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INTRODUCTION TO THE PENNSYLVANIA BAR EXAMINATION
Kevin Frost, Esq.
Themis Bar Review—Director of Pennsylvania
I. General Information
a. Dates and Locations—The Pennsylvania Bar Examination is administered by the Pennsylvania Board of Law Examiners (“Board”) twice per year, on the last Tuesday and Wednesday of each February and July.
i. The Board administers the examination at three locations in July (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Harrisburg areas) and two locations in February (Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas).
ii. Contact: Pennsylvania Board of Law Examiners, 601 Commonwealth Avenue, Suite 3600, Harrisburg, PA 17106-2535; (717) 231-3350; www.pabarexam.org.
b. Hotel Accommodations—Start thinking about this now! The best
locations may fill up weeks in advance.
c. MPRE—To gain admission to the Pennsylvania Bar, you must successfully achieve a minimum scaled score of 75 on the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE). Information on the MPRE can be found at http://www.ncbex.org/about-ncbe-exams/mpre/
d. Computer Based Testing (CBT)—You have the option to provide answers
to the written portions (i.e., PT and Essay) of the bar examination using a personal laptop computer under certain conditions. The PT and Essay questions will be provided in booklet format, not electronic format. Information on CBT can be found at http://www.pabarexam.org/bar_exam_information/cbt.htm
e. Nonstandard Testing Accommodations—If you received testing
accommodations while in law school, you may be entitled to testing accommodations for the bar exam. For information on the Board's
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Nonstandard Testing Accommodations, consult the Board's forms and visit http://www.pabarexam.org/bar_exam_information/nta.htm
II. General format of the Pennsylvania Bar Exam
a. Tuesday—The Pennsylvania Essay Exam i. Three hours in the morning—two essays and the Pennsylvania
Performance test. Allocate 45 minutes per essay and 90 minutes for the Performance Test.
ii. Three hours in the afternoon—four essays. Allocate 45 minutes per essay.
b. Wednesday—The Multistate Bar Exam (MBE)
i. 200 multiple choice questions total on seven subjects (Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law and Procedure, Evidence, Real Property, and Torts).
ii. Three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon (100 questions each session).
III. Testable subjects on the Pennsylvania Essay Exam (Tuesday)
Business Organizations (including corporations,
partnerships, limited liability companies and professional
corporations)
Criminal Law (including related Pennsylvania and federal
constitutional issues and DUI)
Real Property
Civil Procedure (Pennsylvania and federal rules)
Employment Discrimination (limited to Title VII, the ADA,
and the ADEA)
Federal Income Taxes (personal only and limited
to taxable and non-taxable income,
deductions, proprietorships and capital transactions)
Conflict of Laws Evidence (Pennsylvania and
federal rules) Torts
Federal Constitutional Law Family Law
Wills, Trusts, and Decedents' Estates (including related
fiduciary responsibilities)
Contracts Professional Responsibility UCC Art. II—Sales
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a. PERFORMANCE TEST (PT): The Pennsylvania PT is designed by the Board (in lieu of the MPT) to test an applicant’s ability to use fundamental lawyering skills in a realistic situation. Each PT evaluates an applicant’s ability to complete a task, which a beginning lawyer should be able to accomplish, such as drafting a memorandum, letter or brief.
i. The Themis PT Lecture will provide detailed guidance on how to
answer Pennsylvania Bar Examination PT questions. ii. As an overview only, the PT is a “closed universe” assignment,
consisting of a “File” and “Library” of documents running to about 15 – 20 pages.
iii. The assignment always comes with detailed instructions and even sample documents, so that even if you have never drafted the requested document, you should be able to do so with the aid of the samples.
IV. Multistate Bar Examination (MBE)
a. The Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) is prepared by the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) in conjunction with American College Testing (ACT) and is administered on the second day of the Bar Exam in Pennsylvania (Wednesday).
i. Contact: National Conference of Bar Examiners, 302 South Bedford Street, Madison, WI 53703-3622;
ii. Phone: 608-280-8550; Fax: 608-280-8552; TDD: 608-661-1275; iii. Web: http://www.ncbex.org/
b. The MBE is an objective (multiple-choice) six-hour standardized test
consisting of 200 multiple choice questions. 190 of the questions will count, and 10 of the questions are test questions for future exams, and will not count toward your score. The MBE is a national examination and does not contain specific Pennsylvania law questions.
c. Questions will jump from subject to subject, and there is no penalty for
guessing on the MBE. Finish the exam and answer every question!
d. The average time to answer an MBE question is 1.8 minutes (3 hours divided by 100 questions).
e. The MBE consists of seven subjects:
i. Civil Procedure (27 scored questions) ii. Constitutional Law (27 scored questions)
iii. Contracts (28 scored questions)
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iv. Criminal Law and Procedure (27 questions between both subjects) v. Evidence (27 scored questions)
vi. Real property (27 scored questions) vii. Torts (27 scored questions)
Again, as a reminder: In addition to the above, the exam contains 10 “test” questions, which are indistinguishable from the live test questions but will not be used for scoring purposes. You don’t be able to tell the difference, so do your best on all 200 questions.
V. Passing Standards and Scoring on the Bar Exam a. The combined essay and PT scores (Tuesday) will be weighted at 55% of
the total scaled score, and the MBE score (Wednesday) will be weighted at 45% of the total scaled score.
b. There are 150 raw points available on the essay day (Tuesday) i. 6 essays at 20 points each = 120 points
ii. The PT is graded out of 20 and then multiplied by 1.5 = 30 points c. There are 190 raw points available on the MBE (Wednesday) d. Scaling
i. The easiest way to think about scaling is that X number of points will just be added to your score. The goal is to equate the objective difficulty of the exam across all other administrations of the bar exam.
ii. Scaling ensures that you are not penalized (or rewarded) because your bar exam is more difficult (or easier) than average.
iii. This is NOT a curve. The bar exam is not curved. In theory, 100% of applicants can pass the bar exam.
e. Weighting i. Step 1: Take the scaled PA essay score (total raw points plus X
number of points for the scaling) and multiply this number by 1.1 (55%).
ii. Step 2: Take the scaled MBE score (total raw points plus X number of points for the scaling) and multiply this number by 0.9 (45%).
iii. Add the two figures together, and the applicant must attain a total scaled and weighted score of 272 to pass the Pennsylvania Bar Exam.
*Note from Kevin—I strongly encourage you to listen to Chapter 2 of the PA Intro, but note that I am not covering Chapter 2 in the handout. Please listen to the chapter and let me know if you have any questions—my goal was to produce a conversational introduction to Themis and the process of bar prep. The handout would not add much
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(whereas the info above from Chapter 1 is crucial for reference). Any substantive material mentioned in the chapter will be made available throughout the course in the Notification Center of the portal. Please note that it may not all be released at one time—if you have a question, please ask! Contact me with any questions between now and the bar exam: email at [email protected], call my cell at 215-264-7742, or send a “Study Strategies” message in the Notification Center.