The MPRE is the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam administered by the NCBE, or the National Conference of Bar Examiners. This is the ethics portion of the Bar exam. Most students take the MPRE during their 2L/3L. The MPRE tests your knowledge of the rules governing attorneys, the American Bar Association’s Rules of Professional Conduct and the ABA’s Model Code of Judicial Conduct. The MPRE is a two-hours long, closed book exam consisting of sixty multiple choice questions, with only fifty being graded. The other ten are referred to as pretest exploratory questions. The questions will each give you a hypothetical detailing an attorney/judge’s conduct and ask if their conduct was ethical.
You will take the exam online at a Pearson VUE testing location. The MPRE is administered three times a year in March, August and November. It is best to register early in order to maximize the testing locations available and minimize your commuting time to an available site. You need sleep! Here is a link to the NCBE with the registration info: https://www.ncbex.org/exams/mpre/registration/
A passing score depends on the jurisdiction in which you want to practice. You will select the state to which your score is reported. This means that you do not have to take the MPRE where you eventually want to practice. So, if you go to law school in New York City, you can head home to Ohio and make a weekend out of it, your dog misses you. Connecticut and New Jersey will accept at least a C in a qualified professional responsibility course instead of a passing MPRE score. Here is an interactive map from the NCBE showing the various score requirements in each jurisdiction: https://www.ncbex.org/exams/mpre/
How do you study for the MPRE? Various bar prep companies offer free MPRE courses. These companies offer courses with a set of videos, practice questions and/or outlines. Some providers are Themis, Pieper, Barmax and Barbri. The MPRE course is a good way to feel out each company’s style for your future bar prep course, which unfortunately is far from free. I recommend skimming the outline(s) provided as a primer, then watching the videos and reading the outline(s) until you have grasped the rules. Make sure to mix in a fair amount of practice questions and tests, depending on what your course offers. As you know, learning a rule and applying it are two very different animals. Give yourself time to study, about a month for a couple hours a day. There will be rumors circulating that the MPRE is easy. On the contrary. I found the exam challenging and I was glad that I adequately prepared. You can expect to receive your score about five weeks after you take the test.
Good luck!
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