NextGen bar exam elevates legal competence, streamlines interstate practice
This couldn't be further from the truth.
As a current Arizona Supreme Court justice and a retired Minnesota Supreme Court justice, we both served on the judicial advisory committee convened to inform the development of the new exam, many of whose recommendations were included in the final product.
We fully endorse the NextGen exam as a rigorous, client-focused assessment of legal doctrine and lawyering skills that additionally serves to facilitate license portability across the U.S. — a longstanding conservative priority.
Both of our states have adopted the new bar exam, which will be first given in July 2026, and in our jurisdictions in July 2027. Both courts engaged in thorough review processes that included evaluation of doctrine and skills content in the exam, results from pilot and prototype testing, and other relevant information.
Like all state high courts, our courts are responsible for admitting new lawyers in Arizona and Minnesota. That responsibility includes a duty to ensure, to the extent possible, that only those who meet our states' standards of competence are licensed to practice law.
We—and our colleagues across the country — took our responsibility seriously in evaluating the NextGen bar exam. Forty-one states and territories have now adopted it, bringing the testing of prospective lawyers into the 21st Century.
The construction of the exam began with a novel idea that also happens to be a best practice in licensure exams — the National Conference of Bar Examiners, the ultimate author of the exam, decided to ask more than 14,800 U.S. lawyers what topics should be tested on a bar exam. Those lawyers came from every part of the US and every imaginable practice and employment, from rural areas to big cities, and those opinions helped shape the new exam.
Nor has this project been hidden from the public. Since the inception of the NextGen project in 2018, extensive information was regularly published about the development and performance of the new exam. Even a cursory review of the NextGen website and related publications makes it evident that the process is steeped in scientific rigor, data analytics, and oversight by subject matter experts — lawyers, judges, and law faculty.
Like the current Uniform Bar Exam, the NextGen bar exam will serve as an important bridge among the states and territories that administer it, facilitating score portability across the U.S. A NextGen bar exam score earned anywhere in the country can be transferred for admission purposes to any other state or territory that elects to accept it.
As of today, only one of the 43 adopting Courts has indicated that it will not accept qualifying scores earned in other NextGen jurisdictions.
Over 70,000 attorneys have taken advantage of the score portability program offered through the current exam, and portability continues to be a compelling argument for a nationally administered and accepted bar exam.
At no point has the National Conference of Bar Examiners asserted that its purpose in developing the NextGen exam was to make it easier than the current bar exam, as some have recently and falsely claimed, nor has conference made that argument to our courts. As with the current bar exam, it is the highest court in each of the 43 states that determines what a passing score is, not the National Conference of Bar Examiners.
The NextGen bar exam will more closely reflect day-to-day law practice by requiring application of legal knowledge to client-oriented tasks, along with demonstrating mastery of foundational legal subjects such as constitutional and criminal law, torts, property, and contracts. The new exam also requires successful examinees to understand and apply the principles of professional responsibility — essential to legal ethics — to ensure lawyers are prepared to navigate the complexities of the attorney-client relationship.
By the time the NextGen exam launches, over 10,500 third-year law students and new lawyers will have tested the content through pilot, field, prototype, and beta administrations. All NextGen bar exam questions generate performance statistics that are analyzed by psychometricians, attorney test editors, and subject matter experts to assure appropriate difficulty, clarity, and suitability for a high-stakes licensure exam.
From our perspective, the new bar exam will measure not simply book learning, but the demonstrated ability to practice law. Members of the legal profession from across the political spectrum should support this change.
