Congratulations on approaching the end of your law school journey and the start of your legal career! We are here to support you in preparing for and taking the bar exam.
The bar exam is required to become a licensed attorney in the United States. Before you can practice law in any U.S. state or jurisdiction, you must complete that state’s admissions process and pass that state’s bar exam. Because bar admission requirements differ for each state, we encourage you to visit the website of your state bar office for the most accurate information.
To prepare for the bar exam, we recommend that you enroll in a bar preparation course. Completing a bar preparation course gives you the best chance of success on the exam.
We often are asked whether there are resources available for students who would like to get a head start on bar prep. We have compiled the following list for your convenience, but do not recommend or endorse any particular company or service.
The Bar Exam
-
In late spring and throughout the summer, the Academic Skills Program offers a series of bar prep workshops and weekly office hours. Check the Berkeley Law events calendar for dates and times.
-
A good first step is to get a sense of the bar exam format, what is tested, logistics, etc. This information should be available on your state bar website.
-
To familiarize yourself with bar questions, check your state bar website or the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) website. If you know where you plan to practice, then you can focus on the bar exam for that jurisdiction.
-
For information about the California bar exam and sample questions, visit the Cal Bar website. It provides free access to exam questions and high-scoring answers from past bar exams going back nearly a decade.
-
Some commercial bar prep materials are available for free online through the Berkeley Law Library. You can find them here. Under the Academic/Career Success tab, click on “Bar Exam Success.”
-
AccessLex is a nonprofit that offers free webinars on various aspects of the bar exam as well as other subjects of interest to law students. You can find all of their webinars here.
The Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE)
-
The NCBE website provides general information about the Multi-State Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE) and free practice questions.
- BARBRI, Kaplan, Quimbee, and Themis offer free online MPRE courses. CALI also offers a series of lessons.
-
Each fall and spring, Dean Chemerinsky offers a free MPRE review for Berkeley Law students. Look for an email with the date and time.
- Two commercial study aids, The Weekend MPRE: Complete Preparation for the MPRE in Only a Weekend’s Time and A Short & Happy Guide to the MPRE, are available for free online through the Law Library. You can also find free online Professional Responsibility/Ethics study aids via West Academic and the Aspen Learning Library.