Highly Tested California Bar Exam Essay Subjects

Highly Tested California Bar Exam Essay Subjects

Are you wondering what subjects are highly tested on the California Bar Exam essays?  We break down the most highly tested subjects in this post!  You can find even more information about the California Bar Exam essays in our California Bar Exam Essay Guide, which you can download for free!

Highly Tested California Bar Exam Essay Subjects

What is the format of the California Bar Exam essays?

The California Bar exam includes 5 essays.  You will have three hours in the morning to answer three essays and three-and-a-half hours in the afternoon to answer two essays and a performance test.  You should plan on spending about one hour per essay and 90 minutes on the performance test.  Note that the changes to the California Bar Exam in July 2017 did not change the format of the essays. California simply reduced the number of essays from six to five.  The format and length of each individual essay remain the same.

What are the California Bar Exam essay subjects? 

The following subjects are fair game for the essay portion of the California Bar Exam:

• Agency and Partnership (now called “Business Associations” and can include Corporations)
• Civil Procedure
• Community Property
• Constitutional Law
• Contracts
• Corporations (now called “Business Associations”)
• Criminal Law and Procedure
• Evidence
• Professional Responsibility
• Real Property
• Remedies
• Torts
• Trusts
• Wills and Succession

Do you need to know California law for the essays?

Often, the call of the question will specify whether to apply California law or Federal law.  If the call of the question does not specify which law to apply, you should apply the majority/Federal law.

Historically, some subjects frequently test California law while other subjects frequently test majority law.  The following subjects may test California distinctions:

• Community Property
• Evidence
• Professional Responsibility
• Trusts
• Wills

California law tends not to be tested when the following subjects are tested on the essays:

• Agency and Partnership
• Civil Procedure (***California Civil Procedure distinctions were heavily tested ONE TIME on the California Bar Exam essays. We suspect that California distinctions could be tested more now that Civil Procedure is tested on the Multistate Bar Exam, so it’s a good idea to be familiar with them!)
• Contracts
• Constitutional Law
• Corporations
• Criminal Law
• Real Property
• Remedies
• Torts

Do some subjects appear more often than others?

Yes! The most popular subject that is tested on the California Bar Exam essays is Professional Responsibility.  After the high frequency of Professional Responsibility, Community Property and Remedies appear slightly more frequently than others.

Here is a chart depicting the frequency with which each subject has been tested on the California Bar Exam essays:

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