New attorney licensure exam will include testing of legal knowledge and essential lawyering skills
NextGen Bar Exam Adoption as of July 18, 2024
NextGen and NCBE Logos
MADISON, WISCONSIN, July 18, 2024 – Most people hope they never have to hire a lawyer, but every day, lawyers help ordinary Americans navigate the ins and outs of the laws that govern their lives. Almost all of us will cross paths with a lawyer at some point—whether it’s to deal with a speeding ticket or settle a dispute with a neighbor. And of course, lawyers handle much weightier subjects, too, from murder trials to corporate mergers to defending the US Constitution.
Such important issues require professionals who fully understand today’s legal environment, which is why most state supreme courts require lawyers to pass the bar exam.
Now a new bar exam is coming. The NextGen bar exam, which is set to launch in July 2026, is designed to test the knowledge and skills needed by today’s new attorneys. The new bar exam marks the biggest change to the way lawyers are licensed in a generation. And it comes at a time when the work lawyers do is more important—and more challenging—than ever.
The NextGen bar exam is being developed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE), a nonprofit organization that currently develops bar exam content for 54 of 56 US states and territories. The NextGen bar exam will replace the Multistate Bar Examination, Multistate Essay Examination, and Multistate Performance Test, which in many US jurisdictions are combined into a single bar exam.
The new bar exam will test nine core areas of legal knowledge and seven foundational lawyering skills. To choose which subjects and skills to test, NCBE surveyed more than 14,000 attorneys across the country to determine what newly licensed lawyers need to know and be able to do.
Twenty states and one territory have already announced plans to use the new exam, with Florida the most recent. Connecticut, Guam, Maryland, Missouri, Oregon, and Washington will begin using the NextGen exam in 2026; Arizona, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont, and Wyoming will start in 2027; and Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, and Utah will make the switch in 2028. And more states and territories are expected to sign on in the next year.
The rigorous process NCBE is using to develop the NextGen bar exam includes multiple phases of testing and statistical analysis. These help make sure the new exam tests what it’s supposed to test accurately and fairly. The same process is followed for many other important exams, including those for medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, engineering, accounting, and other licensed professions.
Questions for the NextGen bar exam are being written by law professors and deans, practicing attorneys, and judges from jurisdictions throughout the US.
Like the current bar exam, the NextGen bar exam will be administered, and the written portions graded, by the individual US jurisdictions. The exam will be given over one and a half days, with six hours of testing time on day one and three hours on day two. The current bar exam is typically administered in 12 hours over two full days.
