are in your debt. And thank you to Jason Saccuzzo, and his firm Vivoli Saccuzzo, as well, for so ably representing us from start to finish.
For our part, we are more determined than ever to continue to produce high-quality, affordable (and original) study materials.
View the following APL v. Reed filings:
