Montana Lawyer April/May 2024

New Bar Exam Set to Launch in 2026 Seventeen Jurisdictions Have Announced Plans to Use the New Exam; More to Follow Aspiring lawyers will soon begin taking a new bar exam designed to test the knowledge and skills needed by new attorneys entering practice today. The launch of the NextGen bar exam in July 2026 will mark the biggest transforma tion of legal licensure in a generation. The new exam is being developed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE), which currently develops bar exam content for 54 of 56 US jurisdictions. The NextGen exam will replace the current Uniform Bar Examination (UBE), Multistate Bar Examination (MBE), Multistate Essay Examination (MEE), and Multistate Performance Test (MPT) and, like the UBE, will serve as the basis for score portability between participat ing jurisdictions. The current UBE will remain available to jurisdictions through February 2028. The Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE), which tests rules of profes sional responsibility, is not affected by this change. Seventeen jurisdictions have already announced plans to adopt the NextGen bar exam. Montana’s Board of Bar Examiners has yet to formally announce whether it will adopt the NextGen bar exam. Connecticut, Guam, Maryland, Missouri, Oregon, and Washington will first administer the exam in July 2026; Arizona, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Vermont, and Wyoming intend to first administer it in July 2027; and Colorado, Kansas, and Utah will hold their first administration in July 2028. 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 administered over one and a half days, with six hours of testing time on day one and three hours on day two. Jurisdictions that administer their own local law components may elect to extend day two for that purpose. The

current bar exam is typically adminis tered in 12 hours over two full days. An Exam Designed for a Changing Profession Designed to reflect the work per formed by newly licensed attorneys, the NextGen bar exam will test nine areas of legal doctrine (civil procedure, contract law, evidence, torts, busi ness associations, constitutional law, criminal law, real property, family law) and seven foundational lawyering skills (legal research, legal writing, issue spotting and analysis, investigation and evaluation, client counseling and advis ing, negotiation and dispute resolution, client relationship and management). Tenets of attorney ethics will also be tested in conjunction with other topics and skills. The new exam will balance the skills and knowledge needed in litigation and transactional legal practice and will reflect many of the key changes that law schools are making to their own curricula, building on the successes of clinical legal education programs, al ternative dispute resolution programs, legal research, and legal writing and analysis programs. The subjects and skills to be tested were developed through a multi-year, nationwide legal practice analy sis focused on the most important knowledge and skills for newly licensed lawyers (defined as lawyers within their first three years in practice). The prac tice analysis surveyed over 14,000 US attorneys, focusing on both seasoned attorneys supervising newly licensed attorneys and newly licensed attorneys themselves.

A Rigorous Development Process The NextGen bar exam is being developed utilizing a rigorous process that includes multiple phases of testing and statistical analysis. The develop ment process is being conducted in accordance with the same best practices in licensure exam development utilized by a broad range of exams, including those for medicine, dentistry, pharma cy, engineering, accounting, and other licensed professions. Questions for the NextGen bar exam are being written by diverse teams of law professors and deans, practicing attorneys, and judges drawn from jurisdictions throughout the US. Sample questions for the new exam are available on NCBE’s website. A nationwide field test conducted at 88 US law schools earlier this year helped NCBE gather key data and feedback on the new question types that will appear on the NextGen exam. This fall, a full-length prototype exam will be held in jurisdictions across the coun try. Data gathered from the prototype exam will allow NCBE to compare performance on the NextGen exam with performance on the current bar exam, providing a statistical foundation that jurisdictions can then use to set their passing scores for the new exam. The prototype exam will also provide participating jurisdictions with valuable experience administering a full-length NextGen-style exam.

APRIL-MAY 2024

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