NCBE Announces January 2026 Beta Test for NextGen Uniform Bar Examination 

Media Contact: communications@ncbex.org

MADISON, WISCONSIN, October 31, 2025—The National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) today announced details of its upcoming NextGen Uniform Bar Examination (NextGen UBE) Beta Test, a large-scale administration taking place January 8–10, 2026, across select law schools in Boston, Dallas, New York City, and Miami. 

The Beta Test represents one of the final milestones in NCBE’s multiyear initiative to design, develop, and validate the NextGen UBE ahead of its official July 2026 launch. Approximately 1,800 examinees who sat for the July 2025 bar exam will participate, offering a full-scale opportunity to evaluate the exam’s systems, scoring workflows, and candidate experience under live testing conditions. 

“The January Beta Test is the ultimate readiness test for the NextGen Uniform Bar Exam,” said Judith A. Gundersen, President and CEO of NCBE. “It’s the culmination of years of research, collaboration, and innovation to ensure that the new exam delivers the reliability, fairness, and confidence jurisdictions and examinees expect from NCBE.” 

Eight Years of Research, Development, and Collaboration 

For the past decade, NCBE has partnered with jurisdiction representatives, law schools, psychometricians, and legal experts to create a licensing exam that reflects how new lawyers actually practice law. The NextGen UBE integrates multiple-choice questions, question sets, and performance tasks to assess the application of legal knowledge and skills rather than rote memorization.  

Over the course of the exam’s development, NCBE has: 

• Completed multiple pilot and prototype studies involving more than 10,000 examinees to refine question types and timing. 
  
• Validated exam content through rigorous psychometric analyses to ensure fairness and reliability. 
  
• Stress-tested the digital platform to confirm stability, security, and redundancy.
• Conducted full mock administrations to evaluate and improve the end-to-end process. 

Purpose of the Beta Test 

The January Beta Test will simulate a complete operational administration of the NextGen UBE—testing every system, safeguard, and workflow from candidate registration through post-exam reporting. 

Key objectives include: 

• Confirming the functionality of jurisdiction workflows through the new Jurisdiction Portal.
• Validating candidate readiness steps through NCBE’s secure “Ready-to-Sit” process.
• Testing end-to-end exam administration, including check-in, timing, and delivery.
• Evaluating content performance and measurement quality for reliability and fairness.
• Testing the newly constructed response scoring system and process of double grading.
• Verifying system security, data integrity, and controlled disruptions and redundancies processes.
• Confirming post-exam scoring and reporting accuracy, including the new Bar Exam Transcript. 

Participating Locations 

• Fordham University School of Law, New York, NY
• Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law, Dallas, TX
• Suffolk University Law School, Boston, MA
• University of Massachusetts School of Law, Dartmouth, MA
• University of Miami School of Law, Miami, FL 
   

Examinees approved for extended-time accommodations will begin testing January 8 at Suffolk University; all others will test January 9–10. 

Next Steps 

Following the Beta Test, NCBE will release preliminary findings by March 1, 2026, including metrics on system performance, candidate and jurisdiction feedback, and operational lessons learned. A comprehensive public report will follow on May 1, 2026, with detailed psychometric analyses and end-to-end results. 

“This Beta Test will confirm readiness for the July 2026 launch,” Gundersen added. “It’s a pivotal moment for the future of bar admissions – grounded in data, transparency, and trust.” 

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About the National Conference of Bar Examiners  

The National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE), headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin, is a not-for-profit corporation founded in 1931. NCBE promotes fairness, integrity, and best practices in bar admissions for the benefit and protection of the public, in pursuit of its vision of a competent, ethical, and diverse legal profession. Best known for developing bar exam content used by 54 US jurisdictions, NCBE serves admission authorities, courts, the legal education community, and candidates by providing high-quality assessment products, services, and research; character investigations; and informational and educational resources and programs. In 2026, NCBE will launch the next generation of the bar examination, ensuring that the exam continues to test the knowledge, skills, and abilities required for competent entry-level legal practice in a changing profession. For more information, visit the NCBE website at https://www.ncbex.org.  

About the NextGen Uniform Bar Exam  

Set to debut in July 2026, the NextGen UBE will test a broad range of foundational legal doctrine and lawyering skills in the context of the current practice of law. The skills and concepts to be tested were developed through a nationwide legal practice analysis and reflect the most important knowledge and skills for newly licensed lawyers in both litigation and transactional practice. NCBE is committed to ensuring a systematic, transparent, and collaborative implementation process, informed by input from and participation by stakeholders, and guided by best practices and the professional standards for high-stakes testing. For more information, visit https://www.ncbex.org/exams/nextgen.