Justice Clint Bolick is a sitting member of the Arizona Supreme Court and retired Justice G. Barry Anderson is a former member of the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
06-07-2025
- The Hill
NextGen bar exam elevates legal competence, streamlines interstate practice
Since when have conservatives started defending the bar examination? For decades, many on the right have argued it was an arbitrary barrier to entry into the legal profession. Now, some conservatives are arguing that reforms designed to make it a highly practical exam are actually promoting DEI and wokeness. This couldn't be further from the truth. As a current Arizona Supreme Court justice and a retired Minnesota Supreme Court justice, we both served on the judicial advisory committee convened to inform the development of the new exam, many of whose recommendations were included in the final product. We fully endorse the NextGen exam as a rigorous, client-focused assessment of legal doctrine and lawyering skills that additionally serves to facilitate license portability across the U.S. — a longstanding conservative priority. Both of our states have adopted the new bar exam, which will be first given in July 2026, and in our jurisdictions in July 2027. Both courts engaged in thorough review processes that included evaluation of doctrine and skills content in the exam, results from pilot and prototype testing, and other relevant information. Like all state high courts, our courts are responsible for admitting new lawyers in Arizona and Minnesota. That responsibility includes a duty to ensure, to the extent possible, that only those who meet our states' standards of competence are licensed to practice law. We—and our colleagues across the country — took our responsibility seriously in evaluating the NextGen bar exam. Forty-one states and territories have now adopted it, bringing the testing of prospective lawyers into the 21st Century. The construction of the exam began with a novel idea that also happens to be a best practice in licensure exams — the National Conference of Bar Examiners, the ultimate author of the exam, decided to ask more than 14,800 U.S. lawyers what topics should be tested on a bar exam. Those lawyers came from every part of the US and every imaginable practice and employment, from rural areas to big cities, and those opinions helped shape the new exam. Nor has this project been hidden from the public. Since the inception of the NextGen project in 2018, extensive information was regularly published about the development and performance of the new exam. Even a cursory review of the NextGen website and related publications makes it evident that the process is steeped in scientific rigor, data analytics, and oversight by subject matter experts — lawyers, judges, and law faculty. Like the current Uniform Bar Exam, the NextGen bar exam will serve as an important bridge among the states and territories that administer it, facilitating score portability across the U.S. A NextGen bar exam score earned anywhere in the country can be transferred for admission purposes to any other state or territory that elects to accept it. As of today, only one of the 43 adopting Courts has indicated that it will not accept qualifying scores earned in other NextGen jurisdictions. Over 70,000 attorneys have taken advantage of the score portability program offered through the current exam, and portability continues to be a compelling argument for a nationally administered and accepted bar exam. At no point has the National Conference of Bar Examiners asserted that its purpose in developing the NextGen exam was to make it easier than the current bar exam, as some have recently and falsely claimed, nor has conference made that argument to our courts. As with the current bar exam, it is the highest court in each of the 43 states that determines what a passing score is, not the National Conference of Bar Examiners. The NextGen bar exam will more closely reflect day-to-day law practice by requiring application of legal knowledge to client-oriented tasks, along with demonstrating mastery of foundational legal subjects such as constitutional and criminal law, torts, property, and contracts. The new exam also requires successful examinees to understand and apply the principles of professional responsibility — essential to legal ethics — to ensure lawyers are prepared to navigate the complexities of the attorney-client relationship. By the time the NextGen exam launches, over 10,500 third-year law students and new lawyers will have tested the content through pilot, field, prototype, and beta administrations. All NextGen bar exam questions generate performance statistics that are analyzed by psychometricians, attorney test editors, and subject matter experts to assure appropriate difficulty, clarity, and suitability for a high-stakes licensure exam. From our perspective, the new bar exam will measure not simply book learning, but the demonstrated ability to practice law. Members of the legal profession from across the political spectrum should support this change. Justice Clint Bolick is a sitting member of the Arizona Supreme Court and retired Justice G. Barry Anderson is a former member of the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Yahoo
