If you started law school in fall 2023 or later, get ready for something completely different: the NextGen bar exam 2026. This isn’t just a small update to the current test—it’s a complete reimagining of how we assess whether new lawyers are ready to practice.
The National Conference of Bar Examiners has spent years developing this new exam through task forces, focus groups, and extensive evaluation. The goal? Create a more valid measure of the knowledge and skills new lawyers actually need. And we think that’s a really positive change.
What Is the NextGen Bar Exam Replacing?
The NextGen bar exam will replace the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE), which has been around since 2011. The current UBE has three components: the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) with 200 multiple-choice questions over two three-hour sessions, the Multistate Essay Exam (MEE) with six 30-minute essays, and the Multistate Performance Test (MPT) with two 90-minute tasks. That adds up to 12 hours of testing spread over two days.
Because almost all U.S. jurisdictions use at least some UBE components—39 states plus D.C. and the Virgin Islands use the full UBE—this change will affect bar exam preparation virtually everywhere except Louisiana and Puerto Rico.
Why Create a New Bar Exam?
The driving force behind NextGen is reducing the overwhelming amount of material tested while putting more emphasis on practical lawyering skills. Let’s be honest: memorization is the biggest hurdle to bar success for a lot of people. The current exam requires you to memorize massive amounts of picky details that, in practice, any competent lawyer would look up rather than rely on memory.
With NextGen, some legal information will actually be provided as part of the exam materials. You’ll still need to know the law, but you won’t have to memorize every single detail about, say, the number of days for responding to a pleading. Instead, the exam will focus on bigger core concepts and your ability to apply them.
What Subjects Made the Cut?
Here’s where things get interesting. The current UBE tests Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law and Procedure, Evidence, Real Property, and Torts in both multiple-choice and essay form. Then there are additional essay-only topics: Agency, Conflict of Laws, Corporations, Family Law, Partnerships, Secured Transactions, Trusts, and Wills.
The NextGen bar exam is slimming this down. The surviving subjects are basically the current MBE subjects plus Business Associations. So it’s Business Associations (Agency, Corporations, and Partnerships), Civil Procedure, Contracts, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law and Procedure, Evidence, Real Property, and Torts.
What’s gone? Conflicts, Family Law, Secured Transactions, Trusts, and Wills won’t be tested anymore. There will also be reduced coverage within each surviving topic. You should check the NCBE website for more detailed information on the Content Scope and Sourcebooks for the NextGen exam.
The NCBE prioritized subjects based on how frequently they arise in entry-level practice, whether they’re relevant across multiple practice areas, and whether not knowing the topic would pose a significant risk of malpractice or poor client outcomes.
New Question Formats: “Integrated Question Sets”
This might be the most dramatic shift. The current exam separates question types—MBE is all multiple choice, MEE is all essays, MPT is legal writing tasks. NextGen introduces something called “integrated question sets.”
Here’s how it works: you’ll get a case file that raises legal questions and requires you to use foundational lawyering skills. For example, you might receive a file that includes a police report, a statute for assault and battery, and an excerpt from a case interpreting that statute. Then you’ll answer a series of questions about this scenario.
Some questions will be short written answers, like identifying a fact in the police report that would prove the “knowingly” element of the statute. Others might ask you to list ways to gather more evidence on a particular issue. And yes, there will still be some multiple-choice questions tied to the case file.
The scenario might even develop as you go. After answering the first set of questions, you could receive additional information—like a transcript of a witness interview—and then answer new questions based on this expanded file. The questions won’t be cumulative (so one wrong answer won’t cascade into more errors), but you’ll need to work through increasingly complex scenarios.
It’s essentially like the MPT plus substantive knowledge. The MPT never required you to know the law beforehand because everything was in the materials. These new integrated question sets combine that practical, file-based approach with the need to know and apply legal rules.
