The California bar exam subjects number thirteen in total: seven appear on both the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) and the essays, and six appear only on the essay portion. The seven MBE subjects are Torts, Contracts, Criminal Law and Procedure, Constitutional Law, Evidence, Real Property, and Civil Procedure. The six essay-only subjects are Business Associations, Professional Responsibility, Community Property, Wills and Succession, Trusts, and Remedies. A performance test rounds out the exam and tests skills rather than a specific body of law.1The State Bar of California. Scope of the California Bar Examination
How the Subjects Fit the Exam Format
The exam runs two days. Day one is written: five one-hour essay questions and one 90-minute performance test, split across a morning session (three essays) and an afternoon session (two essays plus the performance test).2The State Bar of California. July 2026 California Bar Exam Day two is the MBE: 200 multiple-choice questions over two three-hour sessions, with roughly 25 questions per MBE subject.3National Conference of Bar Examiners. MBE Subject Matter Outline The written portion and the MBE each count for half of your scaled score, and you need at least 1390 out of 2000 to pass.4The State Bar of California. California Bar Exam Grading
The seven MBE subjects can appear on either day. On the MBE, they are tested under majority rules and the Federal Rules. On essays, those same subjects may be tested with California-specific distinctions layered on top.1The State Bar of California. Scope of the California Bar Examination The essay-only subjects, by contrast, never appear on multiple choice.
The Seven MBE Subjects
Torts
Torts covers the civil wrongs: intentional torts like battery, assault, and false imprisonment, along with defenses such as consent and self-defense. Negligence is the most heavily tested piece and requires working through duty, breach, actual causation, proximate causation, and damages. Duty analysis often turns on the plaintiff’s status (invitee versus trespasser, for instance). Strict liability shows up in two contexts: abnormally dangerous activities and products liability. Products questions typically involve manufacturing defects, design defects, or failure-to-warn defects.5LII / Legal Information Institute. Products Liability California applies strict liability to all three defect types.
Contracts
Contracts splits by subject matter. Common law governs services, employment, and real estate contracts. Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code governs the sale of goods.6Legal Information Institute. UCC Article 2 – Sales Identifying which body of law applies is often the first step, because formation, modification, and breach rules differ. Formation testing covers offer, acceptance, consideration, and defenses like the statute of frauds, which under the UCC requires a writing for sales of goods priced at $500 or more.7Legal Information Institute. UCC 2-201 Formal Requirements Statute of Frauds Expectation damages are the default remedy.8LII / Legal Information Institute. Expectation Damages Consequential and incidental damages, mitigation, and liquidated damages clauses all come up frequently.
Criminal Law and Procedure
Substantive criminal law covers specific crimes, especially homicide (first-degree murder, second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter), theft offenses, robbery, burglary, and arson. Inchoate crimes (attempt, conspiracy, solicitation) and accomplice liability are regular visitors, as are defenses including self-defense, insanity, intoxication, and duress.
Criminal procedure focuses on constitutional protections. Fourth Amendment search-and-seizure analysis is constant, as is the Fifth Amendment on Miranda and compelled self-incrimination. The Sixth Amendment right to counsel and the right to a jury trial round out the typical coverage.9Legal Information Institute. Bill of Rights
Constitutional Law
Structural issues cover separation of powers, the Commerce Clause, federalism, and preemption. The dormant Commerce Clause recurs, asking whether a state law impermissibly discriminates against or burdens interstate commerce when Congress has not acted. Individual rights questions focus on the First Amendment (free speech, free exercise, Establishment Clause) and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. Equal protection analysis requires picking the correct level of scrutiny: strict for race or national origin, intermediate for gender, rational basis for most economic and social legislation. Substantive due process and fundamental rights like privacy, marriage, and voting also appear.
Evidence
Evidence on the MBE applies the Federal Rules. The subject starts with relevance, including the balancing test that lets a court exclude relevant evidence when unfair prejudice substantially outweighs its probative value. Character evidence is a frequent trap: generally inadmissible to show propensity, with exceptions for criminal defendants who open the door first, and admissibility for other purposes such as motive, plan, identity, or absence of mistake.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. Federal Rules of Evidence Rule 404 – Character Evidence Not Admissible To Prove Conduct
Hearsay is the single biggest topic. You need the definition (an out-of-court statement offered for the truth of the matter asserted), the Rule 803 exceptions that apply regardless of the declarant’s availability (present sense impression, excited utterance, business records, and more), and the Rule 804 exceptions that apply only when the declarant is unavailable (former testimony, dying declarations, statements against interest).11Legal Information Institute. Rule 803 Exceptions to the Rule Against Hearsay12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. Federal Rules of Evidence Rule 804 – Exceptions to the Rule Against Hearsay When the Declarant Is Unavailable as a Witness Privileges, authentication, and the best evidence rule are tested less often.
Real Property
Real Property covers ownership, transfer, and use of land. Estates (fee simple absolute, defeasible fees, life estates) and future interests (remainders, reversions, executory interests) form the analytical backbone, with the Rule Against Perpetuities as a frequent destroyer of contingent interests. Landlord-tenant law tests tenancy types, the implied warranty of habitability, and constructive eviction. Land transactions cover the contract of sale, marketable title, deed requirements, and recording statutes (race, notice, race-notice). Easements, covenants, and servitudes finish the subject.
Civil Procedure
Federal Civil Procedure covers subject matter jurisdiction (federal question and diversity), personal jurisdiction (minimum contacts, specific versus general), venue, and removal. A defendant seeking removal must file a notice within 30 days of receiving the initial pleading or summons.13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1446 – Procedure for Removal of Civil Actions Federal pleading uses the plausibility standard. Joinder, discovery, summary judgment, and the preclusion doctrines are all fair game.
