Subjects that Michigan should Eliminate from its Bar Exam

Subjects that Michigan should Eliminate from its Bar Exam

Michigan tests several subjects on its bar exam. In fact, there are a total of 24 subjects – or more depending on how you classify them (e.g., if you look at “Contracts” and “Sales” as separate subjects or the same subject – we classified them as the same subject but they could just as easily be classified separately).

NOTE: As of the February 2023 bar exam, Michigan now administers the Unifrom Bar Exam! Find more information on the tested Uniform Bar Exam topics here.

The subjects Michigan tests on the essay portion of its bar exam include: Contracts and Sales, Civil Procedure, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Constitutional Law, Evidence, Real Property, Torts, Agency, Conflict of Laws, Corporations, Creditors’ Rights, Equity, Family Law, Negotiable Instruments, No-Fault, Partnership, Personal Property, Professional Responsibility, Secured Transactions, Trusts, Wills, and Workers’ Compensation.

By contrast, Uniform Bar Exam states test only 14 subjects (again, depending on how you classify them). Michigan should, at a minimum, consider eliminating the subjects that are not tested on the Uniform Bar Exam.

Subjects that Michigan should Eliminate from its Bar Exam

The subjects that should consider being eliminated are those that do not appear on the Uniform Bar Exam. These include:

• Creditors’ Rights
• Equity
• Negotiable Instruments
• No-Fault Insurance
• Personal Property
• Professional Responsibility
• Workers’ Compensation

A few notes on these subjects:

Professional Responsibility has not been tested since July 2016 after the Michigan Board of Law Examiners allegedly realized that Michigan administers the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE), which also tests ethics. Thus, there is no reason to include this as “fair game” for testing on the Michigan bar exam. It is no longer tested and Michigan should modify its rule to reflect this and save bar exam studiers several hours of studying.

Subjects like Negotiable Instruments are hardly taught in law school and our bet is that 95% of Michigan attorneys know little to nothing about it. Ask any attorney what the difference between order and bearer paper is or what the requirements of negotiability are and you will probably get a blank stare.  This subject is surely not necessary for an attorney to master in order to have “minimum competence” to practice law in Michigan. The NCBE eliminated this subject from the Uniform Bar Exam several years ago and many states have followed suit.

Other subjects – like Equity – overlap significantly with Contracts, Civil Procedure, and Torts. Thus, it is not necessary to test it separately on the bar exam, particularly when the same topic (preliminary injunctions) is consistently tested. A preliminary injunction issue could just as easily be tested in a Civil Procedure question, as it used to be.

Creditors’ Rights should be eliminated for a similar reason. First of all, there is a considerable amount of overlap between this subject and Secured Transactions and Real Property so it is unnecessary to test other Creditors Rights issues (e.g. garnishments) separately. Further, it is a nuanced and broad subject that is not necessary to master in order to have “minimum competency” to practice law in Michigan. Hardly any other state tests this subject separately.

Further, hardly any other states test Workers’ Compensation, Personal Property, or No-Fault Insurance (or the equivalent) separately. Thus, these should be reconsidered as subjects that appear on the Michigan Bar Exam.

 More guidance needs to be given on the subjects tested. 

Lastly, there should be more guidance on what is tested in some of these subjects. These subjects are very broad and myriad issues could potentially be tested. For Uniform Bar Exam takers, the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) goes out of its way to provide outlines that note the topics tested within each subject (and, in fact, the NCBE is criticized for not giving enough guidance). The Michigan Board of Law Examiners provides no such guidance, merely listing the subjects tested in an unhelpful paragraph. The Michigan Board thus has the freedom – and liberally uses it – to test any nook and cranny of the law it feels like.  Read more about that here.  Not providing any guidance on how such broad subjects could potentially be tested is unfair to test takers. So, at a minimum, regardless of whether Michigan chooses to eliminate subjects from its bar exam, Michigan should provide guidance on how the subjects are tested.

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