virginia bar exam essay subject frequency chart

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For additional information on print and electronic resources available to you and the information on this Guide, please contact a librarian at [email protected] . 

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Virginia Bar Exam Details

Virginia Bar Exam Schedule:

Tuesday AM: Essays (5 essays, 3 hours)

Tuesday PM: Essays (4 essays + 1 section of short-answer/multiple choice, 3 hours)

Wednesday AM: MBE (100 questions, 3 hours) 

Wednesday PM: MBE (100 questions, 3 hours)

The essay portion of the Virginia bar exam is 60% of your total bar exam score and may test the following subjects:

• Business Organizations
• Creditors’ Rights
• Criminal Law
• Domestic Relations
• Federal Practice and Procedure
• Local Government Law
• Professional Responsibility
• Real and Personal Property
• Uniform Commercial Code
• Virginia Civil and Criminal Procedure (including appellate practice)
• Wills, Trusts and Estates

The MBE portion of the Virginia bar exam is 40% of your total bar exam score and tests the following subjects:

• Civil Procedure
• Constitutional Law
• Criminal Law and Procedure
• Real Property

Study Resources for the Virginia Bar Exam

There are multiple resources that provide sample questions and answers for the Virginia bar exam:

• Past Virginia bar exams are available to download from the W&L Law Scholarly Commons  and from the VBBE website . 
• The VBBE does not provide model answers per se but they do provide “ Example Ten-Point Answers ” from past exams on their website. 
• The William & Mary Law School also compiles suggested answers that have been prepared by a consortium of Virginia law professors. These may be found on the  William & Mary Law School website .
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Virginia Bar Exam Subject Areas

According to the Rules of the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners, the following subjects are included in the Virginia Bar exam:

Essay Portion

** Starting with the February 2022 exam, Virginia no longer tests Agency, Constitutional Law, or Equity on the essay portion of the bar exam. Effective July 2020, Virginia dropped Conflict of Laws and Taxation as testable topics on the essay portion of the bar exam. Suretyship was dropped in February 2010.

• Corporations
• Creditor's Rights
• Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Domestic Relations
• Fed Practice & Procedure
• Local Government Law
• Partnerships
• Personal Property
• Professional Responsibility
• Real Property
• Uniform Commercial Code
• VA Pleading, Practice & Procedure in Law & equity (including appellate practice)
• Wills & Estate Administration
• Multistate Portion
• Civil Procedure
• Constitutional Law
• Criminal Law and Procedure
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Bar Prep Resources: Virginia

• Essay Exams

Virginia Bar Resources

Regent Law Faculty are absolutely committed to preparing students for their state's bar exam.

Members of the Law Faculty are very actively involved with the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners Professor’s meeting, held after every bar exam given in Feb. and July, and participate, along with professors of other schools, in drafting model answers for every exam.

This guide is designed to complement, and should not be used to replace a formal bar exam preparatory course or information posted for current students by the Office of Career & Alumni Services .

Additional information compiled by the Law Library about the Virginia Bar Exam is available on our Bar Preparation Resources page.

Virginia Essays - Subject Frequency Chart

Virginia Essays & Model Answers, 2011-Present

Virginia Bar - Helpful Links

• VA Bar Exam Index Click this link to access indexed information about the VA Bar exam, including Rules of the Board, the application process, exam day rules and procedures, post-exam information, and study resources.
• VA Rules of Professional Conduct The Virginia State Bar Professional Guidelines are available here.
• Virginia Legislation and More Virginia's Constitution, Code, and Administrative Code are available at this link. You can research Virginia legislative history here as well.
• Virginia Court System Find comprehensive information about Virginia's court system, including cases, services, forms, and programs, here.
• Virginia Supreme Court Rules VA Judicial System Website. These are the Rules of the Supreme Court of Virginia as currently effective. Amended Rules are posted when they become effective.
• Agency Law in Virginia YouTube video on Virginia agency law.
• SBA - Virginia Law Outlines The SBA maintains a bank of outlines to help students learn material for their courses and prepare for exams. These outlines are collected by the SBA during an outline drive each year. The SBA doesn’t guarantee the accuracy of the material in these outlines. Be sure to check with your professor about the rules for your final exam, as some professors forbid the use of outlines you haven’t created when taking a final exam. View and contribute here.
• Virginia Lawyers Weekly - Bar Exam Find news articles about the Virginia Bar exam in Virginia Lawyers Weekly here.
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Virginia Bar Exam

Highest published score increases, virginia bar exam information.

