California Supreme Court Approves Adoption of NextGen Uniform Bar Exam

The California Supreme Court on Wednesday approved a State Bar of California recommendation to replace the current General Bar Exam with the National Conference of Bar Examiners’ NextGen Uniform Bar Exam beginning with the July 2028 administration.

Development of a California-Specific Component

The court also directed the State Bar’s Committee of Bar Examiners to develop and submit, by Feb. 26, 2027, a proposal for the court’s consideration of a California-specific test component to accompany the NextGen exam beginning with the July 2029 administration. This component would also serve as the Attorneys' Examination for qualifying attorney applicants.

If adopted by the court, the California-specific component would test areas of California law and may include subjects currently covered on the General Bar Exam, as well as California employment law and California family law. The Committee of Bar Examiners would determine how the component is scored, including its relationship to NextGen scoring and the overall passing score for the General Bar Exam.

Examination Schedule and Scoring

The General Bar Exam will continue to be administered in-person on the last Tuesdays in February and July each year. The length of each session, the order of testing, and the overall length of the exam may be modified for applicants who have been granted certain testing accommodations.

The court ordered the new bar exam’s passing score to be equivalent to the current total scaled passing score of at least 1390 out of 2000 points.