What is the bar exam? And what changed in 2026

The bar exam is the licensing examination you take after law school to be admitted to practice. It is not administered nationally — each jurisdiction admits its own lawyers and sets its own requirements, which is why almost every general statement about it needs a qualifier.

The National Conference of Bar Examiners develops the content that most jurisdictions use, which is what makes any general description possible at all.

What changed in July 2026

This is the first major redesign of the exam in decades, and it is happening now — which means a great deal of what is written about the bar exam online describes the previous format. If you are reading advice, check when it was written.

The shape of the NextGen exam

That last clause is the one to hold on to. There is no national passing score. The same performance can pass in one jurisdiction and fail in another, and the score is portable between participating jurisdictions precisely because the exam is shared and the cut score is not.

What it tests

The second half of that is the actual change. The previous exam rewarded memorized doctrine heavily; the NextGen version puts named lawyering skills alongside it. It is an attempt to test what the job involves rather than only what a graduate can recall.

How it relates to the LSAT

Only distantly, and it is worth saying so. The LSAT tests reasoning with no legal content; the bar tests legal content plus practice skills, after three years of being taught them. One does not prepare you for the other.

What the LSAT does affect is which school you attend, and bar passage rates differ substantially between schools. That is the real connection, and it is indirect.