Bar Exam ReVamp We’ve Been Waiting For?

Big news for future lawyers: starting July 2026, the bar exam is getting its first major makeover in 25 years—and honestly, it’s about time.

The new version, called the NextGen UBE, will be shorter, less memorization-heavy, and way more focused on real-world lawyering skills. Instead of grinding through 12 hours of testing, you'll now spend just 9 hours across three 3-hour sessions: one for multiple choice, one for integrated questions, and one for performance tasks (you know, the kind of stuff you might actually do in practice).

According to Reuters, the multiple-choice section is shrinking from 200 to 120 questions, and performance tasks are getting a glow-up—making up 30% of your score, up from 20%.

Kara McWilliams, the National Conference of Bar Examiners' chief product officer, says this redesign is based on "thousands of hours" of research and pretesting, and aims to give clearer guidance to law students and educators. So yeah, they’re not just winging it.

In a world where ChatGPT can summarize a court case faster than you can finish your coffee, this shift makes a lot of sense. The new exam is leaning into the stuff that AI can’t do (at least not yet)—like applying legal judgment, writing persuasively, and thinking on your feet.

TL;DR: less cramming, more critical thinking. If you’re planning to take the bar after mid-2026, your study plan might look a little different—but maybe a little more human, too.

Full Article Here: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/details-emerge-about-new-national-bar-exam-with-anticipation-high-2025-06-04/