Hello all,

The California bar examiners just published their released answers to the February 2019 bar exam. The areas tested were all on our predictions list. In addition to the likelihood of Torts (either strict liability/negligence) and the likelihood of a Property Landlord/Tenant essay, I felt that premises liability was over due. It turns out that not only was it tested in the Torts context, it was also tested on the Landlord/Tenant essay.

Again, Professional Responsibility tested one of the California bar examiners favorite issues – the area of the unauthorized practice of law and a lawyer aiding a non-lawyer (in this case, a disbarred attorney) in the unauthorized practice of law.

I also felt that Trusts would have to show up and that it would likely be tested with either Wills or Community Property – or both. It was both.

Evidence and Civil Procedure were both on my list and showed up as a cross-over. This is to be expected – more crossover essays with the advent of the two day exam that now only has five essays.

So what is next for July 2019? Possibly more testing of Trusts, of course Professional Responsibility and somewhere testing of First Amendment speech – either in the Constitutional Law context, Professional Responsibility context (attorney advertising) or in the Torts context (defamation). Everyone with any skin in the game is predicting Criminal Law Murder, possibly crossed with Criminal Procedure. The last time Criminal Law Murder was tested was on the February 2008 bar exam. However, this is no guarantee that it will show up in July. But, eventually (within a year or year and a half) I believe it will be tested and it absolutely could show up on the July 2019 bar exam.

Bar Examinee Be Aware: You should know that any subject can repeat from one bar round to the next. Many times the California bar examiners have repeated the same subject three times in a row. Nothing is off limits. Anyone who advises you to ignore a bar subject is an idiot. Saying something will not be on the test is just a completely uninformed position. It is terrible and misleading advice. And yet, students tell me all the time that their bar prep company (and I don’t mean little bar prep companies or individual tutors, but national bar prep companies) advised them not to worry about certain topics – to only find that they had to face those very topics on the bar exam.

I have studied the bar exam for over 25 years. Every bar exam round at least two and sometimes three or four subjects repeat from the prior bar round to the next. Obviously Professional Responsibility is a repeater on almost every essay exam (skipped only two times from the essay section since 1994 – where instead it appeared only on the performance test).  Professional Responsibility is always tested on the written portion of the bar exam. Sometimes it is tested on multiple essays in the same bar round. Also, Professional Responsibility can show up on both an essay and the performance test.

Some of the possible repeaters for July 2019 could be Civil Procedure and Evidence. Of course, you should expect Professional Responsibility.

I make more detailed predictions, along with sample past bar exam essays and answers that reflect the areas that I think are most likely to repeat. However, I reserve these detailed predictions and writing tips and essays for my enrolled students as they have an expectation that I will not share this on the blog. But, I always make some predictions available here and will continue to make posts as the bar exam nears.

We are making our most recent Bar Exam Cram Session (held in June of 2019) available on our website for purchase. This would include my detailed bar exam predictions and associated sample essays and answers, our Digging Deeper into the Bar Exam (TM) Series, videos of the most recentBar Exam Cram Session, our highly sought after Bar Exam Cram Sheets and all associated handouts provided in our live session.

We will post a link for purchasing this online option after the holiday.

All the best to everyone who is studying for the July Bar Exam!

Sincerely,

Lisa Duncanson
Bar Exam Guru
Founder/Program Director
Bar None Review, established 1998
email: barexamguru@yahoo.com