Pennsylvania has chosen not to adopt the NextGen Bar Exam when it first rolls out in July 2026.

Pennsylvania currently uses the Uniform Bar Examination (UBE) test format for prospective attorneys, adopting it in July 2022.

“It’s major for the commonwealth to have announced they will not be an early adopter,” said Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University Director of Bar Studies Ashley London. “The NextGen Bar Exam should be a complete sea change from the memorization-heavy bar exam as it exists today.”

The NextGen exam is set to take nine (9) hours to complete divided across two days, according to an end-of-August announcement by the National Conference of Bar Examiners. Each of the three-hour sessions will include two integrated question sets, one performance task, and 40 multiple choice questions each.

Ultimately, the Pennsylvania Board’s decision allows test takers and law schools more time to prepare for the new exam format.

“I think that it’s incumbent upon the bar to really make the case for a transparent process for students to prepare as successfully as they can,” said Temple University Beasley School of Law Dean Rachel Rebouche. “Having as much participation in what this test looks like and is administered is really important.”

There are only eight multiple choice question examples and six integrated question examples currently available on the NextGen Bar Exam website, with no samples currently available for longer writing tasks.

The transition to the NextGen test may call back to several concerns when the UBE was first implemented in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania currently holds the highest score in the nation for bar passage at 272, a score that has remained unchanged since the UBE was first rolled out.

At the time, multiple bar exam experts expressed concern over retaining the same passage standards between the former bar exam and the UBE as well as the potential for a hit in passage rates in the state. Those concerns for falling passage rates were affirmed by the July 2022 results, which showed that only 67% of test-takers passed the exam.

July 2023’s exam showed much improved results with 71.38% of test takers passing, reflective of schools and students finding their footing with the format.

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