The principal changes are as follows:
- Currently the MBE has six sections, Constitutional Law; Contract; Criminal Law and Procedure; Evidence; Real Property; and Torts. From 2015, for the first time in 35 years, Civil Procedure is also going to be included as the seventh section
- Number of questions in other sections would be reduced to keep the exam the same length, while accommodating for the new section. Now, instead of having 31-33 questions in each section, the MBE would have 27-28 questions section wise.
What is not going to change is that the MBE would still remain a 200-question exam stretched over 6 hours.
Christopher Fromm of the Kaplan Bar Review said, “We know from what students tell us that Civil Procedure tends to be one of their most challenging areas of study. Adding a section to the MBE in an area of study that students have traditionally found difficult will make the exam more challenging overall. For many bar takers, it will mean they’ll be ‘double tested’ on Civil Procedure, since it’s a topic often covered on state essays and on the Multistate Essay Exam (MEE), which is required by more than half of U.S. jurisdictions.”
Kaplan Bar Review has created a separate (MBE) Change Resource Center for those who want to learn more about the changes and prepare for them.