Your State’s Law & Ethics Exam
Which national exam each license tier takes, which state exam sits beside it, and how your state defines duty to warn, mandated reporting, minors’ consent, records and telehealth.
Fifty-one small bodies of law over one body of practice. Move states and re-compose onto the new practice act rather than starting over.
Two different jobs
Ethics is largely shared across the country. The law is not, and the exam that tests it is written by people who know exactly which parts differ.
The national examinations ask what a competent clinician does. Your state’s asks how many days you have to file the report, who may consent for a fourteen-year-old, how long the record must be kept, what the practice act permits you to call yourself, and when the duty to warn becomes a duty to act — which is a genuinely different question in a state that codified it than in one that did not. None of that is inferable from national material, and a study guide that says the rules “vary by state” is declining to answer.
What is confidential, what is privileged, who holds the privilege, and the exceptions your state writes into its own statute — plus the stricter federal rule that applies to substance-use records.
Some states impose a duty, some permit disclosure without requiring it, and the trigger and the discharge differ. This is the single most-tested and most-misremembered area in the profession.
Who must report, on what belief, within what window, to which agency, and what happens when the concern is about an adult rather than a child. The deadlines are specific and they are examinable.
At what age, for what services, with whose agreement, and what a parent is entitled to see afterward — which varies more between neighboring states than almost anything else in this material.
What goes in the record, what a client may see and when, how long it is kept, and what happens to it when a practice closes or a clinician dies.
Where the client has to be, what your license permits across a state line, what the informed-consent requirements add, and what your title actually allows you to call yourself.
Named, not counted
Every prep company in this category advertises “all 50 states”.
We are going to name ours instead, and we are not going to name one before it is real.
No state is live yet, because the product has not launched.
That is a real answer rather than a placeholder. AccelaStudy® AI Behavioral Health opens in July 2027, and the states covered at launch will be listed on this page by name — each one appearing when its practice act, its reporting and consent rules and its own exam have been built and have passed the check that refuses to ship a half-built jurisdiction.
Published shapes
Stated because somebody deciding how to study deserves the real numbers, and because they differ more than anyone expects.
This is not the coverage list — that is the section above, and it names states.
| Jurisdiction | Its exam, as published |
|---|---|
| California | A Law and Ethics Exam every associate sits — 75 questions in 90 minutes, 50 of them scored, split roughly 40 percent law and 60 percent ethics — retaken every year until passed. The fee fell to $75 in July 2026 through June 2030. The psychology board runs its own separate law exam at $127. |
| Colorado | One open-book jurisprudence exam at $18, consolidated across the professions in 2024. Open book does not mean easy — it means the exam is testing whether you can find and apply the provision, which is a different skill and the one the job actually uses. |
| Texas | Separate jurisprudence exams by profession — 126 questions for social work; 100 items for psychology at a passing mark of 85 percent and a fee of $39. |
| Florida | A laws-and-rules exam — for psychology, 40 items with 32 required to pass, at $115. |
| Elsewhere | Many states require a jurisprudence exam and some do not; several fold the material into an application review or an oral instead. Oregon, North Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Minnesota and New Mexico all run one in some form. Your board is the authority. |
From each board’s published pages as of August 2026. Fees, formats and requirements change, and several boards revised theirs in the last two years. Your board’s current licensure page is the authority rather than this table.
What they do and do not do
Three of them are live or arriving in this profession, they are widely misunderstood, and none of them removes an examination.
Social work
The Social Work Licensure Compact has been enacted in a large and growing number of states and issues multistate authorizations once its data system is running. It requires the national examination — it is a route to practicing across borders, not around a test.
Counseling
The Counseling Compact is enacted in most states and issuing privileges in a handful so far. It excludes associates, which is the detail that surprises people — it is for clinicians already independently licensed, not a shortcut through the associate years.
Psychology
PSYPACT® covers a large majority of jurisdictions for telepsychology and temporary in-person practice. It still rests on the national examination and on your home license.
What a compact changes, and what it does not. It changes where you may practice once you are licensed. It does not remove an examination, it does not shorten supervised hours, and in most cases it does not exempt you from your home state’s own law exam. We explain how they work because candidates ask constantly and the answer affects real decisions — but we are not a party to any of them, we do not apply on anyone’s behalf, and the commissions’ own pages are the only authority on current status.
Re-composing
Clinicians move, and the law does not travel — but the practice underneath it does.
What should transfer is what you know, and here it does.
Assessment, intervention, diagnosis, the shared ethics — the same body of knowledge whichever state issues your license. You do not sit through it again.
The new practice act, its reporting and consent rules, its record requirements, and its own exam if it has one. Days, not months.
A simulated reference browser holding the code standards, the federal privacy and substance-use confidentiality rules, and your state’s duty-to-warn statute. Finding the governing provision is the skill an open-book exam tests and the job requires.
Whether your existing license transfers, whether your hours count, or whether a compact covers you. Those are your new board’s decisions, and their answers change what you need to study.
$39/mo month to month, or $31/mo on annual billing. Launching Monday, July 19, 2027.
Join the WaitlistASWB and the names of its examinations (Bachelors, Masters, Advanced Generalist, Clinical) are the Association of Social Work Boards'. AccelaStudy AI is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or approved by ASWB; the names are used here for nominative identification of the examinations only, and no test item is reproduced.
NASW and the NASW Code of Ethics are the National Association of Social Workers'. AccelaStudy AI is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or approved by NASW; the Code is paraphrased and cited, never reproduced, and the names are used here for nominative identification only.
EPPP® and PSYPACT® are registered marks of the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards; PSYPACT® is administered by the PSYPACT Commission. AccelaStudy AI is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or approved by ASPPB or the PSYPACT Commission; the marks are used here for nominative identification only, and no test item is reproduced.
NBCC®, NCC®, NCE®, and MAC® are registered marks of the National Board for Certified Counselors, Inc. and Affiliates; NCMHCE, CCMHC™, and CPCE™ are marks of NBCC and its affiliate, the Center for Credentialing & Education. AccelaStudy AI is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or approved by NBCC or CCE; the marks are used here for nominative identification of the examinations and credentials only, and no test item is reproduced. NBCC's Master Addictions Counselor (MAC®) is distinct from NAADAC's Master Addiction Counselor credential.
AccelaStudy® and Renkara® are registered trademarks of Renkara Media Group, Inc. All third-party marks are the property of their respective owners and are used for nominative identification only.
