Role Reversal: Some Late UBE Adopters Now Early NextGen Adopters
Nebraska recently announced that it would be the ninth jurisdiction to administer the NextGen Bar Exam, implementing the new exam for the first time in July 2027.
So far, Maryland, Missouri, and Oregon have announced they will administer the NextGen Bar Exam on the first opportunity to do so when the National Conference of Bar Examiners makes it available in July 2026. Arizona, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska, and Wyoming have announced they will administer the new exam in July 2027. Although Connecticut has announced that it is adopting the NextGen Bar Exam, it has not committed to its first administration. No jurisdiction has announced a February 2027 adoption. (The current bar exam, and the NextGen Bar Exam, are (and will be) administered each February and July.)
What's interesting about these eight jurisdictions that have confirmed their first administration of the NextGen Bar Exam is that both early adopters and late adopters of the current Uniform Bar Exam are equally represented.
The NCBE first introduced the Uniform Bar Exam with the February 2011 bar exam. Missouri and North Dakota were the first two jurisdictions to administer the UBE in February 2011, so it should be no surprise that Missouri announced that it would be one of the first jurisdictions to adopt the NextGen Bar Exam. (We're still waiting for you, North Dakota!)
But it is a bit surprising (at least to me!) that some late adopters of the UBE are quickly jumping on board with the NextGen Bar Exam. Take Kentucky, for example. It took Kentucky a total of 21 administrations of the bar exam since February 2011 before it administered the UBE in the Commonwealth for the first time in February 2021. Yet, it has agreed to administer the NextGen Bar Exam on its third administration in July 2027.
Maryland is another example of a late-adopter-turned-early-adopter. It took Maryland a total of 18 administrations between February 20111 and July 2019 to administer the UBE. But it's going to be one of the first three jurisdictions (so far) to administer the NextGen Bar Exam in July 2026.
Perhaps this shift from late-to-early adopters indicates a growing recognition of the importance of staying current with national trends in legal education and testing.
Look at the charts below. The bar chart displays the administration counts for the first UBE and NextGen Bar Exams in the eight jurisdictions that have announced administration dates for the NextGen Bar Exam. The blue bars represent UBE counts, and the green bars represent NextGen counts.
The following table that follows represents the same data.
Who might be the 10th jurisdiction to announcement adoption of the NextGen Bar Exam? Will some of the early UBE adopters follow in the footsteps of Missouri, Arizona, Nebraska, and Wyoming and make announcements soon? These early UBE adopters include North Dakota, Alabama, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah.
Or will some of late UBE adopters decide to make another change so soon after having just made a change, like Maryland and Kentucky? These late UBE adopters include Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Oklahoma.
