In this lecture, I want to generally describe the kinds of contracts questions you get on the MEE. Again, the MEE consists of six essay questions with three hours total. That's about 30 minutes for each one. It's not that much time for each question.

Now, the contracts questions tend to be short in the sense that they usually don't take very long to read. Usually, they're one full page, sometimes a little less. Sometimes contracts essays have a single prompt, that is, you only have to answer a single question. Sometimes there are multiple prompts.

If there's one prompt, the prompt tends to be broad, like, is there an enforceable contract, or what rights does this person have? If there are several prompts, they tend to be more narrow. Can the buyer reject the goods that were delivered? Can the seller recover this particular cost as damages? The more prompts there are, the narrower they tend to be, but even narrow prompts will often have more than one issue.

Let me say something now about the contracts issues you're most likely to see on the MEE.

MEE v. MBE

It helps to contrast the MEE with the MBE, the multistate bar exam. The MEE is an essay exam, the MBE is a multiple-choice exam. And so the MEE tends to focus on the bigger issues. Sometimes MBE questions focus on really minor issues, and the MBE can do that because there are 200 multiple-choice questions on the MBE.

But the MEE only has six essay questions, so they're less likely to test narrow issues and more likely to test big issues. So, for example, a contracts question on the MEE might be about contract remedies. You're given facts, you're told there's a breach. The prompt asks you, what's the remedy?

You have to think about the expectation interest, about how much money is necessary to put the victim in the position they would have been in had there been no breach. Then you have to apply the three limitations on damages: certainty, foreseeability, and mitigation of damages. But my point here is that the issues tend to be big picture. It's the big stuff, not the small stuff, on the MEE.

I've seen MBE questions on really narrow rules, like the special UCC rules for installment contracts. Most law professors don't know those rules. That sometimes happens on the MBE. It's much less likely to happen on the MEE.

Don't get me wrong. You are expected to know details. Several contracts MEE questions, for example, have focused on the intricate details of the UCC statute of frauds provision, but generally, the MEE tests the details of the big things, not the details of the small things.