Penciling out prep-course settlement

It's not easy to get everybody to agree on a case involving 300,000 people who supposedly overpaid for bar-review courses. The case involves BAR/BRI and Kaplan, which sell college prep courses for the Law School Aptitude Test. The plaintiffs originally sought $1,000 each to cover the overcharges. Instead, a $49 million settlement was proposed - what some of the plaintiffs consider "chump change" because it would mean a recovery for those 300,000 of a paltry $125 each. Now there's another hitch: U.S. District Judge Manuel Real for the Central District of California turned down the $49 million settlement because the lead participants in the suit were offered incentive payments that could total $75,000. Obviously, this lead group spent a lot more time on this than folks just collecting $125 each. But is 75 grand too much? Real is asking for more info from both sides. Here's the story from the National Law Journal's Amanda Bronstad and here's the take from the WSJ's Law Blog:

Some class action pundits have argued that judges should be more liberal in granting bonus payments as a way to encourage parties to undertake the burden of serving as a class representative. At yesterday’s hearing, Loredana Nesci, one of the lead plaintiffs, reportedly said the case had taken time away from her practice and that she “probably spent more time on this than $75,000.” But lawyer John Pentz objected to the bar-review settlement, arguing in part that the incentive payments were aimed at trying to silence lead plaintiffs from objecting to the settlement. Here’s a brief on the subject by Pentz and a co-counsel.