A Reminder about the NCBE’s Statement on SCOTUS Decisions and the Bar Exam
The United States Supreme Court's term traditionally begins on the first Monday in October and ends in late June or early July. As the term concludes, the Court typically issues many of its most significant constitutional decisions. This is because the justices aim to complete their work before the summer recess.
SCOTUS has been releasing opinions steadily over the past several days and weeks. With today being June 29, those following the Court's decisions should expect more opinions to be released imminently.
Regardless of the outcomes of these cases, however, bar exam takers most likely do not need to learn the new opinions for the July 2024 bar exam—at least for the Uniform Bar Exam, or its individual components, like the MBE or MEE.
Let me point you to a previous announcement posted by the National Conference of Bar Examiners.
NCBE Statement on SCOTUS Decisions and the Bar Exam
NCBE has released the following statement regarding the timeline by which new US Supreme Court decisions might be reflected on the bar exam: NCBE-developed MBE, MPT, and MEE questions typically are drafted, revised, and finalized over an approximately three-year period, including pre-testing of MBE items on a live exam prior to administration as scored items. For more information, see:
This January 2023 announcement isn’t as strongly worded as its announcement prior to the July 2022 administration, made almost exactly two years ago today, in which it clearly and succinctly stated that “Examinees taking the NCBE-developed July 2022 MBE, MPT, and MEE will not be required to be familiar with this term's US Supreme Court decisions.”
However, more recent announcement reiterates that the typical three-year timeline to develop a final, scoreable question on the MBE likely prevents any recent SCOTUS decisions to appear on the July 2024 bar exam except as unscored, “pretest” questions.
Again, the NCBE announcement only applies to NCBE-written examinations, which includes the MBE, the MEE, and the MPT. Examinees preparing for state-authored exam questions or sitting in a non-UBE jurisdiction should contact the testing jurisdiction for further guidance. For example, in California, bar applicants are expected to know the law in effect at the time the California Bar Examination is administered (i.e., current law). Therefore, any judicial decision, statute, rule, or regulation that is in effect in July 2024 will be "current law" for the July 2024 California Bar Examination.
