The Bar Exam: No Reflection of the Lawyer You’ll Become

Female lawyer addressing the court.

Every year, thousands of law school graduates sit for the bar exam, often experiencing it as the most intense, anxiety-inducing rite of passage into the legal profession. (This past July, a person taking the New York Bar Exam had a heart attack during the exam.) It’s an exhausting test of endurance, memorization, and time management.  However, the truth is that the bar exam has little to no bearing on the kind of attorney you’ll become.

The exam does not assess your ability to negotiate a deal, your presence in a courtroom, how well you manage client relationships, or the depth of your judgment, ethics, or creativity. It cannot assess your capacity to handle stress over the long period of legal practice. In short terms, the bar exam doesn't evaluate the day-to-day skills that define effective, respected lawyers.

Law students will joke that A students work for big law firms doing research and B’s work for C’s. While maybe not statistically provable, there are brilliant, accomplished attorneys who failed the bar exam at least once. These brilliant lawyers include Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Hillary Clinton, Jerry Brown, Michelle Obama, and we even had a Maryland State Supreme Court Justice reference that they failed the bar one time.

Students taking an exam.

The Bar Exam Future

The future of the bar exam is actively evolving—and while it still exists today, its role and format are under increasing scrutiny. Whether it should or will continue in its current form is a hot topic in legal education and professional regulation. There are a few trends shaping the future, such as:

1. Criticism of Relevance

Many legal educators and professionals argue that the bar exam tests memorization and academic performance under pressure—but not actual lawyering skills. As legal practice becomes more skills-based and client-centered, the disconnect between what the bar tests and what lawyers actually do becomes more glaring.

2. Diploma Privilege and Alternatives

Some jurisdictions are experimenting with diploma privilege, which allows graduates of accredited law schools to bypass the bar exam altogether. Wisconsin has used this system, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, states like Oregon and Washington implemented temporary diploma privilege or alternatives.

Additionally, "supervised practice pathways" are being developed. These allow graduates to work under the supervision of a licensed attorney for a certain period in lieu of taking the traditional bar exam.

3. The NextGen Bar Exam (Coming 2026)

The National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) is currently developing the NextGen Bar Exam, expected to launch in July 2026. This new version is designed to be more practice-oriented, focusing less on rote memorization and more on real-world legal tasks like legal writing, analysis, and client communication.

It intends to better reflect what entry-level attorneys actually do— but questions remain about how well it connects testing with practical legal skills.

4. Equity and Access Concerns

The traditional bar exam has been criticized for disproportionately affecting candidates from different backgrounds. Critics argue that high-stakes, high-cost testing reinforces structural inequities in the profession. These concerns are leading more regulators to consider alternative licensure models that are more inclusive and reflective of real-world competencies.

The results for the July 2025 bar exam were posted this past Friday. Congratulations to those that passed. And if you didn't pass this time, don't lose heart.