California essays can also test California’s procedural rules. The biggest divergence is fact pleading, which requires a complaint to lay out the specific facts supporting each element rather than meeting the federal plausibility standard. California also has unique tools, most notably the anti-SLAPP motion, which lets a defendant strike a lawsuit targeting protected speech or petitioning activity unless the plaintiff shows a reasonable probability of winning.14California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure 425.16
The Six Essay-Only Subjects
These six never appear on the MBE. They tend to be areas where California law departs sharply from general principles, or where the material resists multiple-choice format.1The State Bar of California. Scope of the California Bar Examination
Business Associations
Business Associations covers agency, partnerships, and corporations. Agency law tests when a principal is liable for an agent’s acts, focusing on actual authority, apparent authority, and ratification. Partnership questions cover formation (which can happen without any formal agreement), the rights and obligations among partners and toward third parties, and allocation of partnership debts. Corporations dominate, with heavy attention to the fiduciary duties of directors and officers: the duty of care (informed decision-making, protected by the business judgment rule) and the duty of loyalty (no self-dealing without proper approval). Shareholder rights, including derivative suits and inspection rights, also appear.
Professional Responsibility
Professional Responsibility shows up more than any other essay subject and is frequently combined with other topics. You need to know both the ABA Model Rules and the California Rules of Professional Conduct, because the exam specifically tests where they diverge. One California distinction: when total fees and expenses are reasonably expected to exceed $1,000, the fee agreement must be in writing.15California Legislative Information. California Business and Professions Code 6148 California also prohibits “unconscionable” fees rather than the ABA’s “unreasonable” standard.16The State Bar of California. Rule 1.5 Fees for Legal Services Executive Summary Confidentiality and conflicts of interest recur: California requires informed written consent for concurrent conflicts, and the crime-fraud exception can override confidentiality when a client uses the attorney’s services to further an ongoing or planned crime. Duties to prospective clients, former clients, and the tribunal all appear.
One boundary: the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE) is a separate requirement for California admission and is not part of the bar exam itself.
Community Property
Community Property is California’s marquee subject, with no MBE equivalent. The foundational rule: all property acquired by a married person during the marriage while living in California is community property, owned equally by both spouses.17California Legislative Information. California Family Code 760 Separate property includes anything owned before marriage, acquired afterward by gift or inheritance, and the income from separate property.18California Legislative Information. California Family Code 770 The complexity shows up when community and separate funds commingle; tracing analysis follows the source of funds through accounts and purchases. Transmutation requires a writing that expressly declares a change in character. Upon dissolution, the court divides the community estate equally. Essays frequently involve commingling, quasi-community property acquired in other states, and the presumptions attached to joint title.
Wills and Succession
Wills and Succession tests how property passes at death. California recognizes both formally witnessed wills and holographic wills written entirely in the testator’s handwriting. Essay issues include grounds for will contests (undue influence, fraud, lack of capacity), the rules of intestate succession when there is no will, ademption, lapse, and the omitted spouse or child doctrine that protects family members unintentionally left out of a will. The subject crosses over frequently with Community Property, because a California decedent can only dispose of their half of the community estate by will.
Trusts
Trusts covers creation, administration, modification, and termination of trust arrangements. Express trusts require intent, a trust res, identifiable beneficiaries, and a valid purpose. Resulting trusts arise by implication when an express trust fails; constructive trusts are imposed by courts to prevent unjust enrichment. Trustee fiduciary duties drive most essay analysis: loyalty, prudence in investment, impartiality among beneficiaries, and no commingling of trust assets with personal funds. Charitable trusts with the cy pres doctrine, revocable versus irrevocable distinctions, and powers of appointment also come up.
Remedies
Remedies is tested standalone and crosses over heavily with Contracts and Torts. It covers three categories of relief. Legal remedies are primarily money damages: compensatory (expectation, reliance, consequential), nominal, and punitive. Equitable remedies include injunctions and specific performance, available only when legal remedies are inadequate; specific performance typically applies to unique property like real estate. Restitutionary remedies strip the defendant of unjust gains rather than compensate the plaintiff and include constructive trusts, equitable liens, and disgorgement. Election of remedies, the adequacy requirement, and defenses like laches and unclean hands come up often.
The Performance Test
The performance test is not a subject. You walk in knowing no law for it, and you walk out having drafted something. You receive a File of case documents (interview transcripts, contracts, correspondence, police reports) and a Library of legal authorities (cases, statutes, regulations). A supervising-attorney memo tells you exactly what to draft.19NCBE. Multistate Performance Test
The assignment might be an objective memorandum, a persuasive brief, a demand letter, a client advice letter, or a contract provision. Graders are looking for your ability to read carefully, extract the rules from unfamiliar authorities, apply them to the facts in the File, and produce a professional document in 90 minutes.
Crossover Essays
California essays frequently combine two or more subjects in a single question, and spotting the crossover is half the work. Professional Responsibility is the most common crossover partner because ethical issues can arise in any legal context. A criminal defense fact pattern can carry both substantive crimes and a Professional Responsibility analysis of the attorney’s conduct. Other common pairings include Community Property with Wills (what happens to marital property at death), Contracts with Remedies (identifying the breach and selecting the appropriate relief), and Business Associations with Professional Responsibility (an attorney’s duties when representing a corporation versus its individual officers). Candidates who spot issues across subject boundaries do better than those who analyze each topic in isolation.