FAQs about the Preliminary Recommendations

NCBE is excited to start working on the new exam, and we aim to have prototypes of integrated exam questions available to share with stakeholders by the end of 2021, if not sooner. Developing prototypes as soon as feasible will be a priority for the implementation team.

NCBE’s psychometricians anticipate a great deal of item format consistency across administrations of the new bar exam to lend consistency to the measurement of knowledge and skills over time. Information of this nature will be provided in the final Test Content Specifications that will be published well in advance of the first administration of the new exam.

NCBE has concluded that an integrated design for the bar exam will best assess the core competencies needed to enter practice. The integrated exam will be developed to measure in a holistic manner both Foundational Concepts & Principles and Foundational Skills. Most of the new test items will be presented in the context of shared scenarios and materials that apply to sets of items rather than to individual questions. We do not know at this time whether or how an exam that is designed to be used as an integrated assessment could be “disintegrated” to create discrete components. However, we are committed to engaging with jurisdictions to discuss their needs and evaluate options for meeting those needs if feasible.

Yes, the new integrated bar exam will still be administered twice per year. At this time, we do not plan to offer the bar exam more frequently.

Based on the current technology available, the Task Force determined that in-person administration of the bar exam is the best way to ensure uniform testing conditions for all candidates. The bar exam has been offered remotely only as an emergency option during the COVID-19 pandemic, when some jurisdictions could not safely administer the exam in person.

NCBE will consider and address accessibility issues when determining delivery options to ensure fairness for all candidates. NCBE’s commitment to fairness and accessibility is one of the reasons the Task Force determined that in-person administration of a computer-based exam is recommended, as accessibility issues can be more readily addressed in an in-person administration environment. Moreover, NCBE has always been committed, and will remain committed, to providing nonstandard test materials to ensure accessibility for candidates with disabilities under the ADAAA.

NCBE has always been committed, and will remain committed, to producing a bar exam that fairly assesses all candidates regardless of race, gender, or ethnicity. We will continue to perform test item review processes and psychometric analyses to ensure fairness. 

The new integrated exam will be given as a single-event summative assessment at or near the point of licensure. This timing is most consistent with the purpose of the bar exam in that it places measurement of the requisite competence as close in time to the award of a license as possible. Additionally, many stakeholders expressed concerns about the potential impact of a multi-event approach on law school curricula and on internship and summer employment opportunities, among other concerns. One of the primary reasons some favored a multi-event approach was to permit testing of legal doctrine closer in time to when students learn the content in law school. We concluded that the new integrated exam’s increased emphasis on assessing skills and more limited scope of coverage of doctrine, using item sets that better approximate the real-world practice of law, address the underlying reasons some stakeholders favored multi-event testing.

The next generation of the bar exam will not be an open-book exam where candidates can bring their own reference materials or notes to the exam. Instead, integrated item sets will incorporate a closed universe of legal resources relevant to the item set. A closed universe of appropriate legal resources (e.g., statutes, cases, rules) will be provided to candidates on the new bar exam for assessing Foundational Skills that are not being measured in the context of the eight Foundational Concepts & Principles, which applicants are expected to know. For example, we anticipate that an MPT-type library, where resources specific to the task candidates are asked to complete, may be provided. The intent is to make the exam more realistic and to reduce the amount of legal knowledge candidates must commit to memory for the exam, while emphasizing skills, such as interpreting and applying law.

• The subjects of Family Law, Trusts and Estates, Conflict of Laws, and Secured Transactions are not included in the Foundational Concepts & Principles (FC&P) that will be assessed on the new exam.
• Decisions about what to include were based upon the Practice Analysis results from Phase 2 and the professional judgment and experience of the lawyers who served on the Blueprint Development Committee during Phase 3. While these subjects are important practice areas, we concluded that the Foundational Concepts & Principles assessed on the new integrated exam should be limited to those that are common to numerous practice areas, consistent with assessing competence for a general license to practice law. However, legal subjects that align with practice areas such as Family Law, but which are not included in the FC&P, may still serve as the context for scenarios in which Foundational Skills are assessed, with appropriate legal resources being provided to candidates.

We expect the process to take several months and hope to complete it by late fall 2021. Developing test content specifications for the new bar exam will be a priority for implementation because they guide test development and inform candidates of the scope of coverage on the exam. The process for creating test content specifications will be a collaborative process involving external subject matter experts such as bar examiners, legal educators, and newly licensed lawyers.

A closed universe of appropriate legal resources (e.g., statutes, cases, rules) will be provided to candidates on the new bar exam for assessing Foundational Skills that are not being measured in the context of the eight Foundational Concepts & Principles, which applicants are expected to know. For example, we anticipate that an MPT-type library, where resources specific to the task candidates are asked to complete, may be provided. The intent is to make the exam more realistic and to reduce the amount of legal knowledge candidates must commit to memory for the exam, while emphasizing skills, such as interpreting and applying law. NCBE will also explore options for testing legal research, which may include providing a database of required materials.

Skills like Negotiation, Client Counseling, and other performance-type skills will be assessed using uniform text- or video-based scenarios to which candidates will respond in writing or by choosing correct answers from multiple options. Content specifications for the Foundational Skills to be assessed on the new integrated exam will be developed collaboratively with stakeholders and will provide objective guidance to candidates about the scope of assessment for each skill.