Skills Beyond Memorization
The MPT already tests legal writing, issue-spotting, analysis, and some client counseling. NextGen keeps all of that but adds more practical skills: research, investigation and evaluation, negotiation and dispute resolution, and client relationship management.
If you’ve made it through law school, you’ve been developing these skills for three years. The bar prep period becomes about polishing and focusing them rather than learning entirely new capabilities.
When Does This Start?
Some jurisdictions will begin administering the NextGen bar exam in July 2026. First-year law students starting in fall 2023 will be the first cohort taking this new exam upon graduation (assuming they graduate in May 2026 and sit in July).
Here’s the tricky part: not all jurisdictions will switch at the same time. You can check the NCBE website to see whether and when your target jurisdiction will be changing.
One positive note: NextGen will maintain score portability, just like the UBE. However, questions remain about how UBE scores will transfer to NextGen jurisdictions during the transition, and vice versa.
How Will Bar Prep Change?
Some existing test prep materials will remain useful for reviewing substantive law, since the tested subjects are mostly the current MBE subjects plus Business Associations. There will just be less depth of coverage.
But the bar prep industry will need to generate completely new materials reflecting the integrated assessment format and the emphasis on skills. What those materials look like is anyone’s guess right now. Bar prep companies will need guidance from the NCBE—hopefully including released subject matter outlines and sample questions—before they can fully respond to this transition.
The good news? Materials generated for the MPT will retain some relevance. The whole idea of reading a case file and extracting information is very similar to these new integrated assessments. The difference is what you do with that information—instead of writing a memo or brief, you’ll answer specific questions about the file.
Is This Actually Better?
Yes, we think it’s a very positive change, though there will be challenges. The reduced memorization burden should make bar prep much less stressful and overwhelming (though, of course, you’ll still need strategies for managing bar stress!). The skills being tested are things you’ve been practicing throughout law school—issue spotting, analysis, applying law to facts. These don’t require brand-new learning, just focused practice.
The exam will only be 9 hours, compared to the current 12-hour marathon, which is better for everyone, but especially helpful for students who need accommodations.
On the flip side, these integrated question sets have the potential to be dense and reading-heavy. Time pressure could remain an issue for many test-takers, even though the NCBE says they’re specifically looking at timing during pilot testing.
The transition period will create some unfortunate scenarios. Someone who fails the final UBE administration in their jurisdiction will face a completely different exam format when retaking. And there will be uncertainty about how materials and preparation strategies translate from the old exam to the new one.
What Should You Do Now?
If you started law school in fall 2023 or later, embrace this change. You’re getting a better exam than your predecessors had to take. You’ll have more flexibility in choosing coursework without worrying about whether every single class appears on the bar exam.
Focus on developing practical skills throughout law school. Even if you don’t think you have these skills yet, you’re building them every time you analyze a case, write a memo, or work through a fact pattern. By the time you graduate, you’ll have the foundation you need.
For students and bar examinees closer to test day, realize that you’ve already developed many of these necessary skills through your work experience and law school education. The practical, skill-based aspect of NextGen has the potential to be an asset rather than an obstacle. And, of course, as you prepare, watch out for common self-sabotaging behavior that can undermine even the best study plans.
The Bottom Line
The NextGen bar exam 2026 represents a significant shift toward testing what new lawyers actually need to know and do. Less memorization, more practical application. Fewer obscure details, more realistic lawyering tasks. It’s not perfect—no licensing exam can truly capture the diversity of legal practice—but it’s an improvement.
We’re all going to have to sit back and see what happens as more details emerge about which jurisdictions go first, what the subject matter outlines look like, and how sample questions actually work. But if you’re facing this new exam, you’re fortunate to be taking a test that better reflects the skills you’ll use in practice.
For more details on the NextGen bar exam and what it means for your preparation, check out this episode where we talk with an experienced bar tutor and law professor about the changes to the bar exam.
Ready to pass the bar exam? Get the support and accountability you need with personalized one-on-one bar exam tutoring or one of our economical courses and workshops. We’re here to help!
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