The Nevada Supreme Court is considering a proposal to shift its licensure process to a three-stage assessment echoing its process for medical doctors.

According to the proposal, candidates for the bar would first take a multiple-choice test during law school, followed by a performance test after graduation and conduct 40-to-60 hours of supervised practice while in or after law school.

Unlike other states that offer various pathways to the bar, “this is not an alternative where people could choose the bar or choose this other way. This would be the pathway,” says Deborah Jones Merritt, a task force member and Professor Emerita at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.

If approved, the plan could be implemented as soon as 2027.

The Nevada exam would “eliminate the guesswork of what will be on the test a bit and publish the rules of what it will be on,” says Joan Howarth, Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas William S. Boyd School of Law.

“Instead of being something that takes two months of full-time work of cramming—which nobody thinks is really useful in terms of preparing for practicing law—this is something that is much better, much closer to the amount of material that a practicing lawyer would need to actually keep in mind than the traditional bar exam.”

Currently, Nevada’s bar exam consists of six, one-hour essay questions prepared by the State Bar of Nevada’s Board of Bar Examiners, the MBE and two, two-hour foundational skills questions applying fundamental lawyering skills in realistic situations.

The proposed process would deviate from that.

First, a multiple-choice test, given at testing centers four times each year, could be taken any time after a law student’s third semester or after graduation.

The 100-question test would be focused on seven MBE subjects, and a public blueprint of 20 concepts to be tested for each subject would be available.

Additionally, a one-day performance exam taken after graduation would consist of three, two-hour performance tests, similar to those Nevada currently uses. The performance test would put takers in the position of being a junior attorney and require them to draft memos, briefs, opinions or other legal memoranda based on documents, statutes and other authorities pertaining to a fictitious dispute or matter.

Meanwhile, the supervised practice requirement aims to ensure “that applicants possess lawyering competencies that are difficult to measure on written exams,” according to the proposal’s executive summary.

The 40-to-60 hours of practice could be completed in law school clinics, externships or pro bono work with supervising lawyers, according to the plan. In addition, bar candidates must conduct “several self-directed learning explorations,” the proposal states.

“The notion is you put those three elements together, and you’re doing a much better job of addressing the aspects established as part of minimum competency,” Howarth adds.

Portability of Nevada’s staged exam might be an issue. “Although Nevada is not a UBE jurisdiction, 12 jurisdictions currently accept transferred MBE scores from Nevada candidates who wish to be licensed in those jurisdictions; this score portability would be lost if Nevada stopped offering the MBE,” says Sophie Martin, the NCBE’s Director of Communications.

Some say aspiring attorneys should have a say in how they are tested for the bar and changing the licensure process should be done over time. “Give people a choice,” says Greg Sarab, CEO of Extegrity, an exam software company. “It’s a lot of change for a profession that is the foundation of society as far as I’m concerned. It should be gradual change; very gradual.”

You can read more about this proposal here.

For those of you who are just starting your studying now for the July 2024 Bar Exam, we encourage you to contact us right away (especially if you are re-taking the exam), as the sooner we speak, the sooner we can help you set up a game plan for success this July. Just submit your score report here or email us at [email protected].