Overview of the NextGen UBE
The NextGen UBE is a summative assessment administered following completion of legal education and prior to licensure as a practicing attorney. It is designed to evaluate the knowledge and skills required for entry-level legal practice.
The NextGen UBE builds on the foundation of the legacy Uniform Bar Examination (UBE) while reflecting an evolution in how legal competence is assessed. In particular, the NextGen UBE places greater emphasis on the integration of legal knowledge and lawyering skills, assessing not only what examinees know, but how effectively they apply that knowledge in realistic legal contexts.
As with the legacy UBE, the NextGen UBE is administered in a standardized manner across participating jurisdictions. This standardization supports the production of valid, reliable, and comparable scores, while jurisdictions retain authority over admission decisions, including setting passing standards and determining whether to accept transferred scores.
Exam Structure
The NextGen UBE is delivered across three sections, administered over multiple sessions.
Each section includes a combination of
- Selected-response questions (single-select and multi-select multiple-choice); and
- Constructed-response tasks (integrated question sets and performance tasks).
Unlike the legacy UBE, where different question types were administered as separate exam components (i.e., MBE, MEE, MPT), the NextGen UBE integrates all question types within each section. This integrated structure is designed to better reflect how legal tasks are performed in practice, where multiple skills are often used together.
Each section is timed, and all examinees are required to complete the full exam in a single administration within a single jurisdiction. Scores are not earned or combined across multiple administrations.
Content and Blueprint
The NextGen UBE assesses both
- foundational legal knowledge; and
- foundational lawyering skills.
Foundational Legal Knowledge
The exam tests the following core areas of doctrinal law that are fundamental to entry-level legal practice:
- Business Associations and Relationships
- Civil Procedure
- Constitutional Law
- Contracts
- Criminal Law and Constitutional Protections of Accused Persons
- Evidence
- Real Property
- Torts
These areas provide the substantive legal framework within which examinees are asked to analyze problems and make decisions.
Foundational Lawyering Skills
In addition to doctrinal knowledge, the NextGen UBE assesses a range of skills essential to legal practice, including:
- Issue spotting and legal analysis
- Investigation and evaluation of facts
- Client counseling and advising
- Legal research and interpretation of provided materials
- Legal writing and drafting
These skills are assessed through tasks that require examinees to apply legal principles to realistic scenarios.
Use of Provided Resources
Some questions include legal resources such as statutes, regulations, or case law. In these instances, examinees are expected to work with the provided materials rather than rely solely on memorized knowledge. This reflects the way legal work is performed in practice and allows the exam to assess how examinees interpret and use legal authorities.
Administration Model
The NextGen UBE is administered in person using a digital delivery platform.
Examinees complete the exam on their own devices using a secure browser. The administration is supported by a coordinated team that includes room leads, proctors, technical proctors, and NCBE site leads.
This delivery model is designed to balance
- standardization, ensuring that testing conditions are consistent across jurisdictions;
- flexibility, allowing jurisdictions to manage local logistics such as test sites and staffing; and
- operational visibility, enabling real-time monitoring of exam progress and issue resolution.
Because the exam is delivered digitally, certain operational elements differ from the legacy exam, including
- real-time system monitoring;
- device and connectivity troubleshooting; and
- digital capture and transmission of responses.
These elements are addressed in detail in later sections of this manual.
Scoring and Score Services
The NextGen UBE uses a centralized scoring model designed to ensure consistency and comparability across jurisdictions.
Scoring Model
- Selected-response questions are scored centrally.
- Constructed responses are graded using standardized rubrics and calibrated grading processes.
- Responses are evaluated by trained graders, with processes in place to support consistency and resolve discrepancies.
All scoring data are submitted through a centralized digital grading platform.
Score Calculation
NCBE performs
- equating, to ensure comparability across administrations;
- scaling, to place scores on a common scale; and
- score calculation, combining performance across all components of the exam.
This centralized approach ensures that scores earned in different jurisdictions and at different administrations are directly comparable.
Score Reporting
NCBE is responsible for reporting official scores to jurisdictions. Jurisdictions then use those scores in accordance with their own admission policies, including
- establishing passing standards;
- determining admission outcomes; and
- deciding whether to accept transferred scores.
Score Portability
The NextGen UBE supports score portability, meaning that examinees may transfer their scores between jurisdictions, subject to each jurisdiction’s policies. This framework is intended to support mobility while preserving jurisdictional autonomy.
Additional detail regarding grading processes, score reporting timelines, and score use is provided in later sections of this manual.