Conservative Arizona Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick has a warning for America
Clint Bolick is worried. The Arizona Supreme Court justice and rock star of the political right stood before a crowd of lawyers recently and rebuked "deeply disturbing" attacks on the American justice system coming from senior Trump administration officials. "It's almost dystopian. And when I think of people wrapping themselves in the Constitution while they are simultaneously doing violence to it ... it is really scary stuff," Bolick told those gathered at the May event hosted by Society for the Rule of Law, a right-of-center legal organization. Though he didn't name names, the speech showed an extraordinary level of openness for a Supreme Court justice, as justices typically refrain from commenting on public affairs to avoid perceptions of bias. The fact the remarks came from Bolick, "a leader in center-of-right litigation and legal thinking," was "tremendously important," said Gregg Nunziata, executive director of the Society for the Rule of Law. As America celebrates its 249th anniversary and a declaration of independence from tyranny on July 4, Bolick's comments represent his most piercing and direct condemnation of actions taken by the country's highest political leaders. And while he stressed the criticism was "neither partisan, nor ideological," the denunciation could open the justice up to retaliation from Trump allies or the president himself. Bolick emphasized multiple threats in his speech, including Vice President JD Vance flippantly referring to "due process" on social media, and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller threatening to suspend habeas corpus if judges didn't "do the right thing." Habeas corpus protects against unlawful imprisonment. He also chastised local threats to judicial independence, including a fierce campaign from the political left against his retention election in 2024, which focused on his decision to uphold an 1864 near-total abortion ban in Arizona. Bolick is serving his final term on the Arizona Supreme Court and isn't in danger of losing his position. Arizona justices face mandatory retirement at age 70. But around the country, judges who have drawn the ire of Trump's allies have faced intimidation and threats of violence. Already, Bolick's comments have prompted a response from one Trump ally, who said Bolick "should stay out of the political arena." Bolick acknowledged avoiding politics was a difficult line to walk as a justice who is trying to defend the courts. He was hesitant to sit for interviews with The Arizona Republic and initially declined in-person questions, citing concern about "straying into political commentary." He later agreed, noting the "unprecedented attack" on judiciary independence, and spoke with The Republic for several hours over three interviews. "We have had very few instances where a president has threatened to ignore court decisions," Bolick said. "Both the left and the right are attacking judges routinely referring to them as corrupt." Asked what a world without judicial independence would look like, Bolick offered an ominous warning. "It looks like authoritarianism," he said. Bolick's early career as a public interest attorney and special assistant at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who was chairman of the commission at the time, shaped his appreciation for the American court system. Bolick went to D.C. to fight affirmative action in 1985 but changed course after Thomas gave him advice. "He said, 'Clint, the best way to get rid of affirmative action is by making it unnecessary and by fighting for empowerment options like freedom of enterprise and school choice,'" Bolick told The Republic. Bolick devoted his career to those ends, eventually co-founding the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm, and serving as vice president for litigation at the Goldwater Institute, a libertarian think tank and law firm. One of his noteworthy clients was a street corner shoeshine stand operator named Ego Brown. Brown employed homeless people and D.C. officials tried to shut him down, Bolick said. But the law used against Brown was a relic of the Jim Crow-era, when government officials targeted Black individuals by rendering their work unlawful or by imposing literacy tests or fees. Bolick came out on top, and the law was "the first economic regulation to be struck down as an equal protection violation in 50 years," he said. The case showed him the power of the courts to right historical wrongs, keep government in check and create a level playing field for society's underdogs. That appreciation for the judiciary's ability to level the playing field without political influence and help "the little guy against the government" has motivated Bolick to speak out. "The judicial gavel is the ultimate equalizer in this country. We fight our battles from personal injury battles to constitutional battles in court rather than on the streets. And ... we won cases that we could never have won in a different country," Bolick said. "It really is the American dream, and I think