Examination Information

• During your studies, you must observe certain examination deadlines. This means that you are required to have taken and passed certain exams by a certain point in time. Please see the examination regulations for information on these deadlines and other regulations governing examinations that form part of this program of study. At the bottom of this page, you can also download an information sheet (“Ihr Prüfungsplan: Alles auf einen Blick!”) that summarizes the most important aspects. It includes an exam schedule, an overview of all deadlines, and information on possible re-sit examinations as well as regulations on exam registration.
• To be able to plan and manage examinations in the best possible way, it is imperative that you register for examinations in due time. The university relies on your cooperation, so please make sure you observe the relevant deadlines.  
• The University of Mannheim uses an electronic system, called Portal², for exam registration and management. You can log on to this system at any time to view your student account and to obtain information on examinations you registered for and grades you achieved.

A distinction must be made between mandatory registration and self-registration:

• Mandatory registration: 
  This means that you will be registered for an examination by Student Services in the semester in which you are scheduled to take the respective exam as per the degree plan. In cases where mandatory registration applies, you do not have to take action to be registered and do not assume any responsibility. Therefore, you can fully concentrate on preparing for the exam.

• Self-registration:
  Students in an advanced semester must self-register for examinations.

Please also be aware of the fact that some exams are written during the university-wide examination period and some during the lecture period.

Student Services will register you for the following examinations (mandatory registration):

• “Zivilrecht 1” (written exam)
• “Zivilrecht 2” (bundled exams, you will be registered for all three exams)
• “Historische Grundlagen des Zivilrechts” (written exam)
• “Öffentliches Wirtschaftsrecht” (written exam)
• “Grundlagen der VWL” (written exam)
• “Grundlagen der Finanzmathematik” (written exam)
• “Marketing” (written exam)
• “Management” (written exam)
• “Grundlagen des externen Rechnungswesens” (written exam)
• “Finanzwirtschaft” (written exam)
• “Internes Rechnungswesen” (written exam)
• “Präsentation und Kommunikation” (Exam registration only! Please use Portal² to register for the course!)
• “Verhandlungsmanagement” (Exam registration only! Please use Portal² to register for the course!)

Usually, mandatory registration is performed shortly before the general registration period begins.

You need to self-register for the following examinations in Portal² :

• Coursework in “Zivilrecht 3”:
  Handing out of the case at the end of the 3rd semester, preparation of the term paper during the semester break, submission and registration on the day of submission in Portal² at the beginning of the 4th semester; the examination is counted for the 4th semester; re-sit examination: at the end of the 4th semester.
• Bundled exams in “Zivilrecht 3”: 
  You only register for the first exam electronically; Student Services will register your for the other two exams.
• “Wirtschaftsrecht Allgemeiner Teil” (written exam)
• “Wirtschaftsrecht Besonderer Teil” (oral exam)
• Elective modules in Business Administration
• English (short presentation)
• Study groups (registration is required for them, as well, even though they are not concluded with an examination): 
  These are courses that help you revise the topics covered in the respective lecture to prepare for the exam. They begin in the second week of the semester.
  Registration is binding. You may only register for one study group per field of law. 
  If you register for more study groups per field of law, the dean's office will assign you to one of the groups.
  In case all places have already been taken, please contact the secretary of the dean’s office to register.

Information pursuant to section 9 subsections 2 and 3 of the Act on Lawyer Training and Examination of the Land of Baden-Württemberg (JAPrO):

To be admitted to the state examination, you are required to have completed and passed the term paper and one of the three written exams in “Zivilrecht 3” either in the same semester or in two successive semesters.

To avoid common mistakes, please pay attention to the following:

• Registration period: Please note that you can only register for examinations within the designated registration period for the respective examination! After the registration period has ended registration is no longer possible. This means that if you fail to register by the deadline, you cannot take the exam.
• Confirmation of registration: Please make a printout of all the exams you self-registered for! Upon successful registration, an e-mail will be sent to your university e-mail address. Only with these documents will you be able to prove that you registered for the exam in due time in the event of a system error. If you are unable to register for an exam due to technical problems, you must send an e-mail to Student Services I (Ms. Hofer) before the registration period ends. Please use the following subject line: “Technische Probleme bei Prüfungsanmeldung” (technical problems with exam registration). Otherwise, technical problems will not serve as a valid excuse for the failure to register for an exam.
• Withdrawal: Students may withdraw from exams they self-registered for until the end of the registration period (e.g., if they mistakenly clicked on the wrong exam). The steps to be followed for withdrawal are the same as for registration. Just click on the corresponding button.
• Transcript of records: Your grades are entered into the electronic campus management system (Portal²) and can be viewed there at any time. You can create an unofficial transcript of records at any time that you can print out at home and that indicates all your grades. Apart from that, you may request an official transcript of records from Student Services (please contact the office responsible for your program).

