In July of 2026, the Uniform Bar Exam landscape plans to shift from an exam grounded by expansive coverage of legal doctrine and multiple-choice and essay questions to an exam that tests more limited doctrine and a broader set of practice skills—including legal research and writing, client counseling, and negotiation—both through stand-alone questions and multi-modality-based problem sets. Although many details of this new exam may remain unsettled, one thing is certain: students will soon face a new hurdle after law school, the NextGen bar exam.
In other words, it’s happening: NextGen bar exam full send. Helping students overcome this new hurdle requires action. Law schools need to be institutionally rethinking their curricula, and law professors should be individually rethinking their syllabi and course objectives to ensure their students have both the knowledge and skills tested on this new bar exam.
The purpose of this workshop is to help participants do exactly that—to learn, brainstorm, and begin to prepare for the NextGen bar exam. This workshop will educate participants on the NextGen bar exam: its reduced doctrinal coverage, expanded skills coverage, revised question and administration format, and the timing of its rollout. After discussing some of the curricular challenges presented by the NextGen bar exam, workshop participants will break into small groups facilitated by panelists to brainstorm curricular, staffing, and DEI-related concerns law schools might consider in preparation for the NextGen bar exam. Finally, small groups will explore classroom-level assessments and activities that professors can implement to start preparing students for the NextGen bar exam, as well as broader systemic changes that academic institutions may implement to help promote better bar passage rates.