AmeriBar’s Virginia Bar Tutoring  program has helped students pass the Virginia bar exam for over 20 years.

Virginia Bar Exam Format

The Virginia Bar Exam is administered over two days.

The written portion of the exam is administered on the first day of the Virginia bar exam. The written portion of the bar exam consists of the Virginia essay questions and short answer questions. You will have three hours to answer five essay questions. You will have three hours to answer 4 essay questions and 10 or 20 short answer questions.

The Multistate Bar Exam (“MBE”) is administered on the second day of the Virginia bar exam. The MBE is a multiple-choice test containing 200 questions. The MBE is split into a morning and afternoon session. Each session consists of 100 questions. You have three hours to complete each session.

Useful Links

• Virginia Bar Tutor  – AmeriBar has been helping students pass the Virginia bar exam for over 15 years.
• VirginiaBarExam.com – Detailed Information and resources for Virginia bar exam takers.
• MBEQuestionBank.com   – Online question bank with over 2500 simulated MBE questions.
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• July 29-30, 2025

Virginia Bar Admissions

Virginia mpre score requirement.

Virginia requires bar exam applicants to pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (“MPRE”). You must score 85 or higher on the MPRE in order to pass in Virginia.

Scoring/Grading and Results

In order to pass the Virginia bar exam, you must score at least 140. This equates to 140, based on the MBE’s 200-point scale. The scores of the exam sections are weighted as follows: Virginia questions 60% and MBE 40%. Virginia makes bar exam results available approximately nine weeks after the exam.

Reciprocity

An attorney having been admitted to practice law in another United States jurisdiction may apply for admission to practice law in Virginia without sitting for the Virginia bar exam if the other jurisdiction has reciprocity for Virginia lawyers. One of the requirements for such admission on motion is that the attorney from the reciprocal jurisdiction has at least five years experience in the full time practice of law.

Virginia Bar Exam Tutor

AmeriBar has been helping students pass the Virginia bar exam for over 20 years. 

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Virginia bar exam subjects, virginia essay subjects.

• Business Associations
• Conflict of Laws
• Trusts, Wills, and Estates
• UCC Article 2 – Secured Transactions
• All MBE Subjects

MBE Subjects

• Civil Procedure
• Constitutional Law
• Contracts and Sales
• Criminal Law and Procedure

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Heidi, who failed twice with BarBri, describes how AmeriBar was instrumental in raising her score from 121 to 144.

Virginia Bar Exam Statewide Pass Rates

Virginia Bar Exam Details

Virginia Bar Exam information is subject to change without notice. Please verify with the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners . Please also reference the NCBE Covid-19 updates page for NCBE updates and individual jurisdiction announcements.

Bar exam details

A typical Virginia Bar Exam is a 2-day exam.

• The morning (AM) session consists of five essay questions
• The afternoon (PM) session consists of four essay questions plus the 10 multiple-choice questions
• Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), a 200-question, multiple-choice exam (100 questions in the AM, 100 questions in the PM)

Subjects tested

• Constitutional Law
• Contracts/Sales
• Criminal Law/Procedure
• Federal Civil Procedure
• Real Property

Virginia Essays

• Domestic Relations
• Professional Responsibility
• VA Civil and Criminal Procedure
• Business Organizations
• Real and Personal Property
• Creditor's Rights
• Federal Practice and Procedure 
• Criminal Law
• Local Government Law
• Uniform Commercial Code (Articles 2, 3A & 9A)
• Trusts and Estates 
• A scaled score of 85 or higher is required and must be achieved within two calendar years of the time the candidate passes the Virginia Bar Exam.

Click here to learn more about the MPRE .

The MBE score (weighted 40%) and the essay score (weighted 60%) are combined to determine if applicant has achieved a passing score of at least 140.

Reciprocity

Acceptance of mbe score.

• Applicants may transfer an MBE scaled score of 133 or greater, taken within the preceding 3 years, to be able to sit for only the essay portion of the exam.
• For attorney applicants who hold an active license to practice law, are in good standing, and passed the bar exam in a jurisdiction other than Virginia; no MBE score is required. These applicants can take only the essay portion of the exam and will need to achieve a minimum passing score of 64 raw points out of a possible 100.

