Florida becomes 21st jurisdiction to commit to NextGen exam
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Florida will adopt the NextGen bar exam starting in July 2028, becoming the 21st jurisdiction to use the new exam focused on assessing skills new attorneys need.
The Florida Supreme Court approved the switch on Thursday, the National Conference of Board Examiners announced in a press release. The NextGen exam, which will begin its roll out in July 2026, replaces the NCBE-produced Uniform Bar Examination and its components, due to sunset after the February 2028 test.
Florida, which has 10 ABA-accredited law schools, currently uses a two-day bar exam. One day is dedicated to Florida state law and the other consists of the Multistate Bar Examination, the 200-question multiple choice exam portion of the UBE, according to the release. In 2023, there were 5,466 candidates taking the bar exam in Florida.
Prior to recommending that the state supreme court adopt the exam, the Florida Board of Bar Examiners conducted a practice analysis study from 2019 to 2022, receiving input from 21,000 Florida attorneys about what skills and legal knowledge newly admitted lawyers need, according to the release. Their report was released in June 2022.
The study found the NCBE-produced NextGen exam will test a significant number of necessary skills and the Florida-specific portion of the exam could test the remaining important topics, the release said.
“We received a very positive response from the law schools,” Michele Gavagni, Florida Board of Bar Examiners executive director, said in the release. “With the discontinuation of the MBE, the overwhelming majority of Florida law schools support the decision to adopt the NextGen exam as a component of the Florida Bar Examination.”
