Candidates repeat the Bar, and former law students come back to it years later with a set of assumptions from the examination as it used to be. Some of those assumptions are still true. Several are not, and the ones that are not can cost a paper.
This article is what has changed, as far as it is reflected in the 2027 arrangements — and what to do about each.
The format
The examination is administered on a secure electronic assessment platform, as it has been since 2020. There is no handwriting paper to prepare for, and the practical adjustments are the ones described in the electronic platform: typing, a plain text box, navigation, and the clock on screen.
The 2027 format is twenty essay problems per subject, each worth 5% (a two-part problem carrying 5% combined), in a four-hour sitting. Morning sittings run 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon; afternoon sittings 2:00 to 6:00 p.m.
If you last sat an examination with a different number of questions or a different balance of question types, the arithmetic to relearn is the pace: twelve minutes a problem. See four hours, twenty problems.
The coverage is closed and dated
The 2027 Examinations cover laws, rules and issuances in force, and jurisprudence promulgated, as of 30 June 2026. That is a harder boundary than candidates remember from older cycles, and it has two consequences:
- You are not chasing new cases. Nothing after the cut-off can be asked.
- Older materials may be describing superseded text. A reviewer from before an amendment is teaching an older law, and the amendment is inside the cut-off.
The habit to build: a date on every note, as described in the cut-off date in practice.
Only the main opinion counts
The bulletin is explicit: only the doctrines and dispositions set out in the main opinion are examinable. Separate concurrences and dissents are outside the paper.
For a returning candidate this is freeing. The old practice of reading the dissents because "the examiner may like them" is now unnecessary — and it was always expensive.
The weights
The six subjects carry fixed weights that sum to the weighted general average, and they are not equal:
| Sitting | Weight |
|---|---|
| Remedial Law and Legal and Judicial Ethics, with Practical Exercises | 25% |
| Civil Law and Land Titles and Deeds | 20% |
| Commercial and Taxation Laws | 20% |
| Political and Public International Law | 15% |
| Labor Law and Social Legislation | 10% |
| Criminal Law | 10% |
A pass is a weighted general average of 75%. If your last attempt predates the current weighting, the strategy implication is unchanged but the arithmetic differs: the last afternoon is a quarter of the result, and the two 10% sittings cannot carry it. See playing the weights.
Practical exercises
Remedial Law and Legal and Judicial Ethics is examined with practical exercises — draft this, advise that, choose the remedy. If your preparation was doctrinal last time, this is the change to absorb: see the practical exercises sitting.
What has not changed
Three things worth saying plainly, because returning candidates sometimes over-correct:
- Doctrine is still the substance. The paper tests what a beginning lawyer is expected to know and be able to do: the governing principles, their application, and the reasoning that connects them.
- The answer is still an answer. Conclusion, rule, application, conclusion. Twelve minutes. See how a bar answer is scored.
- The review year is still a retrieval project. Volume of reading was never the predictor; what you can produce closed-book is.
For a returning candidate, in order
- Read the bulletin and the syllabus for 2027 — both, once, at the start. Not a summary.
- Take one timed sitting in your strongest subject, this month, to see where you actually are. Returning candidates routinely overestimate their retained knowledge, and one mock corrects it cheaply.
- Rebuild your outlines from memory rather than re-reading your old ones. Your old notes are a reference, not a map — see how to build a bar outline.
- Check every provision you rely on for amendments before the cut-off.
That is a fortnight's work, and it replaces a month of reading the wrong version of the law.
The honest summary
The examination has changed shape — electronic, essay-based, twenty problems, fixed weights, a hard cut-off, practical exercises in the heaviest sitting. It has not changed what it rewards: the ability to state the law and apply it, under time, in writing.
A returning candidate's advantage is knowledge they already have. Their risk is a preparation built for a paper that is no longer set.