California First-Year Law Student Exam

Title 4, Div. 1 of the Rules of the State Bar governs the First-Year Law Student’s Exam requirement.

Eligibility
General applicants must take the first-year exam following one year of law study unless:

  • The applicant has passed the bar exam of a United States jurisdiction, a possession, territory, or dependency the United States may later acquire or of a country where the common law of England constitutes the basis of jurisprudence; or
  • The applicant has satisfactorily completed the first year course of instruction in a law school accredited by the Committee or approved or provisionally approved by the ABA at the time of the applicant’s matriculation or at the time the applicant completes the first-year of instruction and had completed at least two years of college work prior to matriculating in such accredited or approved law school.

Students become eligible to take the exam after one-year of law school when he or she is advanced to the second-year of instruction, whether or not the student is on probation.

Law students who are required to take the exam cannot receive credit for any further law study until he or she passes the exam. Applicants who pass the exam within three consecutive administrations of first becoming eligible will receive credit for all law study completed from the failed exam to the passed exam. Applicants who do not pass the exam within three consecutive administrations only receive credit for his or her first year of law study.

Applicants who are not required to take the exam may apply and take the exam without affecting his or her application status. Applicants must register and apply with the California Bar.

California First-Year Law Students’ Exam Format

The California First-Year Law Students’ Exam takes one day and consists of both essay and multiple-choice questions. There are four (4) essays designed for one-hour each. The exam also includes 100 multiple-choice questions designed to be completed in three hours. Sample questions can be found here. Questions may be answered using general theories and principles and detailed knowledge of California law is not required.

Subjects include:

  • Contracts (Common Law and Sales/UCC Arts. 1 and 2)
  • Criminal Law
  • Torts

Exam Dates

The California First-Year law Students’ Exam is given each year in June and October in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Different deadlines apply for applicants who have failed this exam and are re-applying to take the next exam. The deadlines are stated in the bar exam results and the deadline is no more then 10 days from release of the bar exam results.

Grading

The raw essay scores range from 40 to 100 and are converted to a 400-point scale to adjust for possible differences between administrations of the exam. The multiple-choice score is converted to the same 400-point scale. The scores are combined to obtain the total score.

Passing Score
The minimum passing score is 560 out of 800 possible points.

Pass Rates
Bar exam statistics can be found here.