If you're a registered associate in California, the Law & Ethics exam is on your list whether you like it or not, usually in the same year you're starting a placement, finding a supervisor, and learning to log hours. Most of the prep for it costs money, on top of what you're already paying for registration, the exam itself, and often supervision.
So we built a free one. Flowers Law & Ethics is a study app for the California LMFT Law & Ethics exam. It runs in your browser, needs no account, and works offline after your first visit.
The exam details below are summarized from the Business and Professions Code and the BBS as of October 17, 2026. Rules change, so check the BBS Law & Ethics Exam FAQ and your own registration paperwork for what applies to you. The app is a study aid, not legal advice.
The exam, briefly
The LMFT California Law and Ethics Examination is 75 multiple-choice questions in 90 minutes. Fifty are scored. The other 25 are unscored "pretest" items mixed in, and you can't tell which is which. The current exam outline, in effect since January 1, 2024, splits it 44% law and 56% ethics across six content areas, from confidentiality and mandated reporting to client relationships and practice policies.
For associates, Business and Professions Code §4980.399 and the BBS set the schedule:
- Take the exam at least once each renewal cycle until you pass. You don't have to pass it to renew.
- You must pass before you can get a subsequent registration, and a registration can only be renewed for six years.
- There's a 90-day wait between attempts.
- Complete 3 hours of California law and ethics continuing education every renewal, even after you pass.
What's in the app
- 300 practice questions across all six content areas. 180 are foundation questions that teach one rule at a time. 120 are exam-level vignettes written in the style of the BBS's official sample questions, where more than one answer sounds reasonable and you have to choose the most correct one.
- 190 flashcards in 10 decks, for the details the exam leans on: reporting deadlines, ages of consent, who holds privilege, and records retention. Spaced repetition decides what comes back and when.
- Timed mock exams in the real format, with questions drawn in proportion to the outline's weights. No feedback until you submit, and the clock keeps running if you leave. Results break down by content area, so you know where to spend the next week.
- Quick reference pages for mandated reporting, danger to self and others, minors, privilege, records and HIPAA, telehealth, and the rules for associates, each with its sources.
- Test strategy for the question types that trip people up, and a study plan that works backward from your exam date.
Every answer cites its source
Each explanation says why the right answer is right, why the others are weaker, and which statute or code section it rests on, with a link to the source. Law comes from the California codes on leginfo and the BBS statutes and regulations book. Ethics comes from the CAMFT Code of Ethics, cited by section and paraphrased, never pasted.
Everything was written for this project from those primary sources. Nothing was copied from paid prep courses, Pearson's sample questions, or the real exam. Each item records when it was last checked. If you find a mistake, tell us with the section that shows the correct answer, and we'll fix it.
No account, no tracking
Your progress stays in your browser, on your device. The app sends no analytics and makes no network requests except to load its own files. Once it has loaded, it works on the train, in a waiting room, or anywhere else without signal. On a phone, add it to your home screen and it behaves like an installed app. On a computer, you get a wider layout and keyboard shortcuts: A through D to answer, Enter for the next question, and ⌘K (Ctrl+K on Windows) to search.
Why Flowers built it
Flowers makes a Mac app for pre-licensed therapists: supervised hours tracking, progress notes, and session review, with everything kept on your own computer. The people taking the Law & Ethics exam are, for the most part, the people Flowers is for, and free, well-sourced prep seemed like the most useful thing we could add.
You don't need Flowers to use the study app, and nothing in it is shared with Flowers. If you're also logging hours toward licensure, though, here's how Flowers tracks them.