Admission on Motion

• A member in good standing of a reciprocating jurisdiction may be admitted on motion in Virginia if the applicant has engaged in the full-time active practice of law for three of the five years preceding application. Additional requirements apply.
• Application for Admission without Examination with Character and Fitness Questionnaire: $2,500

Additional information

Military spouse provisional admission.

• The dependent spouse of an active duty service member stationed in the Commonwealth of Virginia who has been admitted to practice law before the court of last resort of any state or territory of the United States or District of Columbia, and who meets all other requirements of Rule 1A:8, may apply to the Board for Military Spouse Provisional Admission. A Military Spouse Provisional Admission filing fee applies. This fee covers the cost of processing the Application, investigating matters contained in the applicant’s completed Character & Fitness Questionnaire, and preparing of the Character Report.

BARBRI Bar Exam Digest

We compile all of the information that you need to know about the dates, format, subjects tested, deadlines, fees and more - for each U.S. state - in the free BARBRI Bar Exam Digest.

Download the Digest ›

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Bar Prep Resources: Home

• Essay Exams

Welcome to your one-stop resource for supplemental bar prep materials!  Many of the below resources provide tips as well as practice exams to help you hone your exam-taking skills.  The first page or tab lists resources related to general information on this topic followed by other tabs concerning specific exams.  

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UBE Essay Frequency Chart

UBE Essay Frequency Chart:   Which subjects are tested frequently on the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE)? To be the most efficient when you study, you will want to study the subjects that you are most likely to see. Below we reveal the highly tested subjects on both the Multistate Essay Exam (MEE) as well as the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE).  

Note: As we explain below, even if you are taking the exam in a jurisdiction that  is not a Uniform Bar Exam  jurisdiction but that contains the MEE as a component, it is wiser to look at this UBE essay frequency chart than it is to look at an MEE frequency chart. (The UBE essay frequency chart is more indicative of what could be tested on your exam!)

Lastly, if you are interested in the MEE topics that have been tested most frequently, please review our free MEE guide for the highly tested topics and don’t miss out on our MEE One-Sheets . They are one of our most highly-rated products!

Which subjects are tested on the Uniform Bar Exam?

The Uniform Bar Exam is composed of the Multistate bar exam (MBE); the Multistate Performance Test (MPTs), which do not cover a specific area of law–rather, they test lawyerly skills; and also an essay portion, the multistate essay exam (MEE). Below are the tested subjects on the Multistate Bar Exam and the Multistate Essay Exam portion of the Uniform Bar Exam. To see how the MPTs have been tested, check out our  MPT chart .

Subjects tested on the Essay Portion of the Uniform Bar Exam

For the essay portion, you will have six questions to answer in three hours (so 30 minutes/question). the Uniform Bar Exam tests the same subjects that the Multistate Essay Exam (MEE) tests. (The Multistate Essay Exam is a six-question exam used by Uniform Bar Exam states as well as other states that do not offer the Uniform Bar Exam.)

The National Conference of Bar Examiners lists the following subjects as potential areas of law:

• Business Associations (Agency and Partnership; Corporations and Limited Liability Companies),
• Civil Procedure,
• Conflict of Laws,
• Constitutional Law,
• Criminal Law and Procedure,
• Family Law,
• Real Property,
• Trusts and Estates (Decedents’ Estates; Trusts and Future Interests), and
• Uniform Commercial Code (Secured Transactions).

Six essays appear on the Uniform Bar Exam, chosen by the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE). (Thus, while in the past, the NCBE has released 7-9 questions for jurisdictions that use the Multistate Essay Exam to choose from, the subjects that appear on the Uniform Bar Exam have always been the same. Further, beginning February 2014, the NCBE only wrote six questions for the Multistate Essay Exam, thus eliminating the choice by the jurisdiction about which essay topic to administer.) So we think this UBE frequency chart means more than an MEE frequency chart (but we do have an MEE frequency chart here if you want to check it out). We think it is wiser to look at this chart though!

So, as you can see from the chart above, the single most highly tested subject on the essay portion of the Uniform Bar Exam is Civil Procedure. We’ve also divided up the subjects so you can see the most highly-tested to least-tested subjects. Please click on the chart to open it in a new tab to make it bigger!

[Note the data below comes from the February 2011 bar exam to the most recent bar exam.]

