How the Changing Landscapes of College Athletics and the Bar Exam Mirror Each Other
The Michigan Wolverines still have the College Football Playoff National Championship to play next Monday, but that hasn't stopped questions being asked about the future of Michigan head football coach Jim Harbaugh.
Will Harbaugh remain the head coach of his alma mater, where, according to reports, a 10-year, $125-million contract is waiting for him to sign. Or will he return to the NFL for even more money?
Depending on what you read, Harbaugh will likely stay with the Wolverines … or leave for the NFL, possibly going to southern California to coach the Los Angeles Chargers.
Who can blame Harbaugh (or any other college football coach) for leaving the NCAA?
The landscape of college football is undergoing a transformative shift, driven by significant changes such as the introduction of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals, significant conference realignments, and the evolving dynamics of the transfer portal. These developments are reshaping the economic, competitive, and regulatory aspects of college sports, heralding a new era in collegiate athletics.
Similarly, this transformative shift in college athletics is similar to what’s going on in the bar exam world.
In 2018, the National Conference of Bar Examiners decided it was time to re-evaluate the current bar exam format. After several years of work, the NCBE will implement the NextGen Bar Exam, beginning with the July 2026 administration. So far, nine jurisdictions have agreed to adopt the NextGen Bar Exam, with three jurisdictions (Maryland, Missouri, Oregon) administering the new format on the first opportunity to do so in 2026.
Generally, the NextGen Bar Exam represents a major reform of the traditional bar examination, focusing more on practical skills and core competencies necessary for modern legal practice. It aims to assess a candidate's proficiency in areas like legal analysis, client counseling, and factual investigation, moving away from the heavy emphasis on rote memorization. This new format seeks to ensure that new attorneys are better equipped for the realities of contemporary legal work.
NIL Deals
In college sports, athletes can now profit from their name, image, and likeness, leading to endorsements and partnerships that were previously forbidden. USC’s Bronny James (son of Los Angeles Lakers superstar Lebron James) is the highest paid college athlete via NIL deals, earning more than $6.1 million. Shedeur Sanders, the quarterback for the University of Colorado Buffaloes, is the highest-earning college football athlete with $3.8 million in NIL deals.
NIL deals, which empower athletes to leverage their personal brand, can be compared to the focus on practical skills in the bar exam. Both represent a shift towards valuing individual capabilities and real-world applicability: athletes capitalizing on personal marketability, and law graduates demonstrating practical legal skills.
Conference Realignment
Next season, college football will look vastly different than this season. Not only will the four-team College Football Playoff system be replaced with a 12-team format, but the schools that make up the Power 5 conferences will balloon in 2024 (although the future of the Pac-12 is in doubt).
Oregon, UCLA, USC, and Washington are leaving the Pac-12 to join the Big Ten, which will have 18 teams in 2024-25. The Big 12 will have 16 schools in 2024-25. And the Pac-12 might want to be renamed the Pac-2, with just Oregon State and Washington State remaining.
Just as conference realignment in college football reorganizes teams to create more competitive and financially viable structures, the realignment of subject matter in the NextGen Bar Exam represents a restructuring to make the exam more relevant to contemporary legal practice. Both are strategic adjustments to better align with current needs and trends in their respective fields.
The NextGen Bar Exam will initially cover all the subjects currently tested by the multiple-choice portion of the current Uniform Bar Exam, plus business associations (including agency, partnership, and corporations). Family Law will be added a year later, despite earlier statements by the NCBE that it would not appear on the NextGen Bar Exam.
Transfer Portal
Under current transfer rules, colleges athletes are no longer required to sit out a year after transferring to a new school. This makes it easier for athletes to transfer from one school to another.
The transfer portal in college football, which allows players more freedom to move between programs, parallels the concept of portable scores in the NextGen Bar Exam (as well as the current Uniform Bar Exam). Both introduce greater mobility and flexibility—athletes can switch teams more easily, and law graduates can carry their exam scores across different jurisdictions, reflecting a more dynamic and interconnected environment in both sports and legal professions.
Portability of exam scores is what makes the current Uniform Bar Exam attractive. More than 40 jurisdictions currently administer the UBE, which will be eliminated with the February 2028 bar exam. Currently, only nine jurisdictions have agreed to implement the NextGen Bar Exam. If the NextGen Bar Exam truly is to maintain the same beneficial portability options for examinees, the NCBE will need to convince more jurisdictions to sign on.
