Nevada will consider three-stage process to join bar
The Nevada Supreme Court is considering a proposal to shift its licensure process to a three-stage assessment echoing the process for medical doctors. (Image from Shutterstock)
The Nevada Supreme Court is considering a proposal to shift its licensure process to a three-stage assessment echoing the process for medical doctors.
According to the proposal submitted April 1, candidates for the bar would first take a multiple-choice test during law school, followed by a performance test after graduation and conduct 40-to-60 hours of supervised practice while in or after law school.
Unlike other states that offer various pathways to the bar, “this is not an alternative where people could choose the bar or choose this other way. This would be the pathway,” says Deborah Jones Merritt, a task force member and professor emerita at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.
If approved, the plan could be implemented as soon as early 2027, Kimberly Farmer, State Bar of Nevada executive director, wrote to the ABA Journal. Nevada would continue administering the current bar examination through July 2026, then move to the proposed new Comprehensive Licensing Examination, she writes.
As other states move toward alternative pathways to the bar, the council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar last week passed a policy shift allowing states to use methods of licensure beyond the bar exam.
In November, Oregon approved apprenticeship as a method to licensure without taking the bar, and Washington followed but also included a skills coursework option. Other states, including California and Minnesota are currently considering proposals to license attorneys without the bar exam. Wisconsin already offers diploma privilege to graduates of its two law schools and New Hampshire offers several ways to pass the bar, including completion of specialized courses.
The Nevada proposal comes as the NextGen Bar Exam moves toward its July 2026 launch. To date, 18 of the 56 jurisdictions have committed to using the test, which will emphasize skills junior attorneys needed, such as research, client management and dispute resolution. The Multistate Bar Exam, one of three portions of the Uniform Bar Exam, due to sunset in February 2028, emphasize memorization.
Unlike other states that offer various pathways to the bar, “this is not an alternative where people could choose the bar or choose this other way. This would be the pathway,” says Deborah Jones Merritt, a task force member and professor emerita at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. (Photo courtesy of the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law)
If approved, the Nevada exam would “eliminate the guesswork of what will be on the test a bit and publish the rules of what it will be on,” says Joan Howarth, distinguished visiting professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas William S. Boyd School of Law and a chair of the foundational subject requirement and performance test implementation task force member.
“Instead of being something that takes two months of full-time work of cramming—which nobody thinks is really useful in terms of preparing for practicing law—this is something that is much better, much closer to the amount of material that a practicing lawyer would need to actually keep in mind than the traditional bar exam,” adds the author of Shaping the Bar: The Future of Attorney Licensing.
Currently, Nevada’s bar exam consists of six, one-hour essay questions prepared by the State Bar of Nevada’s Board of Bar Examiners, the MBE and two, two-hour foundational skills questions applying fundamental lawyering skills in realistic situations, according to the bar’s website.
The proposed process would deviate from that.
First, a multiple-choice test, given at testing centers four times each year, could be taken any time after a law student’s third semester or after graduation.
“It is a little odd that most of the subjects that are tested on the bar exam are taken in the first year of law school as foundational subjects,” says Howarth, dean emerita of the Michigan State University College of Law. “The bar comes two years later.”
The 100-question test would be focused on seven MBE subjects, and a public blueprint of 20 concepts to be tested for each subject would be available. Last week, the Nevada Board of Examiners “indicated a desire” to use the State Bar of California’s proposed Kaplan-developed multiple-choice test. However, California’s proposal to break with the National Conference of Bar Examiners and create its own test has been put on hold.
“Nevada’s process is not impacted by the status of California’s proposal,” Farmer wrote. Nevada’s proposal was developed prior to the proposed coordination with California, she added.
If approved, the Nevada exam would “eliminate the guesswork of what will be on the test a bit and publish the rules of what it will be on,” says Joan Howarth, distinguished visiting professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas William S. Boyd School of Law. (Photo by Carmen Estrada)
Additionally, a one-day performance exam taken after graduation would consist of three, two-hour performance tests, similar to those Nevada currently uses. The performance test would put takers in the position of being a junior attorney and require them to draft memos, briefs, opinions or other legal memoranda based on documents, statutes and other authorities pertaining to a fictitious dispute or matter.
Meanwhile, the supervised practice requirement aims to ensure “that applicants possess lawyering competencies that are difficult to measure on written exams,” according to the proposal’s executive summary.
The 40-to-60 hours of practice could be completed in law school clinics, externships or pro bono work with supervising lawyers, according to the plan. In addition, bar candidates must conduct “several self-directed learning explorations,” the proposal states.
“The notion is you put those three elements together, and you’re doing a much better job of addressing the aspects established as part of minimum competency,” Howarth adds.
Multistage testing was considered for the NextGen exam but not adopted. The downside of phased testing includes “taking time away from summer employment opportunities or semester coursework and potentially requiring candidates to incur associated costs of hotel, travel and prep courses for each step,” according to the NextGen Testing Task Force Phase 1 Report. “Some stakeholders commented that a step exam after the first year of law school would be too early in students’ training because many students would still be processing what they have learned.”
Portability of Nevada’s staged exam might be an issue. “Although Nevada is not a UBE jurisdiction, 12 jurisdictions currently accept transferred MBE scores from Nevada candidates who wish to be licensed in those jurisdictions; this score portability would be lost if Nevada stopped offering the MBE,” says Sophie Martin, the NCBE’s director of communications.
Some say aspiring attorneys should have a say in how they are tested for the bar and changing the licensure process should be done over time. “Give people a choice,” says Greg Sarab, CEO of Extegrity, an exam software company. “It’s a lot of change for a profession that is the foundation of society as far as I’m concerned. It should be gradual change; very gradual.”
UNLV Boyd is Nevada’s only law school. In July 2023, 280 examinees took the Nevada bar exam, with a 63% overall pass rate, followed in February by 215 test takers, with a 49% overall bar pass rate, according to the NCBE.