1. Late registration for examinations

• Registering for exams after the registration period has ended is generally excluded.   

• Exceptions are made for the following examinations:
  • Elective modules in Business Administration – “Wahlbereich BWL”: 
    Late registration for exams is possible at the Student Services offices until one week before the examination date. You will have to pay a fee of currently EUR 10 per exam.
  • Oral exam in business and economic law – “Wirtschaftsrecht Besonderer Teil”: 
    Late registration is possible until 4 weeks before the examination period begins (March/April and September/October). You need to obtain the examiner’s consent. The applicable form can be found on this page under “Downloads”. Please fill it in and submit it to the Express Service in L1,1. A fee of currently EUR 10 is due for late registration.

2. De-registration from an exam

• You can only de-register from an exam, if you have a valid reason for not taking it (e.g. illness). The circumstances justifying your de-registration must exist on the very day of the exam. If you have effectively de-registered from an exam, you will be deemed not to have taken it and you will not lose an attempt. If you have not effectively de-registered from an exam (e.g., because you failed to submit proof of a valid reason), you will be deemed to have failed the exam with zero points.
  • To de-register due to illness, you need to submit the respective form to Student Services.      
  • To de-register from an exam that is part of the university focus subject and that you have already passed, you need to submit the respective de-registration form to the examination committee’s office (see below).      
• If you do not take part in an exam that you have committed to by registering for it, this will be considered a de-registration.

• If exams are only offered as a bundle (as is the case with the private law exams in “Zivilrecht 2” and “Zivilrecht 3”), you must have a valid reason for all three exams to effectively de-register from them.If this is not the case, your attempt will be counted (even, if you have only taken one of the three exams and have presented a medical certificate for the other two, for example). You will then have one more attempt left at taking all three bundled exams in the next semester.

3. Re-sitting examinations

• For exams with mandatory registration, the following applies: 
  If you failed an exam or were not able to take an exam due to illness (medical certificate required), you will have to take the exam on the next possible examination date (mandatory registration through Student Services). The mandatory registration will be renewed until the exam was either passed or failed with no option to re-sit.

• For exams with self-registration, the following applies: 
  If the next possible examination date is in the same semester, you are automatically registered for the re-sit examination (mandatory registration). This is the case for exams taken in the elective modules in Business Administration. If the next possible examination date is in the following semester, you must self-register for the exam.
• How often can I retake an exam?
  This can be found in the examination regulations.

The seminars “Präsentation und Kommunikationstechnik” (presentation and communication techniques) and “Verhandlungsmanagement” (negotiation management), that teach key competences, are mandatory for students in their third or fourth subject-specific semester. Each of the seminars consists of a lecture for all students and a practical session in small groups (this is where the exam takes place).

Student Services will register you for the respective examination (mandatory registration). However, you need to self-register for the practical session in the respective small group in Portal² (course registration).

You will first attend the lecture “Rhetorik und Präsentation” (rhetoric and presentation) by Prof. Falk and “Verhandlungsmanagement” by Prof. Risse respectively. They will provide you with an overview of the topics that will be covered in the small groups. You are required to attend the corresponding introductory lecture before you are admitted to join the respective small group in the practical session.

The dates for the practical session will be displayed in the news section and/or in Portal² in the respective semester. There, you can also find the lecture dates and the registration periods. Registration for the practical session is done via Portal². The registration period is usually kicked off during the semester break shortly before the new semester begins. An e-mail will be sent to the university e-mail address of all students that have been registered for the examination in the respective semester via the mandatory registration process informing them of the start of the registration period. Only a certain number of participants can register for each practical session. As soon as the limit of participants is reached for one of the sessions, registration for the respective slot will be disabled. The small group sessions are only open to students in their third or fourth semester. Students who are not in their third or fourth semester should not register for these sessions; their registration would be deleted anyway. Until then, however, they would block free seminar spaces.

Students in an advanced subject-specific semester, who are yet to complete the respective course, should also attend the corresponding lecture. Please register for the practical session in Portal² and inform the dean's office by sending an e-mail to either hiwijuramail-mail.uni-mannheim.de or diersmail-uni-mannheim.de. If you have any other general questions, please also send them to these e-mail addresses only.

Please note that in case you need to be informed about possible changes or other details regarding the small group sessions, you will be contacted via your university e-mail address.

Please note:
The time slot indicated for the small group sessions in Portal² is incorrect. They actually start at 9 a.m. The slot has been set to an earlier start time for organizational reasons.

• The registration of your bachelor’s thesis is only valid if you have elected the “Besonderer Teil” (specific area, abbreviated “BT”) of the university focus subject “Wirtschaftsrecht” (business and economic law) electronically
  >>> Exam registration “Festlegung Wahlbereich” in “BT”
• In addition, the registration form (see below) must be completed and submitted to the supervisor of your bachelor's thesis.
• Please also read the information on how to fill in this form carefully; it can be found on page two of the document.

