By 2028, most U.S. jurisdictions will have adopted the NextGen Uniform Bar Examination (NextGen UBE), representing an important shift in how legal competency is assessed. If you are just beginning law school, this might seem like something for the memory bank. If you’re further along, you may be wondering: What courses should I be taking? How do I build the right skills to pass the bar exam? No matter where you are in your law school journey, the key to conquering the NextGen bar exam is to start preparing now.
The foundation you build as early as your 1L year is a critical factor in your future success. Regardless of whether your jurisdiction will adopt the new bar exam or continue with its own exam approach, the skills you develop in preparation will improve your law school outcomes, your career, and any bar exam you take.
Use this guide as your action plan throughout law school to help you master the skills the NextGen UBE (or legacy bar exam) will test so you can approach it with confidence when it’s your time.
Understanding the NextGen Bar Exam Shift
The NextGen UBE is a comprehensive redesign aimed at better evaluating the practical skills required of a newly licensed attorney. Unlike the current Uniform Bar Exam, which focuses on memorization of the Black-letter law, the new exam emphasizes real-world lawyering abilities through a more integrated, computer-based format.
The National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) has identified key Foundational Knowledge and Foundational Skills that will be assessed during the NextGen UBE. Many of these core concepts and principles—such as Civil Procedure, Contracts, Torts, and Criminal Law—are staples of your 1L curriculum and provide the perfect training ground for the NextGen exam.
Where to Focus Your NextGen Bar Prep
Preparing for the NextGen bar exam requires a strategic approach that combines thoughtful course selection with skill development and the effective use of bar prep resources.
Choose Relevant Courses
To align your studies with the focus areas of the NextGen UBE, consider:
- First-year core classes: Civil Procedure, Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Torts, and Property are foundational to the NextGen bar exam.
- Upper-level courses: Include Evidence, Business Associations, and Criminal Procedure. Add a Family Law class if you will be taking the NextGen bar exam after July 2028.
- Skill-building courses: Develop your essential lawyering skills with classes like Legal Writing and Research, Advanced Legal Writing, and Trial Advocacy.
Build Practical Skills
As you move into your upper-level coursework, you can be more intentional about honing specific, practical skills that align directly with the NextGen format. In your 2L and 3L years, remember to choose your law school experiences wisely.
- Prioritize experiential learning: Enroll in clinics, internships, and externships. These experiences are the single best way to develop skills like client counseling, negotiation, and factual investigation. You will be working within actual law firms with real clients on real cases, which is the ultimate form of integrated learning.
- Participate in moot court and mock trials: Practice making courtroom arguments and refining your legal reasoning skills.
- Continue mastering bar-tested subjects: As you take upper-level courses in subjects like Constitutional Law, Evidence, and Criminal Procedure, maintain your focus on application.
Make Practice a Consistent Habit
You would not run a marathon without training, and you should not take the bar exam without consistent practice. The NextGen format, with its new question styles, makes this more important than ever.
- Integrate practice questions into your weekly study routine: The more you feel comfortable with answering questions, the more confidence you will gain for exam day.
- Simulate exam conditions: As you get closer to graduation, practice writing out full answers to performance task-style questions under timed conditions. This builds the mental stamina and time management skills you will need for the bar exam.
In addition to regular practice, how you study key subjects is critical. You want to understand them not as isolated silos of rules, but as interconnected tools for solving real legal problems.
As you study, ask yourself questions like:
- How would this rule apply to a client’s situation?
- What facts would I need to prove this element of a claim?
- How does this concept in Torts relate to something I learned in Contracts?
This is where BARBRI’s law school resources become indispensable.
Leverage Proven Bar Prep Resources
In BARBRI’s more than 50 years of bar preparation leadership, we have successfully guided more than 1.43 million students through every evolution of the bar exam. The NextGen UBE is no different. Our methods have always been rooted in teaching the practical application of law, a philosophy that aligns perfectly with the new exam’s focus.
BARBRI 1L Exam Success is engineered to help you master core concepts with an eye toward application. It provides practice questions, outlines, and lectures from experts in the legal field. This program doesn’t just teach you the law; it teaches you how to use it, preparing you for both your final exams and the integrated format of the NextGen UBE.
As you get further along in law school, BARBRI 2L/3L Exam Success ensures you don’t lose sight of the foundational bar subjects while you explore specialized areas of law. Leverage Quimbee Study Aids in combination with the 2L/3L Success to stay sharp on the core material that will form the backbone of your NextGen exam performance.
And when you’re ready for your bar prep, the BARBRI NextGen UBE prep course provides the tools and support to help you learn what's most important for bar exam success.
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