that an independent judiciary is really an underappreciated element of that," he said. Bolick has pointed to a handful of threats against judiciary independence, both on the local and national levels: suspending habeas corpus, disregarding the importance of due process, threatening to ignore court orders and impeaching or voting out judges for unfavorable decisions. In a column for Real Clear Politics in March, Bolick wrote that threats from "people in powerful positions and their legal sycophants" were intended to "delegitimize and neutralize the courts' vital role in our constitutional system." He illustrated the stakes by referring to the 1944 landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that authorized Japanese internment. It was "one of the great stains on our Constitutional jurisprudence," Bolick said. He cited the dissent from Justice Robert Jackson at the time, who wrote that the court "validated ... racial discrimination in criminal procedure and of transplanting American citizens," which could be weaponized by any future administration who claims an "urgent need." "Sound familiar?" Bolick said. "These words were prescient in 1944." He called the ramifications for civil liberties "absolutely breathtaking." He did not name Vance or Miller by name during his speech in May, but he described the pitfalls of their positions and emphasized the risk — "I don't have a problem with naming names, but the concern in personalizing the issue is that these are universal principles," he later told The Republic. Vance, in April, had taken to social media and questioned due process for undocumented migrants. "To say the administration must observe 'due process' is to beg the question: what process is due is a function of our resources, the public interest, the status of the accused, the proposed punishment, and so many other factors," Vance wrote in part. It came after public backlash to the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign and mistaken deportation of a man to a notorious Salvadoran prison. Bolick said flippantly referring to due process reflected the vulnerability of the rule of law. "As if this concept was created by rogue liberal judges to help illegal immigrants stay in the country," Bolick said. "Due process is the most foundational legal principle protecting individual liberty in Western civilization. It dates back to the Magna Carta. It does not deserve to be in quote marks." Bolick said Miller's comment about potentially suspending habeas corpus if the courts didn't do the right thing could be seen as a way "to intimidate the courts to reach decisions that they favor." Mary Anne Franks, a legal scholar and left-leaning professor at George Washington University Law School, said Bolick's comments were "really powerful, really well put." "What's happening here is so far beyond politics. This is the difference between a country that obeys the rule of law and an authoritarian one," Franks said. If people think they can look to their political affiliation to determine how they feel about these threats, what they are really doing is deciding if they like totalitarian rule and think they are going to be favored under such a system. she said. White House spokesperson Harrison Fields did not directly respond to concerns expressed by Bolick in response to an inquiry from The Republic, but said, "Attacks against public officials, including judges, have no place in our society and President Trump knows all too well the impact of callous attacks having faced two assassination attempts.' Bolick also has highlighted threats to impeach federal judges for unfavorable decisions — a concern echoed also by former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, who wrote a column in May titled, "If Trump keeps threatening our judges, we'll lose our rule of law." Bolick cited a comment made by Trump ally Mike Davis, who was once floated as a potential attorney general option. Davis said on Steve Bannon's "War Room" show that Republican lawmakers needed to threaten the impeachment of judges who thwart Trump's agenda, noting it was "important to have that Sword of Damocles over the judiciary's head." Davis, a former law clerk for now-Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, who runs an organization called The Article III Project that claims to "fight radical assaults on judicial independence," told The Republic he has never called for impeaching judges "simply for unfavorable decisions." "In very limited circumstances, we have called for the impeachment of judges who violate their judicial oaths with clearly lawless orders that endanger our national security. When judges take off their judicial robes, climb into the political arena, and throw political punches, they should expect political counterpunches," Davis said. "Justice Clint Bolick should stay out of the political arena." Bolick's criticism of local threats to judicial independence have focused on the campaign waged against him and another justice's 2024 retention after the 1864 abortion ban reinstatement. He doesn't pretend to equate the campaign against him to suspending habeas corpus or dismissing due process, but said, "on an Arizona scale, it was potentially