Bar Audit Self-Assessment Questionnaire
It is especially helpful if you have given some thought to the Bar Exam process, your
current level of preparation, what questions you may have and what resources you want to use
before the meeting. Please take a few moments before your Bar Audit appointment to complete
the following questions and bring the questionnaire with you for the appointment. Please note
that your responses will not save at this location- you need to “Save as” to your own computer if
you wish to keep a copy.
I.
Where do you plan to take the Bar Exam (what jurisdiction)?
A. If you are undecided, what considerations are you weighing? (Family in another
state? Where you will practice later in your career? Current practice interests?)
B. What type of law do you want to practice?
II.
Academic Strengths/Issues
A. Briefly describe your assessment of your overall academic performance.
B. Do you feel that you are better at essay or multiple choice questions?
C. Are there any personal issues that have affected your study or may affect your Bar
Exam situation?
III.
State Specific Information. Bar Examinations differ from one jurisdiction to another.
You need specific information to target your preparation. We recommend that you
bookmark the official web page of the jurisdictions in which you are considering
taking the exam. You will want to refer to that information on a regular basis to
confirm your understanding of the Bar Examination in your specific jurisdiction.
A. List the states you are considering and add the url for each. Note: our webpage
lists many state urls, and all can be found through the National Conference of Bar
Examiners, www.ncbex.org. You can begin to research which parts of the Bar
Examination are used in your jurisdiction.
B. Does the state use the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE)? A
great many states do use the MPRE (Maryland is a notable exception.) This exam
is taken before graduation, generally in the same semester that you take the course
Professional Responsibility, or the immediately following semester.
C. All states except Louisiana use the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), 200 multiple
choice questions covering the subjects in the following list. (Civ Pro will be
added in 2015.) Consider each subject:
D. All states include essay questions, generally including the MBE topics and specific
state subjects. This is the area where there is the greatest difference, exam to
exam. You want to be aware of the subjects that your jurisdiction tests on the
essay portion of the exam, and you want to carefully consider whether you will
take the law school classes that match those subjects. While it is not necessarily
true that you must take every subject tested on the bar exam, these are often core
areas of basic legal doctrine that you will want to consider as building blocks of
your legal study. We provide a chart of subjects tested in the states most
frequently selected by our graduates on the next page. List any subjects that you
want to discuss.
Subject
Taken
Grade? Your Evaluation
Need to
Yet in
(weak/avg/strong) Relearn or
School?
Knowledge base? Just
Refresh?
Notes
Civil Pro.
Con Law I &
II
Contracts/UCC
2*
Criminal Law
Crim Pro
Evidence
Property
Sales (UCC
2)*
Torts
E. Does the state use the Multistate Performance Exam (MPT)? What Writing
Classes and Professional Skills classes have you taken?
F. Are there other unique types of questions such as short answer (Virginia) or state
multiple choice (New York)?
IV.
Do you have any Character and Fitness questions that we need to discuss? (Prior
school discipline, criminal charges, financial issues, health issues?)
V.
Do you know what your filing deadlines are? What exactly needs to be filed on those
dates?
VI.
Have you started to make plans for Bar Review and the time it takes to study?
VII.
Do you have specific questions for the Audit?
Applying For Admission to the Bar
Always check the official webpage for the Bar Examination you intend to take. This memo
summarizes basic information, but does not substitute for the official publications. The most frequently
used websites are:
Maryland
http://www.courts.state.md.us.ble.index.html
Virginia
http://www.vbbe.state.va.us
New York
http://www.nybarexam.org
D.C.
http://www.dccourts.gov/internet/appellate/admincommittee/main.jsf
To locate other states: http://www.ncbex.org/bar-admissions/offices
Character & Fitness Evaluation
Every jurisdiction conducts a Character and Fitness Evaluation of every applicant. In most
jurisdictions, students will complete a lengthy Character and Fitness questionnaire as part of the
application process. (New York requires the information, but at a later step in the process.) The
questionnaire will request information about where you have lived (specific addresses), where you have
gone to school, where you have worked, names of work supervisors, any prior school disciplinary issues
or criminal charges, any credit issues and serious health issues. These questionnaires take a substantial
amount of time to complete. Please be sure to obtain the forms early in your last year of school and allow
sufficient time to obtain the information and complete the form in plenty of time to meet the applicable
deadline.
Components of the Bar Exam
Each state determines how they will test applicants. They may use some or all of the available
exam components:
Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE): required in many
jurisdictions (not MD, but required in DC for waive-in.) Offered March, August,
November
Multistate Performance Exam (MPT): “closed packet” writing question(s) required
in a number of jurisdictions (MD, NY, DC, but not VA)
Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) – 200 multiple choice questions in core subjects:
-Civil Procedure – effective 2015 exams
-Constitutional Law
-Contracts including UCC 2 Sales (UCC covered in our Sales and Leases course)
-Criminal Law
-Criminal Procedure*
-Evidence*
-Property
-Torts (Note: Advanced Torts provides an excellent review as well as good multiple
choice reasoning practice)
(continued on next page)
Essay Questions – states select topics for the essay questions. The topics generally
include the MBE topics plus additional topics:
MD
VA
DC
Administrative Law
NY
X (effective Feb. 2015)
Agency
X
X
X
X
Business Assoc.
(Corporations)
X
X
X
X
Commercial Transactions*
X
X
X
X**
Conflict of Laws
X
X
X
Creditors’ & Debtors’ Rights
X
Equity/Remedies
X
(May not be listed as separate topic by each state.)
Family Law
X
X
X
Federal Procedure
X
X
X
Local Government Law
X
X
X
X
X
Sales
X
X
X
X
VA State Procedure*
XXX!*
(Tested extensively in VA; covered in VA Bar Prep Class)
Tax
X
Trusts & Estates
X
*The staple courses bolded above are particularly important for bar readiness. Students
are cautioned that a failure to register for bolded courses brings with it substantial risk that the
student will not be ready for the bar.
**New York has announced changes to the subjects tested effective in 2014. Effective
July 2014, UCC Article 3 – Negotiable Instruments, will no longer be tested, Article 9 will
continue to be tested.