Tier One: Highly Tested Subjects on the Uniform Bar Exam  (In Order of Most-to-Least Tested)

• Civil Procedure (20 full essays plus 1 combined with another subject)
• Agency and Partnership (13 full essays plus 5 combined with another subject)
• Contracts (16 full essays)
• Real Property (14 full essays)
• Secured Transactions (14 full essays)
• Corporations and LLCs (10 full essays plus 5 combined with another subject)
• Evidence (11 full essays plus 3 combined with another subject)
• Decedents’ Estates (Wills) (10 full essays plus 4 combined with another subject)
• Trusts and Future Interests (10 full essays plus 3 combined with another subject)
• Constitutional Law (8 full essays plus 2 combined with another subject)
• Torts (8 full essays plus 3 combined with another subject)
• Family Law (9 full essays)

Tier Two: Lesser-Tested Subjects on the Uniform Bar Exam (In Order of Most-to-Least Tested)

• Criminal Procedure (8 full essays plus 2 combined with another subject)
• Criminal Law (6 full essays plus 1 combined with another subject)
• Conflict of Laws (This is usually combined with Decedents’ Estates, Family Law, Civil Procedure, or Corporations/LLCs. It is not tested on its own.) (0 full essays, 6 essays combined with another subject)

A few additional notes

• Sometimes the National Conference of Bar Examiner’s (NCBE) labels a subject “Criminal Law and Procedure” when really it is just one or the other that is tested. We listed the true amount of times NCBE tested those subjects above.
• We started collecting data from 2011 on because that is when the first Uniform Bar Exam was administered.
• Wondering how the July and February essay exams differ? Check out this post to see the differences !

Feel free to download the UBE chart (or email us at [email protected] if you have difficulty downloading it!) If you repost it somewhere on the internet, we would appreciate a link to this site :) Thank you!

Lastly, just like all subjects are not treated equally, neither are all topics!

The NCBE tends to test certain topics within each subject more than other topics.

See this post for an overview of the highly tested MEE topics . If you are looking for an overview of the highly-tested topics on the MEE, check out our MEE One-Sheets . These give you an overview of the highly-tested areas of the MEE in one sheet, front and back. We sell them in our online store.

Multistate Bar Exam (MBE)

For the Multistate Bar Exam portion, you will have 200 multiple-choice questions to answer over a period of six hours. The MBE covers the following seven subjects (which are equally tested):

• Contracts and Sales (25 multiple-choice questions)
• Constitutional Law (25 multiple-choice questions)
• Criminal Law and Procedure (25 multiple-choice questions)
• Civil Procedure (25 multiple-choice questions)
• Evidence (25 multiple-choice questions)
• Real Property (25 multiple-choice questions)
• Torts (25 multiple-choice questions)

Because all seven subjects are tested equally (and they also all appear in some capacity on the essay portion of the Uniform Bar Exam, as discussed below) it is very important to know these subjects well!

[If you are wondering why the number of questions does not add up to 200, it is because as of the February 2017 exam, only 175 are scored. The other 25 are “test questions”]

Wondering which topics within the subjects are most frequently tested on the MBE?

Check out our MBE frequency chart here . You will see some topics (like negligence!) are so important and well worth your time while others (like privileges and policy exclusions) will have about two questions total on the MBE!

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MEE Frequency Analysis

MEE Subject Frequency Chart (out of 36 exams)

MEE Rule Frequency (609 rules analyzed)

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How to Make Flashcards for the Virginia Bar Exam

Don’t Buy The Lie About Virginia Essays

At some point, most bar exam students encounter some advice that goes like this:

“You don’t have to know the rules perfectly, as long as you write a good answer that makes logical sense.”

You will not pass the Virginia Essay Exam with that mindset. You will only get credit for legal rules that are close to being right, or exactly right. If your rule is just completely wrong, or you use the wrong rule for the question, you will not get credit for that rule on your essay answer. So the key to passing the essay exam is  memorizing the Virginia black-letter law that is most likely to be tested.

This is where many students fail–they spend too much time watching lectures and reading outlines and not enough time memorizing and practicing Virginia black-letter law. You cannot succeed on the Virginia essays unless you know Virginia legal rules. Flashcards are an excellent way to memorize the legal rules that you must know to pass the exam.