very significant." "Disagreeing with the outcome of a decision was not intended to be a part of of the retention process," Bolick said. His job in the case, he explained, was purely to interpret two conflicting state laws, not weigh in on constitutionality. "I am unaware of a single credible criticism of the case," Bolick told The Republic. DJ Quinlan, chairman of the campaign against Bolick, said it was "ridiculous" to compare his effort to threats coming from the Trump administration because the Arizona Constitution gives voters the right to retention elections and voters had a right to vote however they saw fit. Quinlan rejected the idea that the campaign targeted Bolick simply for an unfavorable ruling — yes, the organizers disliked the ruling, but he explained that it was born out of the belief the Arizona Constitution protects abortion as a fundamental right to privacy. That theory, echoed repeatedly by Kris Mayes during her campaign for attorney general in the 2022 election, has not been tested in the Arizona courts. Bolick pointed also to the Maricopa County Republican Committee's 2024 censure of the Arizona Supreme Court. The censure came after the high court declined to overturn the 2022 election results in Abe Hamadeh's race for attorney general against Mayes and authorized a defamation case against gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake to continue. County committee Chairman Craig Berland and First Vice Chairman Shelby Busch did not respond to requests for comment. Bolick does seem either hesitant to go too far with his warnings or uncertain how severe the threat is. "This is virgin territory," he said. He stopped short of saying he's concerned for democracy, opting to express his worry for maintaining a "constitutional Republic" instead. In other words, the United States could lose its judicial independence and still technically stay a democracy, it just wouldn't be what Americans are used to. He referred to Mexico's recent shift to judicial elections to explain. "They just switched to a system where judges are elected essentially on the same ticket as the national government. There is no question in my mind that that will be a very compliant judiciary," Bolick said. "In a constitutional republic, we have a judicial check on the executive branch and that is what is at risk." While arguing that countries without independent judiciaries tend toward authoritarianism and raising the alarm over threats to judiciary independence in the United States, Bolick said he hasn't seen any "overt leaps in that direction." He was more conservative in his assessment of how far down the path the United States was toward authoritarianism, compared with other legal scholars. He sees the threats in three stages. The United States, he said, was in the middle "alarm stage" — wading into the third but not quite there. He defined the final stage as the president ignoring judicial orders enforcing constitutional boundaries. "That's where we would have, in my opinion, authoritarianism. Because if the president were allowed to operate unchecked, we would have what was a system of unbound executive power," Bolick said. Others, such as Franks, think the country is in far worse shape. "For the president to feel comfortable, and for basically everyone that he has placed around him to have power to say, 'We don't have to obey anything we don't want to,' ... that is authoritarianism. That is where we are," Franks said. She, unlike Bolick, is worried judges already are capitulating to Trump — pointing to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last summer to grant the president broad immunity from criminal prosecution for actions they take to carry out their official duties. Whether the country has enough "institutional framework" to combat that "remains to be seen," she said. Bolick's main hope is that judges maintain their duty to the Constitution, not public sentiment. At a time when judges face intimidation, he said, that act alone requires courage. Former Arizona Supreme Court Justice Scott Bales said he shared "Bolick's concern that we preserve independent courts as protectors of our constitutional liberties." Franks said she thinks the warnings were "probably more compelling from a public opinion standpoint that it's coming from someone who isn't identified as a leftist liberal judge." Nunziata said Bolick's warnings reflected a broader trend of the judiciary taking on the lion's share of work in defending the Constitution and limiting the government. "Without a robust, independent judiciary and with a supine or compliant Congress, there's virtually no limit to what the government can do to take away our liberties," Nunziata said. Taylor Seely is a First Amendment Reporting Fellow at The Arizona Republic / Do you have a story about the government infringing on your First Amendment rights? Reach her at tseely@ or by phone at 480-476-6116. Seely's role is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: AZ Supreme Court justice warns of attacks on independent judiciary
Newsweek
19-06-2025
- Newsweek
Open the Immigration Courtroom—Justice Can't Be Done in the Dark