At the moment, you can register for the first state examination in private law (Zivilrechtliche Staatsexamensklausuren) that will take place in the spring of 2024. This applies to both those students who want to benefit from the possibility of Abschichtung (i.e. take the first state examination in stages) and for those who only pursue the bachelor’s degree.  

General procedure:

1. Please read our info slides (“Hinweisfolien”) first to familiarize yourself with the registration process.
2. To register for the examination, please use our registration form (“Formular zur Anmeldung”) that you can find at the bottom of this page and that can be filled in electronically. Please read the information on how to fill in this form carefully; it can be found on page two of the document.

Deadline for registration: 31 October 2023

Registrations for the civil law state examination can currently only be submitted by post (recipient address: Universität Mannheim, Dekanat der Abteilung Rechtswissenschaft, Schloss Westflügel, 68161 Mannheim) or in the mailbox of the university in front of L 1, 1.

Please make sure that everything is filled out correctly and all documents/copies are attached. A request for missing documents/copies will not be made!

For capacity reasons, there will also be no confirmation of receipt.

For students who need to re-sit the fall 2023 examination:

Students who failed the first state examination in private law in the fall of 2023 (no exam with 4 points) and who want to re-sit the exams in the spring of 2024 for the sole purpose of acquiring the bachelor’s degree benefit from an extended registration period. The affected students only can register by 5 January 2024.  According to the state examination office of Baden-Württemberg responsible for the state examinations in law (LJPA), the grades for the fall 2023 exams will be announced on 14 December 2023 from 12 o'clock. You will need to submit the registration form as well as all the required documents again.

To avoid common mistakes, please pay attention to the following:

• You must submit two copies of all the required documents (original and duplicate)!
• The dean’s office cannot make any copies or issue duplicates!
• Please also read the info sheet on how to fill in the registration form carefully!
• You yourself are responsible for submitting a correctly and completely filled in form!

Please also note: 

• Registration for the exams in public law (“Öffentliches Recht”) and criminal law (“Strafrecht”) as part of Abschichtung is done via the state examination office of Baden-Württemberg responsible for the state examinations in law (LJPA).
• If you are prevented from taking the exam due to illness or any other important reason, and
  • if you write in the context of the Abschichtung, you have to immediately submit the request form for the resignation from the examination to the Landesjustizprüfungsamt  and the University of Mannheim, student service;
  • if you write exclusively for the purpose of acquiring the bachelor's degree (for example, in the case of loss of the Abschichtung), you have to immediately submit the request form for the resignation from the examination to soley the University of Mannheim, student service;
  • in the case of illness, a medical certificate from a doctor according to § 14 Abs. 5 ÖGDG must be submitted to the Landesjustizprüfungsamt, which contains the medical findings required for the assessment of the examination inability;
  • in the case of illness a medical certificate must be submitted to the University of Mannheim, which contains the following information:
    • Name, first name, date of birth of the student
    • (Expected) disease period
    • date of medical treatment
    • Description of the illness-related and exam relevant impairments (symptoms)
    • Doctor's signature, practice stamp.

Exceptional circumstances: 

• In case a student wants to have certain exceptional circumstances pursuant to section 37 subsection 3 sentence 1 and section 22 subsection 2 of the Act on Lawyer Training and Examination of the Land of Baden-Württemberg (JAPrO) recognized, he or she must file the corresponding request by the time of registration for the examination in private law at the latest and enclose all the required documents. We recommend you to submit your request to the LJPA even earlier, though. You should do so well before registering for the exam to know for sure that an exceptional circumstance applies in your case. You can learn more about this topic on the website of the LJPA.

Coursework and examinations as well as periods of study completed in degree courses at official or officially recognized higher education institutions in Germany or abroad as well as at “Berufsakademien” (public universities of cooperative education) of the Federal Republic of Germany are recognized provided there is no significant difference between the competences obtained and those to be substituted.  

For the recognition of examinations completed abroad, agreements between the Federal Republic of Germany and other countries need to be taken into account, such as agreements on equivalencies in higher education (equivalency agreements) and agreements within the framework of university partnerships and double degree programs (cooperation agreements). Please refer to the examination regulations for more detailed information on this topic and on the conversion of grades.

Please also refer to this program’s examination regulations to learn more about the regulations governing the recognition of skills and knowledge acquired outside of the higher education system. 

The recognition is indicated in the degree certificate and in the transcript of records. In case the student takes part in an examination at the University of Mannheim even though he or she already obtained the respective qualification elsewhere, he or she automatically waives the right to have the previous qualification recognized.

The examination committee decides on the recognition upon request. Request forms and further information on the request itself as well as the documents to be enclosed with it can be found at the bottom of this page under “Downloads”. It is the student's responsibility to provide the examination committee with the necessary documents for the recognition of coursework and examinations.

If you have any further questions, do not hesitate to contact the examination committee’s office.