Don’t Worry About Computer vs. Manual Flashcards

Flashcards can be electronic using an app such as Anki or Quizlet.  Some people prefer to use flashcards on paper index cards. Don’t get bothered by this decision–you can use whichever method you think is most effective for you. The electronic cards have some advantages in sorting and tracking your performance, but some people just learn better with tactile paper cards. Do whichever one makes you feel more engaged with the material.

How To Make Your Flashcards

Creating your flashcards is an important part of your study process. You should devote an hour or two each day to creating flashcards for Virginia law. There are 2 sources of law you can use to create these. First, you can use your bar review program’s condensed outlines of Virginia law. Second, you can scan through your bar review program’s essay answers to locate relevant legal rules and create your cards. Most students have more success with the second of those two methods, but some students use some combination of both. Do not use the full outlines of Virginia Law; the bar review programs provide a ‘condensed’ or short version of those outlines. Use these shorter versions. The full outlines of Virginia law contain far more than will be tested on the exam.

What To Put On Your Virginia Bar Exam Flashcards

After you’ve decided on what your source material will be, you next must decide how to actually put that material into flashcard form. Each flashcard must contain only one simplified legal rule. Complex legal rules must be broken down into their individual parts and then put into a ‘testable’ format that you can put on two sides of a card. For as many cards as possible, you want the card to be reversible. This means that you should be able to look at either side of a card, and recall what is written on the reverse side of that card.

Some Flashcard Examples

BAD FLASHCARD: Side 1 : If a testator has a will that contradicts a previous written contract, which one prevails? Side 2 : The will prevails. However, when a specific disposition of an asset contradicts to that of the contract, the beneficiary of the will/asset will become a trustee of that asset and then specifically perform under the terms of the contract.

The above-example is not a good flashcard. It attempts to cover too many legal concepts. Further, it is not reversible. If you look at “Side 2” first, the card makes no sense.  Let’s see how we could improve this, and still test the same legal concepts.

Given the card above, I would actually advise creating 3 separate flashcards for that legal concept.  See the example below.

BETTER FLASHCARDS: Side 1 :  Interpretation of contracts to dispose of property at someone’s death Side 2 :  This type of contract must meet all the standards of any contract, even though the contract might be mistaken for a will. Side 1 : When a valid contract conflicts with the terms of a valid will Side 2 : A valid contract takes precedence over a valid will, but the will still controls the disposition of any other property Side 1 :  Contracts to dispose of real property are generally enforced through the remedy of ____. Side 2 :  Specific performance is the default remedy for enforcement of these situations.

When you compare these, you should notice how I’ve converted one complex flashcard into three different flashcards. Also, in at least two of the three new cards, notice that they are reversible. No matter which side you saw first, it should prompt your memory of what is on the reverse side.  The first and third card are the best examples of this.

When you’re deciding what rules to memorize, you need to step back and look at the big picture. What legal rules will be necessary to answer the question? Break it down. If you are creating cards by scanning through practice essay answers, and you are making a card for every legal rule & sub-rule you encounter, you should be able to create 5 to 10 cards per practice essay.

How to Study Your New Flashcards

You should study your cards in topics and in small groups. Don’t mix them all together. Your brain needs to make connections between the cards within each subject area.

Don’t Study Too Many Flashcards At Once

It doesn’t work to try to study 100 cards at once. The repetition of any individual card will not be frequent enough to lock that card into your memory. The key to studying flashcards is to have very frequent repetition of a card until you know it well. Then, you still should occasionally encounter that card again, but not nearly as frequently. Again, what we’re doing here is a research-based method called “ spaced repetition “.

This type of studying can be automated, which is one of the advantages to using an app like Anki. It automates the selection of an ‘active deck’ and presents you with the right cards over the right interval for your own memorization. You can do it manually too, but you must discipline yourself not to try to tackle too many cards at once and to occasionally return back to cards you’ve learned to refresh your memory of them.

Study Legal Subjects in Proportion to Exam Frequency

Every Virginia Bar Exam student knows that Wills, Virginia Procedure, and Federal Jurisdiction are tested much more frequently than Taxation and Suretyship.  Use your bar review program’s subject frequency chart and spend your flashcard time (both creating and studying them) roughly in proportion to how often the subjects appear on the exam.

If you focus on interactive memorization with spaced repetition, you can learn all the Virginia legal rules that you need to know for the exam.

For more help on the Virginia Bar Exam, consider the LexBar online course for the Virginia Essays .