Top MEE Subjects: See the Data

By Natalie White
Updated May 31, 2024

Have you ever been curious about which MEE subjects are tested the most?

There are six essays that make up the Multistate Essay Exam (MEE). But these essays can be on any of a dozen or more different topics. How will you know which of these topics will be on the MEE?

Short answer: you can’t know. And unless you want to play a fun game of Russian roulette with your bar exam score, you are going to have to study for all of the different MEE topics and be prepared to write essays on all of them.

Even though it is best to study for all the subjects, it can still be really helpful to know which essay topics are most likely to appear. It will help you streamline your studying so you can spend any extra time on the most important topics.

What is the MEE?

The MEE is one of the parts of the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE), which has been adopted in 41 jurisdictions. The UBE is created by the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE). Twice a year, experts at the NCBE hand-craft new MEE questions to torture the next batch of bar exam takers.  It consists of six 30-minute essays which make up 30% of the UBE score. Bar takers rely on their memorization of over a dozen topics to complete the essays. Here are some tips and tricks on how to write the MEE.

The MEE differs from the Multistate Performance Test (MPT), which consists of two 90-minute questions. The MPT is a closed-universe exam, where exam takers review documents in a fake jurisdiction and apply the law to the facts.

The trickiest part of the MEE is not knowing what topics will be tested on the essays.

Check the data

As you can see, Business Associations and Trusts and Estates were the most tested MEE subjects on the bar exam during the last 13 years. These two topics are twice as likely to appear compared to Contracts, Evidence, Criminal Law, Con Law, or Torts.

But before you change your whole study plan, let’s break down the data a little more.

The first table is a little deceiving. As you can see here, from 2007 to 2013 Business Associations and Trusts & Estates appeared many times on the MEE, but in recent years the frequency has decreased. Since 2014, these top two topics have still had the highest frequency, but other topics like Civil Procedure and Contracts are also highly tested. Overall, it appears that the topics have been more evenly tested in recent years compared to past years.

This second table does show that Conflict of Laws is by far the least tested topic, and Torts is not far beyond. If you are running out of time, those are definitely the first topics to skip.

Takeaway

I wish I could reveal the mind of the NCBE . . . but I can’t. Statistics show that you should spend a little extra time on Business Associations and Trusts & Estates and maybe skimp on Conflicts of Law and Torts. Besides that, the rest of the topics are up for grabs.