The Ohio Supreme Court has announced that in July of 2028, Ohio will adopt the NextGen Bar Exam, replacing the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE) which Ohio has administered since July of 2020. The NextGen Bar Exam, like the UBE, comes from the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE). The Conference has introduced the NextGen Bar Exam “to reflect the work performed by newly licensed attorneys.” Changes to The NextGen Bar will include new question types, the addition of family law to the tested subjects, and a reduction of exam time from two full days to one and a half days. The total hours of the test are reduced from twelve hours to nine. The question type new to the NextGen exam will be the Inegrated Question Sets. These are multiple-choice and short-answer questions that require the test taker to answer multiple questions in response to a single document or fact pattern. Sample questions of the NextGen Bar Exam are available on the NCBE website, ncbex.org.
Seeing a new exam on the horizon can be daunting for students anticipating graduation in the coming years. Current 1Ls and 2LEs may expect to be administered one of the last iterations of the UBE in Ohio while first-year part-time students and incoming classes can look forward to the NextGen Bar Exam. For both exams, students will continue to take supplemental testing on Ohio-specific materials in the Ohio Law Component as well as professional ethics in the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam. The Ohio Law Component may be adjusted in coming years to ensure a proper pairing with the NextGen Bar Exam.
The NCBE began development of the NextGen Bar Exam in 2021. The NextGen Bar exam is set for its debut in 2026 in the states of Connecticut, Maryland, Missouri, Oregon, and Washington as well as Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. More jurisdictions are set to adopt the new test in 2026, 2027, and 2028, with Ohio being the 34th jurisdiction to adopt the exam.
Comments