Since when have conservatives began defending the bar examination? For many years, many on the proper have argued it was an arbitrary barrier to entry into the authorized occupation. Now, some conservatives are arguing that reforms designed to make it a extremely sensible examination are literally selling DEI and wokeness.
This couldn’t be farther from the reality.
As a present Arizona Supreme Court docket justice and a retired Minnesota Supreme Court docket justice, we each served on the judicial advisory committee convened to tell the event of the brand new examination, lots of whose suggestions have been included within the remaining product.
We absolutely endorse the NextGen examination as a rigorous, client-focused evaluation of authorized doctrine and lawyering abilities that moreover serves to facilitate license portability throughout the U.S. — a longstanding conservative precedence.
Each of our states have adopted the brand new bar examination, which will probably be first given in July 2026, and in our jurisdictions in July 2027. Each courts engaged in thorough assessment processes that included analysis of doctrine and abilities content material within the examination, outcomes from pilot and prototype testing, and different related data.
Like all state excessive courts, our courts are accountable for admitting new legal professionals in Arizona and Minnesota. That accountability features a responsibility to make sure, to the extent doable, that solely those that meet our states’ requirements of competence are licensed to follow regulation.
We—and our colleagues throughout the nation — took our accountability significantly in evaluating the NextGen bar examination. Forty-one states and territories have now adopted it, bringing the testing of potential legal professionals into the twenty first Century.
The development of the examination started with a novel concept that additionally occurs to be a greatest follow in licensure exams — the Nationwide Convention of Bar Examiners, the last word creator of the examination, determined to ask greater than 14,800 U.S. legal professionals what subjects needs to be examined on a bar examination. These legal professionals got here from each a part of the US and each conceivable follow and employment, from rural areas to huge cities, and people opinions helped form the brand new examination.
Nor has this mission been hidden from the general public. Because the inception of the NextGen mission in 2018, in depth data was usually revealed in regards to the improvement and efficiency of the brand new examination. Even a cursory assessment of the NextGen web site and associated publications makes it evident that the method is steeped in scientific rigor, knowledge analytics, and oversight by material consultants — legal professionals, judges, and regulation school.
Like the present Uniform Bar Examination, the NextGen bar examination will function an vital bridge among the many states and territories that administer it, facilitating rating portability throughout the U.S. A NextGen bar examination rating earned anyplace within the nation will be transferred for admission functions to another state or territory that elects to simply accept it.
As of as we speak, solely certainly one of the 43 adopting Courts has indicated that it’ll not settle for qualifying scores earned in different NextGen jurisdictions.
Over 70,000 attorneys have taken benefit of the rating portability program supplied by way of the present examination, and portability continues to be a compelling argument for a nationally administered and accepted bar examination.
At no level has the Nationwide Convention of Bar Examiners asserted that its goal in growing the NextGen examination was to make it simpler than the present bar examination, as some have recently and falsely claimed, nor has convention made that argument to our courts. As with the present bar examination, it’s the highest court docket in every of the 43 states that determines what a passing rating is, not the Nationwide Convention of Bar Examiners.
The NextGen bar examination will extra intently replicate day-to-day regulation follow by requiring utility of authorized information to client-oriented duties, together with demonstrating mastery of foundational authorized topics corresponding to constitutional and felony regulation, torts, property, and contracts. The brand new examination additionally requires profitable examinees to grasp and apply the ideas {of professional} accountability — important to authorized ethics — to make sure legal professionals are ready to navigate the complexities of the attorney-client relationship.
By the point the NextGen examination launches, over 10,500 third-year regulation college students and new legal professionals may have examined the content material by way of pilot, area, prototype, and beta administrations. All NextGen bar examination questions generate efficiency statistics which can be analyzed by psychometricians, lawyer check editors, and material consultants to guarantee acceptable problem, readability, and suitability for a high-stakes licensure examination.
From our perspective, the brand new bar examination will measure not merely e-book studying, however the demonstrated potential to follow regulation. Members of the authorized occupation from throughout the political spectrum ought to assist this variation.
Justice Clint Bolick is a sitting member of the Arizona Supreme Court docket and retired Justice G. Barry Anderson is a former member of the Minnesota Supreme Court docket.