In July 2026, the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) will debut its rebooted test, the NextGen Bar Exam. The NextGen Bar Exam will implement the recommendations of a three-year study convened in 2018 to research the legal knowledge and practical skills required of newly licensed lawyers, which the NCBE trustees approved in January 2021.
In the past year, the NCBE has released more information about the NextGen Bar Exam, reducing some uncertainty about the new test among stakeholders. At the same time, these releases have generated more questions, and in some cases, concern about the new exam. The recent news that the current Uniform Bar Exam (UBE) will be phased out after the February 2028 administration has heightened some of these concerns. Here, we will focus on what we know about the NextGen Bar Exam, based on information the NCBE has released to date.
Fewer areas of law will be covered in the NextGen Bar Exam
Regarding content, examinees will be pleased to learn that the NCBE has reduced the breadth of subjects tested on the NextGen Bar Exam. Certain subjects currently tested on the UBE, the NCBE concluded, are not areas of law that new lawyers are likely to encounter. These areas include Conflicts of Laws, Trusts and Estates, and Secured Transactions. Except when examinees are provided with legal resources containing rules involving these subjects, they will not appear on the NextGen Bar Exam. Examinees should, however, expect to be tested on the remaining UBE subjects. In addition, examinees will be asked to address some issues concerning Professional Responsibility, but not in the context of stand-alone questions. Importantly, the NextGen Bar Exam is not replacing the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination. More information on the NextGen Bar Exam content can be found in the NCBE’s NextGen Bar Exam Content Scope, released earlier this year.
Be prepared to know some topics without using legal resources
While the breadth of subjects tested on the new exam is less than the UBE, the NextGen Bar Exam Content Scope explains that examinees will be expected to have a deeper understanding of some topics than others. For certain topics, examinees must rely solely on recalled knowledge without the provision of legal resources. Other topics, though, may be tested with or without the provision of legal resources, and examinees will be expected to have sufficient understanding of the topics to demonstrate their ability to recognize when the topics are at issue. This is another deviation from the UBE, which does not make distinctions between levels of knowledge examinees are expected to have for certain topics.
NextGen Bar Exam format changing on multiple choice and writing tasks
As for the NextGen Bar Exam’s format, examinees will spend less than half of their time, answering stand-alone, multiple-choice questions. These questions may contain between four and six answer choices, with possibly more than one correct answer. Examinees will spend the remaining time of the exam engaged in longer writing tasks and what the NCBE has called “integrated question sets.” The longer writing tasks will likely be very similar to the current Multistate Performance Test. The integrated question sets are likely the most significant format change from the UBE. These questions will be based on a common scenario and test a blend of both legal doctrine and foundational skills (including issues related to Professional Responsibility) and will be comprised of both multiple-choice and short-answer questions. Some of these foundational skills include issue spotting and analysis, client counseling and advising, legal research and legal drafting. The NCBE recently released some sample NextGen Bar Exam questions in July 2023, with more expected to come. More information concerning the foundational skills tested on the new exam can be found in the NCBE’s NextGen Bar Exam Content Scope.
NextGen Bar Exam length shortened by three hours
Finally, the NCBE is reducing the bar exam from 12 hours to nine hours. Currently, the UBE consists of one day (six hours) of multiple-choice questions (the Multistate Bar Exam) and one day (six hours) of writing (the Multistate Essay Exam and the Multistate Performance Test). The NextGen Bar Exam, though, will consist of two three-hour sessions on the first day and one three-hour session on the second. Each session will have the same structure, comprised of multiple-choice questions, a longer writing task or tasks and an integrated question set or sets.
More information concerning the NextGen Bar Exam’s structure can found in this recent update and the first sample of the NextGen Bar Exam questions released in July 2023.
