Supreme Court of Georgia – Office of Bar Admissions

BAR ADMISSION IN GEORGIA

The Constitution of the State of Georgia grants jurisdiction to the Supreme Court of Georgia to control admission to the bar. A set of Rules promulgated by the Supreme Court governs bar admission policies and procedures. The Rules are administered by two separate and distinct boards. The Board to Determine Fitness of Bar Applicants inquires into the character and fitness of all applicants, and the Board of Bar Examiners deals with questions of the applicant's competence. Both Boards must certify the applicant to the Court for the applicant to be eligible for admission. The staff of the Office of Bar Admissions reports to both Boards.

WHO IS ON THE TWO BOARDS?
The Supreme Court of Georgia appoints all the members of both Boards. The Fitness Board has ten members (six lawyers, one former Chair of the Board of Bar Examiners, and three public members). The Board of Bar Examiners has six members, all of whom are lawyers. The men and women on the Boards come from all areas of the state, and the lawyer members represent different types of practices.

WHO WILL BE RECOMMENDED FOR ADMISSION TO THE BAR?
The Boards will recommend the admission of those applicants who meet the good character and fitness standards and pass the bar examination, including the separate examination on professional responsibility. The bar examination is a written test, containing essay, performance and multiple choice questions, administered and graded by the Board of Bar Examiners and its agents two times a year (in February and July).

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Note by Professor Cunningham:
The current Georgia Bar Exam, like most state bar exams, is taken after graduation from law school and has three components. Students graduating prior to May 2028 seeking bar admission in Georgia will take the current exam. Students graduating May 2028 or later who are seeking admission in Georgia will take the NextGen Bar Exam (see Reading 4 assigned for Class One). Also starting in 2028, students will have the option to take the Georgia bar exam prior to graduation, during their final semester.

The Current Bar Exam:

(1) The Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), a 200-question multiple choice test, which is created and administered by the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE), and is thus the same test in every state. It lasts one day: 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the afternoon.

(2) Georgia Essay Questions are written and graded by the Georgia Board of Bar Examiners and require specific knowledge of Georgia law. To the extent students have not taken courses in law school focused on Georgia law, they will learn enough to pass the bar by taking after graduation one of the bar review courses offered by several different private companies such as BarBri and Kaplan. Bar review courses are typically taken over a two month period.

(3) The Multistate Performance Test (MPT),  also created by NCBE, consists of two writing assignments, each lasting 90 minutes. The MPT is designed to test an examinee’s ability to use fundamental lawyering skills in a realistic situation and complete a task that a beginning lawyer should be able to accomplish. The MPT is not a test of substantive knowledge. Rather, it is designed to evaluate certain fundamental skills lawyers are expected to demonstrate regardless of the area of law in which the skills are applied. Skills tested are factual analysis, legal analysis and reasoning, problem solving, identification and resolution of ethical dilemmas, written communication, and organization and management of a legal task. In Georgia the MPT is graded by the Board of Bar Examiners.

Georgia bar applicants are also required to pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE), a two-hour, 60-question multiple-choice examination, created and administered by NCBE. Unlike the prior three exam components, the MPRE can be taken before graduating from law school, typically after taking a course on legal ethics.  At Georgia State a course on legal ethics is required after the first year and is typically taken in the second year. The courses called Professional Responsibility and The Client Relationship satisfy the legal ethics requirement.