As Sean "Diddy" Combs' federal sex-trafficking and racketeering trial enters its sixth week, Americans are getting a front-row seat to justice in action. Thanks to media access inside the courtroom, trial coverage dominates headlines and social media platforms like TikTok. But while America scrutinizes one man's reckoning in real time, thousands of other people with just as much at stake remain invisible. That's because immigration courtrooms, where non-citizens petition for legal status to stop deportation, are closed to the public. This lack of visibility isn't due to public disinterest. It's by design. The interior of the Minnesota Supreme Court is pictured. The interior of the Minnesota Supreme Court is pictured. Getty Images As a former assistant chief counsel for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), I spent over a decade litigating cases in closed-door proceedings. During our training, we're told that immigration courts are closed to protect the safety of a person seeking relief. But after years as a prosecutor, I've come to see things differently: secrecy doesn't protect immigrants—it protects the system. To achieve proper accountability and transparency from the government, as is the public's right under the First Amendment, it's time to open the courtroom doors. Visibility––however uncomfortable for the judges, prosecutors, and the parties involved–– is what the Sixth Amendment's guarantee to a public criminal trial requires. Though civil, immigration courts shouldn't be exempt from basic principles of transparency. Oversight enables public debates like those surrounding Cassie's testimony in Diddy's trial. Meanwhile, immigration courts operate like black boxes, largely immune to scrutiny. The closed nature of immigration courts, classified as civil, is not required by law. While some proceedings, such as bond proceedings and initial masters, are technically open to the public, immigration judges have near-total discretion to close them. And they often do, as in Mahmoud Khalil's case, where the court disabled video links and phone access, citing procedural reasons such as reserving access only for parties and witnesses, not the press or public. Invisible courtrooms allow systemic failures to go unchecked. Take the case of Ximena Arias-Cristobal, a 19-year-old college student, arrested in Dalton, Ga., on May 5, for allegedly running a red light. Local police later admitted she hadn't. But by then, Ximena had already been handed over to ICE, transferred to Stewart Detention Center, detained for 16 days, and placed into removal proceedings. Her place of birth—not her actions—determined her fate. A closed removal hearing meant observers couldn't question how racial profiling enabled her arrest or how ICE capitalizes on its use. In a system where justice operates like a two-way mirror, the government sees everything, and the public only sees what it's allowed to. Invisibility also facilitates the coordinated betrayal of due process. In late May, asylum seekers in Miami, Phoenix, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, and Chicago appeared for their hearings. They placed their trust in the legal system, hoping that the harm they suffered would be considered with the dignity and fairness the law promises. Instead, judges, cloaked in the illusion of neutrality, granted the government's motion to dismiss case after case without testimony or review, fully aware that ICE agents waited outside with handcuffs. Once dismissed, the government was free to detain and deport immediately. And with the public barred from observing, no one saw that what was presented as "justice" felt more like a sting operation. Some argue that closing immigration courts protects applicants who are fleeing persecution, from retaliation or public trauma. But if this system was truly designed to protect the vulnerable, it wouldn't have terminated nearly 30 immigration judges without cause, sending a chilling message to those who remain. Nor would it need to hide behind closed doors to obscure its 76 percent denial rate in March 2025 alone. The message is clear: immigration courts aren't protecting dignity. They protect discretion, unchecked power, and this administration's enforcement priorities. To achieve accountability, we need transparency. In the Diddy trial, prosecution star witness Cassie did not derive her strength from silence; it came from speaking out. Her willingness to expose painful chapters of her life forced the public to confront the systems of power that enable abuse. But Mahmoud Khalil and others in immigration court aren't afforded that exposure. Their fight for justice plays offstage, unheard and unseen. If the public could witness what happens inside immigration courts, perhaps then, instead of debating open borders or legal loopholes, we'd begin to understand what is at stake. Organizations like the American Bar Association have begun court awareness projects to let the public in. Until immigration courts are opened to the public, justice will not be reimagined. Veronica Cardenas is an immigration attorney, former assistant chief counsel with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and founder of Humanigration. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
