After the inaugural NextGen Uniform Bar Exam turned into a six-hour technological nightmare in Washington — with hundreds of examinees unable to begin the test before the entire administration was canceled — the National Conference of Bar Examiners has found a novel solution: Don’t make everyone log on at the same time.
As we previously covered, more than 600 aspiring lawyers arrived at the Yakima Convention & Event Center in July, only to spend hours staring at computers that wouldn’t connect. Washington ultimately scrapped the exam, forcing candidates to choose between a September makeup, transferring to February 2027, or withdrawing for a refund. The state’s Supreme Court later offered eligible first-time test-takers a waiver of the bar exam requirement.
Now, the NCBE says future NextGen administrations will use staggered start times to prevent hundreds of examinees from simultaneously overwhelming a venue’s network. “One of the things that we learned is that there is a lot of demand on the network at the beginning of each section,” NCBE Chief Product Officer Kara Smith told the ABA Journal.
The rolling start was previewed during last month’s successfully administered makeup exam for 171 bar candidates in Washington, Smith says. Unlike the state’s July administration at the Yakima Convention & Event Center where all candidates sat in one room, administrators of the September test, held at the University of Washington Tacoma, placed candidates in three separate rooms, plus a room for a candidate with accommodations, she adds.
To avoid all the candidates downloading the test at one time, “Washington decided to start one room, wait a few minutes, start another room, wait a few minutes, and start another room,” she adds. “There was absolutely no disruption or delayed start or issue launching the exam.”
That’s welcome news, though it raises the obvious question: Why wasn’t such a simple precaution wasn’t built into the rollout of an exam that had been in development for years?
The NCBE says its plans will now be tailored to each jurisdiction and venue, with multiple testing rooms, stronger backup connectivity, and staggered starts. That preparation will be especially important when New York and California — with thousands of examinees each — adopt NextGen in July 2028.
Washington’s successful makeup proves the technology can work when the logistics are properly planned. Unfortunately, the lesson came at the expense of hundreds of law school graduates whose lives and careers were thrown into limbo.
NCBE will use staggered start times for NextGen UBE administrations [ABA Journal]
Staci Zaretsky is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.
