Michigan Adopts the Uniform Bar Exam
MADISON, WISCONSIN, October 18, 2021—The Michigan Supreme Court last week entered an order adopting the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE) in Michigan. The Court has indicated that it intends to administer the UBE beginning in July 2022, pending legislative action on the admissions program, making Michigan the 41st jurisdiction to adopt the UBE. Approximately 960 examinees took the Michigan bar exam in 2021.
Michigan and Pennsylvania are the newest UBE jurisdictions, with Pennsylvania also planning to administer the UBE for the first time in July 2022; Indiana and Oklahoma held their first administrations of the UBE in July 2021. The UBE is composed of the Multistate Essay Examination (MEE), two Multistate Performance Test (MPT) tasks, and the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE). It is uniformly administered, graded, and scored and results in a portable score that can be transferred to other UBE jurisdictions. More information about the UBE is available on the website of the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE), the not-for-profit corporation that develops the licensing tests used by most US jurisdictions for attorney admissions. More than 40,000 examinees took the UBE in 2021.
The Michigan Board of Law Examiners will release additional details following anticipated action by the Michigan legislature and governor. Information on the Michigan bar examination is available on the Board’s website, where UBE updates will also be posted.
With the addition of Michigan and Pennsylvania, bar applicants will have the flexibility to apply for admission in almost three-quarters of US jurisdictions with a single bar exam score.
The National Conference of Bar Examiners serves bar admission authorities, courts, the legal education community, and candidates by providing high-quality assessment products, services, and research; character investigations; and informational and educational resources and programs. It promotes fairness, integrity, and best practices in bar admissions for the benefit and protection of the public in pursuit of its vision of a competent, ethical, and diverse legal profession. For more information, visit the NCBE website at http://www.ncbex.org.