THE SUPREME Court on Thursday announced that the Bar Examinations will be held on an earlier date next year — September 17, 20, and 24.

Under Bar Bulletin No. 1 signed by Associate Justice Ramon Paul Hernando, the Bar exams will be held in September “under the aim of expediting the admission of successful examinees to the legal profession.”

“The rationale is both practical and societal; an earlier conduct of examinations means an earlier release of examination results; successful Bar examinees can commence their practice of law as early as December 2023; and new lawyers may begin contributing to their families and to the society as members of the Bar in the same year they graduated from law school,” the bulletin read.

In the previous years, Bar exams were usually held every November. The latest exams, the 2022 Bar, were held on November 9, 13, 16, and 20.

The core subjects to be tackled in the examination have also been narrowed down from 8 to 6 with Political and Public International Law and Commercial and Taxation laws on the first day of examination; Civil Law and Labor Law on the second day, and Criminal Law and Remedial Law, Legal and Judicial Ethics with practical exercises on the third day.

Examinees will take two subjects per examination day, segmented into morning and afternoon periods. The morning leg will run from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. while the afternoon leg will be from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The exams will also be composed of a maximum of 20 straightforward entry-level questions in essay-type form.

The SC said the answers will not require computations, and will be graded from 0% to 100%, or 5% for each question.

It will also adopt a multiple-examiner policy of four examiners per subject.