Uniform Bar Examination

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California at Berkeley Law School, thinks California should adopt the Uniform Bar Exam.[12]

In December 2018, the Indiana Supreme Court created a commission to review the future of the state bar examination.[13] In 2019, a majority of the commission recommended adoption of the UBE.[14][15][16] A previous Indiana task force had rejected adoption of the UBE in a report issued in January 2017.[17]

The Kentucky Supreme Court Bar Admission Review Commission rejected adopting the UBE in 2015.[18][19] Former Justice Bill Cunningham, who co-led the commission, stated in a January 2020 interview that he believes Kentucky will eventually adopt the UBE.[16]

New York indicated that it may withdraw from the UBE. On March 5, 2020, the New York State Bar Task Force, commissioned by the New York State Bar to study the effects on the UBE in New York, released a lengthy report after a one-year study concluding “since the adoption of the UBE, the fundamental purpose of the bar examination, which is to protect the public, has been lost.”[20] The report ultimately recommended that New York withdraw from the UBE and return to state-centered bar exam. The Tast Force's report and recommendation to withdraw from the UBE was approved by the New York Bar Association and numerous bar associations across New York.[21]

In Nevada, the UBE is supported by the dean of University of Nevada Law School[22] but opposed by the chair of the state Board of Bar Examiners.[23][24]In May 2020, Nevada indicated that it will not adopt the UBE anytime in the near future. For the July 2020 bar exam, Nevada removed the MBE, which is the multiple choice portion of the UBE and the only UBE section that Nevada implemented.[25]

In September 2019, the Oklahoma Supreme Court created a Bar Examination Advisory Committee to consider adoption of the UBE. A final report is due by December 2020.[26]

The president of the Allegheny County Bar Association supports Pennsylvania's adoption of the UBE.[27]

The Virginia Board of Bar Examiners considered the UBE, but in 2016 stated “it is not in the best interests of the public of Virginia or the Virginia judicial system.”[28]

It is administered on a single day of the bar examination in 49 states and the District of Columbia, as well as in Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Republic of Palau. The only state that does not administer the MBE is Louisiana, which follows a civil law system slightly different from the law in other states. The MBE is given twice a year: on the last Wednesday of July in all jurisdictions that require that examination, and on the last Wednesday of February in the same jurisdictions, except for Delaware and North Dakota.

The 200 MBE questions test seven subjects based upon principles of common law and Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code (covering sales of goods) that apply throughout the United States. The questions are not broken down into sections and the seven topics are distributed more or less evenly throughout the course of the exam. Exam-takers receive three hours during the morning session to complete the first 100 questions, and another three hours during the afternoon session to complete the second 100 questions.

Of the 200 MBE questions, 175 are graded. The remaining 25 are pretest questions that are "indistinguishable" from the real questions.[30] Test takers receive a scaled score ranging between 0 and 200.[31]

In February 2015, the NCBE added the seventh topic, civil procedure, to the examination.

Taking the MBE in one jurisdiction may allow an applicant to use their MBE score to waive into another jurisdiction or to use their MBE score with another state's bar examination.[32]