1.1 The Four PP Parts, the 70% Per-Part Standard & Retake Rules
Key Takeaways
- The PP examination has four separately scored multiple-choice parts: Advanced Communications & Legal Terminology, The Law Firm: Office Procedures & Knowledge, Advanced Legal Ethics, and Advanced Substantive Law.
- A candidate must score at least 70% on each part; a strong score on one part cannot compensate for a part scored below 70%.
- Every candidate takes all four parts on the first attempt, except a candidate holding a valid, current CLP credential, who sits for Part 4 only.
- Failed parts may be retaken, but all failed parts must be retaken at the same sitting, and passed parts stay valid for only two years before the whole examination must be retaken.
- NALS publishes a content outline for each part but does not publish per-part item counts, per-part time limits, or a PP pass rate.
1.1 The Four PP Parts, the 70% Per-Part Standard & Retake Rules
[!NOTE] Why this section comes first: Most PP candidates plan their study time against a single overall score, then discover too late that the examination does not work that way. The Professional Paralegal examination is four separate tests wearing one name. Understanding the scoring architecture is the single highest-leverage piece of exam strategy available to you.
The Professional Paralegal (PP) designation is administered by NALS, the National Association for Legal Support Professionals. NALS established the PP in 2004 at the request of its members, and the credential is aimed at paralegals who want national recognition across all areas of law rather than in a single practice specialty.
The Four Official Parts
The NALS Certification Resource Manual sets out a separate content outline for each of the four parts. The official titles matter, because they tell you what the part actually tests. Part 2 in particular is routinely misdescribed in third-party material as a general "legal knowledge" section; it is not. It is a law-office operations part.
| Part | Official title | What it actually covers |
|---|---|---|
| Part 1 | Advanced Communications & Legal Terminology | Diction and grammar, sixteen punctuation marks, number usage, capitalization, spelling, syntax, intraoffice and interoffice communications, Latin and legal terminology |
| Part 2 | The Law Firm: Office Procedures & Knowledge | Records management and alphabetic filing rules, computer hardware and software, conflicts-check systems, document processing, billing and accounting |
| Part 3 | Advanced Legal Ethics | Ethics and judgment (eight named topics) plus Legal Authority (ten named topics covering the nature and sources of law, jurisdiction, and court systems) |
| Part 4 | Advanced Substantive Law | Citations, civil procedure, criminal procedure, torts, products liability, and twenty-five separately listed areas of law |
All four parts are multiple choice. NALS does not publish how many items appear in each part, how long each part runs, or what the PP pass rate is. If a prep product quotes you a specific PP item count, a specific time limit, or a pass-rate percentage, treat it as unsourced.
The 70% Per-Part Standard
NALS states the standard plainly: a candidate is certified after attaining at least 70% per part. Parts scoring below 70% must be retaken.
This is a conjunctive standard, not a compensatory one. Consider two candidates:
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Aggregate | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate A | 94% | 62% | 91% | 88% | 83.75% | Fails Part 2 |
| Candidate B | 72% | 71% | 74% | 70% | 71.75% | Passes all four |
Candidate A has the stronger overall command of the material and is nonetheless not certified. Candidate B, whose aggregate is twelve points lower, walks away with the credential. The lesson is operational: study to raise your floor, not your average. Time spent moving Part 4 from 88% to 94% is wasted; the same hours spent moving Part 2 from 62% to 71% are decisive.
In practice, Part 2 is the floor for most experienced paralegals. A litigation paralegal with a decade of trial work will find Part 4 comfortable and Part 3 familiar, but has often never been tested on alphabetic filing rules, trust-account deposit mechanics, or law-office hardware vocabulary.
Retakes, Carry-Forward & the Two-Year Cliff
The retake rules have three moving pieces, and candidates lose credentials by misreading the third one.
- You may retake the parts you failed. If you pass two parts and fail two, you re-sit only the two you failed.
- All failed parts must be retaken at the same time. You cannot stagger them across separate sittings to reduce the load.
- Passed parts are valid for two years. After two years, the entire examination must be retaken, including parts you previously passed.
That two-year window is the trap. A candidate who passes three parts, defers the fourth through a busy litigation season, and returns twenty-six months later has not lost one part. That candidate has lost all four.
[!TIP] Planning rule: Once you sit for the first time, treat the two-year clock as a hard project deadline and schedule the retake within the same calendar year. Only your new scores count on retaken parts, so there is no downside to retaking early.
The CLP Exemption
A candidate who holds a valid, current CLP credential (Certified Legal Professional, the designation that replaced the PLS for new issuance in January 2022) sits for Part 4 of the PP examination only. Every other candidate must take all four parts on the first attempt.
NALS has also announced a structural change: once the Certifying Board completes its revision, passing the CLP will become a prerequisite to sitting the PP, and the PP will contain advanced substantive law questions only. That change has not taken effect, so the four-part structure described in this guide remains the published one.
Current Registration Status
NALS has placed individual certification exam registration on hiatus. It is currently administering only the Certified Legal Support Professional (LSP) exam, and only to school groups. NALS describes the pause as temporary rather than a retirement of the credential, and reported in its June 2026 certification update that PP materials were targeted for completion by the end of 2026 with release in 2027.
Two consequences follow for a candidate reading this guide today:
- Existing PP holders are unaffected. The credential remains valid for its five-year term and can be recertified normally.
- The published content outline is still the right thing to study. NALS has said the PP exam itself "recently went through a complete update" and "is in good shape"; the pause is about candidate-facing materials, not about the tested body of knowledge.
Scoring Review & Verification
Preliminary results arrive by email within roughly twenty-four hours of submission, but they are not final until the NALS Certifying Board has reviewed both the exam and the proctoring video. Confirmed scores follow approximately thirty days later. A candidate who wants a part regraded by hand must submit a written request with a $25-per-part verification fee within 45 days of the Report of Scores; the resulting change, up or down, is recorded either way.
A candidate sits all four parts of the PP examination and scores 96% on Part 1, 91% on Part 3, 89% on Part 4, and 66% on Part 2. What is the outcome?
A paralegal passed Parts 1, 2, and 3 of the PP examination in March 2024, failed Part 4, and then deferred the retake because of a heavy trial schedule. The paralegal now wants to sit Part 4 in June 2026. What is the consequence?
A prep vendor advertises that the NALS PP examination contains "200 questions across four parts, with a documented 58% first-time pass rate." How should a candidate evaluate that claim?