FAQs about Recommendations

Prototypes will be released to the public, including the jurisdictions, law schools, bar prep providers, and candidates, once they are vetted through our pilot test and field test phases. As test development continues beyond these phases, we will make study aids available as soon as possible.

NCBE’s psychometricians anticipate a great deal of item format consistency across administrations of the NextGen bar exam to lend consistency to the measurement of knowledge and skills over time. Information of this nature will be provided in the final Test Content Specifications that will be published well in advance of the first administration of the NextGen exam.

NCBE has concluded that an integrated design for the bar exam will best assess the core competencies needed to enter practice. The integrated exam will be developed to measure in a holistic manner both Foundational Concepts & Principles and Foundational Skills. Most of the new test items will be presented in the context of shared scenarios and materials that apply to sets of items rather than to individual questions. Like the current Multistate Bar Examination (MBE), the NextGen bar exam may be used by individual jurisdictions as the basis for scaling of their own bar exam components.

Yes, the NextGen bar exam will still be administered twice per year, in February and July.

Based on the current technology available, the Task Force determined that in-person administration of the bar exam is the best way to ensure uniform testing conditions for all candidates. The bar exam has been offered remotely only as an emergency option during the COVID-19 pandemic, when some jurisdictions could not safely administer the exam in person.

NCBE will consider and address accessibility issues when determining delivery options to ensure fairness for all candidates. NCBE’s commitment to fairness and accessibility is one of the reasons the Task Force determined that in-person administration of a computer-based exam is recommended, as accessibility issues can be more readily addressed in an in-person administration environment. Moreover, NCBE has always been committed, and will remain committed, to providing nonstandard test materials to ensure accessibility for candidates with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act, as amended.

NCBE has always been committed to producing a bar exam that fairly assesses all candidates regardless of race, gender, or ethnicity. We will continue to perform test item review processes and psychometric analyses to ensure fairness. For a detailed description of how we ensure fairness in our exams, see the Diversity, Fairness, and Inclusion page of NCBE’s website at https://ncbex.org/about/diversity-fairness-and-inclusion/.

The NextGen exam will be given as a single-event summative assessment at or near the point of licensure. This timing is most consistent with the purpose of the bar exam in that it places measurement of the requisite competence as close in time to the award of a license as possible. Additionally, many stakeholders expressed concerns about the potential impact of a multi-event approach on law school curricula and on internship and summer employment opportunities, among other concerns. One of the primary reasons some favored a multi-event approach was to permit testing of legal doctrine closer in time to when students learn the content in law school. We concluded that the NextGen exam’s increased emphasis on assessing skills and more focused scope of coverage of doctrine, using item sets that better approximate the real-world practice of law, address the underlying reasons some stakeholders favored multi-event testing.

The preliminary Content Scope Outlines are available on our website. They are just the first step in preparing the Test Content Specifications—the “blueprint” for the new exam. The Test Content Specifications will provide more details, such as the sources of law for the topics tested, the weighting or emphasis of the subjects/topics and skills, and sample test questions illustrating how the knowledge and skills may be tested in an integrated design. Additional annotations about what is covered within subjects/topics may also be added. Finally, the organization and structure of the Test Content Specifications may be different than the organization and structure of the Content Scope Outlines.

A closed universe of appropriate legal resources (e.g., statutes, cases, rules) will be provided to candidates on the NextGen bar exam for assessing Foundational Skills that are not being measured in the context of the eight Foundational Concepts & Principles, which applicants are expected to know. For example, we anticipate that an MPT-type library, where resources specific to the task candidates are asked to complete, may be provided. The intent is to make the exam more realistic and to reduce the amount of legal knowledge candidates must commit to memory for the exam, while emphasizing skills, such as interpreting and applying law. NCBE is exploring options for testing legal research.

Skills like Negotiation, Client Counseling, and other performance-type skills will be assessed using uniform text-based scenarios to which candidates will respond in writing or by choosing correct answers from multiple options. The test content specifications for the Foundational Skills to be assessed on the NextGen exam will provide guidance to candidates about the scope of assessment for each skill.