Law Schools

The Uniform Bar Exam Is Now The Way Most Law School Grads Become Lawyers

The UBE is the way of the future for bar admissions testing for would-be lawyers.

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(Photo via National Conference of Bar Examiners)

The bar exam is now about a month away, and thousands of recent law school graduates are itching to take the test and get it over with already. Thanks to the rise of the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE), if they pass the exam, some of those graduates will be better positioned for the ups and downs of the job market due to their ability to seamlessly transfer their scores to be admitted in other reciprocal states, while those in non-UBE states will have to sit down and suffer through another bar exam.

Thirty-three jurisdictions are currently using or will soon adopt the UBE, and at this point, it’s only a matter of time before the UBE is able to conquer the entire nation. Illinois, Rhode Island, and Tennessee recently adopted the UBE, and with a task-force’s go-ahead, Texas is expected to adopt the UBE, with Ohio presumed to do the same in due time. As Karen Sloan of Law.com explains, the UBE is the way of the future for bar admissions testing for would-be lawyers:

The Uniform Bar Exam has transformed over the past eight years from an idea to a major force changing the way lawyers get admitted to practice. Attorneys who take the test in a uniform bar exam jurisdiction may transfer that score to any other state that also uses the standard test, meaning they don’t have to retake the bar as long as they meet the incoming jurisdiction’s cut scores. (Uniform bar jurisdictions each establish their own cut score, but 80 percent fall between 260 and 270 on a 400-point scale, according to [Judith Gundersen, president of the National Conference of Bar Examiners]. Illinois has set a 266 cut score.) …

Illinois is the fifth-largest bar exam jurisdiction in the country and its adoption of the uniform exam could prompt other Midwest jurisdictions to follow suit, Gundersen said. New York’s decision to go with the standard test in 2015 had a ripple effect in the Northeast, with New Jersey, Connecticut and Vermont quickly coming on board. New York is the single-largest bar exam jurisdiction, with more than 14,000 taking its test in 2017.

There are still two major holdouts on the UBE — California and Florida — and neither state is expected to get with the program any time soon. As for the rest of the country’s law students and recent graduates, fear not, because your state supreme courts have your best interests in mind, and will soon adopt the UBE if they haven’t already.

No matter your jurisdiction, best of luck on the bar exam this summer!

Uniform Bar Exam Gains Major Traction Across the Country [Law.com]

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Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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