Mississippi Bar Exam

Mississippi Bar Exam Format

The Mississippi bar exam takes two days and consists of the Mississippi Essays (“MSE”), Multistate Performance Test (“MPT”), Multistate Essay Exam (“MEE”), and the Multistate Bar Exam (“MBE”). Mississippi law is tested on the Mississippi bar exam.

Mississippi Essays
Mississippi test six (6) Mississippi essays. Past subjects have included:

• Practice and Procude of Mississippi Courts
• Business Organizations (Corporations, Partnership, Agency)
• United States Constitution and Mississippi Criminal Law and Procedure
• Torts
• Demestic Relations
• Professional Conduct and Ethics

MPT (Performance Test)
Mississippi tests one (1) MPT performance tests.

MEE (Essays)
Mississippi tests six (6) MEE essays. Subjects include:

• Business Associations (Agency, Partnership, Corporations, LLCs)
• Civil Procedure (Federal)
• Conflict of Laws
• Constitutional Law
• Contracts (Common Law, Sales/UCC Art. 2)
• Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Evidence
• Family Law
• Negotiable Instruments/Commercial Paper (UCC Art. 3)
• Real Property
• Secured Transactions (UCC Art. 9)
• Torts
• Trusts and Estates (Decedents’ Estates, Trusts, Future Interests)

MBE (Multiple Choice)
Mississippi uses the standard MBE. Subjects include:

• Civil Procedure
• Constitutional Law
• Contracts (Common Law, Sales/UCC Art. 2)
• Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Evidence
• Real Property
• Torts

MBE Score Transfer
Mississippi accepts MBE scores from other jurisdictions. Mississippi accepts MBE scaled scores achieved within 20 months (3 exams) of the current bar exam.

Mississippi Bar Exam Testing Schedule

Day 1 (Tuesday)
Morning – 4 Mississippi Essays/1 MPT (3.5 hours)
Afternoon – 2 Mississippi Essays/6 MEE Essays (4 hours)

Day 2 (Wednesday)
Morning – MBE Part I (100 questions; 3 hours)
Afternoon – MBE Part II (100 questions; 3 hours)

Mississippi Bar Exam Dates

The Mississippi bar exam is held on the last Tuesday and Wednesday of February and July. Applications can be found on the Mississippi Judiciary’s Website.

*The Board may act, but is not required to act, upon an application filed after the initial deadline and the final deadline in time for the applicant to take the upcoming bar exam.

Mississippi Bar Exam Weight
Mississippi has started a new format for the Mississippi Bar Exam. Past bar exam weight is included below but may have changed for the February, 2012 exam.

Grading Procedure
Past grading procedure includes:

The Mississippi Essays are assigned a score from 0-100. The MEE essays and MPT are assigned a score from 0-30. The written portion of the exam is converted to the MBE using the standard deviation method. The converted scores are then averaged to determine the applicant’s Average Converted Score for the Mississippi Essays, MPT, MEE, and MBE. The Average Converted scores are then added together to generate the final bar exam score.

Passing Score
The minimum score is a total exam score of 132 points. The bar exam results are expected to be released in mid-September for the July exam.

Pass Rates
Not currently available.

Review and Appeal for Applicants Failing the Mississippi Bar Exam
Prior to the final calculation of the grades, applicants achieving a final bar exam score between 129 and 131.9 will have their Mississippi Essays, the MPTs, and the MEE essays individually reviewed by the Board.

Unsuccessful applicants may request in writing from the Board, within 30 days after the bar exam results are made public, copies of the questions, the applicant’s answers, and the model answers and analysis. The request must include the applicable fee.

Unsuccessful applicants may petition for a review of his or her bar exam (excluding the MBE). The petition needs to be filed within 45 days after the date when the Board mails the exam results to the applicant. The Petition for Review must be verified under oath and designate the specific questions the applicant claims were wrongly graded. The request for review is limited to particular questions on the Mississippi Essays, the MPTs, and the MEE
essays where the applicant received a raw score of less than 75 percent of the maximum raw score allowed.

The Petition for Review is required to contain a separate Memorandum stating the grounds for the request for review for each question. The Memorandum cannot contain the applicant’s name and should not be signed in order to preserve anonymity, but it should contain the applicant’s coded number assigned during the grading process. The Memorandum will describe how the grade was unjustified by the merits of the answer and should cite legal authority or other briefing as the applicant wishes. The Board does not consider generalized claims unaccompanied by specific errors. The argument cannot make reference to the applicant’s legal education, economic status, social standing, employment, personal hardship, past performance on the bar exam, or other extraneous factors. Applicants also cannot communicate directly with the Board members concerning his or her performance on the bar exam.

A Review Committee reviews the Petition for clear and manifest evidence that the applicant’s answers have been substantially misgraded to such an extent that results may have been affected. The Review Committee reports to the Board, who reviews the applicant’s exam results. The Board then grants or denies the application’s Petition. The applicant may further appeal this decision to the Chancery Court of Hinds County within 30 days if the applicant can prove the Board’s decision was arbitrary, capricious, or malicious.

Retaking the Mississippi Bar Exam

Unsuccessful applicants are allowed to take the next scheduled bar exam without further investigation as to his or her character and fitness unless additional information requiring investigation comes to the attention of the Board. Applications must be filed by November 1 for the February exam and May 1 for the July exam. Applicants cannot transfer any score on the written portion of the exam to a subsequent bar exam.