Bar-tested Subjects

The Uniform Bar Exam (UBE) (adopted now in 40 states) is administered as a two day exam: one day of multiple choice questions (MBE) and one day of essays (MEE) and legal writing assignments (MPT).

The subjects that appear on both the MBE and the MEE portion of the UBE (heavily tested subjects) include:

  • Civil Procedure I and II*
  • Contracts
  • Constitutional Law I
  • Constitutional Law II (1st and 14th amendment)*
  • Criminal Law
  • Criminal Procedure*
  • Evidence*
  • Property
  • Torts

Asterisks (*) indicate upper-level courses.

Subjects that appear ONLY on the MEE portion of the UBE (less heavily tested subjects) include:

  • Agency
  • Business Associations (Corporations, Partnerships, LLCs)
  • Conflicts of Law
  • Family Law
  • Secured Transactions
  • Trusts
  • Wills

If you are considering applying for bar admission in a non-UBE state such as California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, South Dakota, Virginia, Wisconsin, you will take the same MBE as in UBE states (except for Louisiana and Puerto Rico), but the writing portion of your bar exam will include state-specific subjects.

Advice for taking bar-tested courses

Register for classes that interest you or that sample areas you want to practice regardless of what is tested on the bar exam. Between our 1L curriculum and your commercial bar course, you will have all the content you need to pass the exam.

  • That said, do not avoid a bar-tested class in law school solely because of a concern about your GPA or your desire to avoid exams. The subjects tested on the bar exam are based on subjects that are commonly confronted in general practice and in everyday life.
  • The bar exam requires intense memorization of more than a dozen discrete doctrinal topics; the advantage of taking a bar-tested class is not that you will be able to remember all the rules from, say, your 1L year, but that you will already have a foundation of concepts and vocabulary to work with when you start your intensive bar study post-graduation.
  • Consider bar-tested classes if you are particularly anxious about standardized tests. Anxiety and stress have been known to negatively affect test performance for certain students. Having a background in a bar-tested subject will reduce the anxiety of being introduced to a completely new doctrinal subjects only a month prior to the bar exam.

Keep in mind that a weak or strong grade in a 1L doctrinal class has no correlation to bar success in that subject. The bar exam focuses heavily on the memorization of black letter rules, exceptions, and application with minimal reference to cases.

Please reach out to schedule an appointment if you would like to discuss your course registration as it relates to the bar exam, your practice interests, and any concerns about bar exam success.