Letter from the Chair

This article originally appeared in The Bar Examiner print edition, Fall 2025 (Vol. 94, No. 3), pp. 1–2.

By Darin B. ScheerThe Shared Commitment and Expertise Underpinning the NextGen UBE

Greetings, friends and colleagues in the bar admissions community. For those of you familiar with NCBE’s traditional operating procedures, it may come as a surprise that I am writing to you as chair for a second term. This is the result of a NCBE Governance Committee recommendation that the Board of Trustees adopted earlier in 2025. Due to the significance of the coming year, in which NCBE will administer the NextGen UBE for the first time, the current NCBE Executive Committee was asked—and each member agreed—to remain in place for an additional year. As a result, no vacancy will occur on the Board of Trustees this term, and service by its current members will be extended by one year. The decision recognizes the importance of stability and continuity during this crucial period.

In my view, this underscores the Board members’ dedication and commitment; all are volunteers with busy professional careers outside of NCBE. Whether they be supreme court justices, federal judges, trial court judges, law professors, bar administrators, public or private sector practitioners, and/or bar examiners, each member has re­­affirmed their willingness to serve this important cause. This mirrors the all-hands-on-deck approach that the hardworking NCBE staff members have consistently modeled over the years of NextGen development. More than anything, it demonstrates just how important we all—volunteers and staff alike—believe the NextGen transition is to bar admissions and to the future of the legal profession.

It is difficult to express how significant a task developing the NextGen UBE has been for all involved—for me, it is one of the most complex, challenging, and ambitious projects in which I’ve ever participated. In addition to the inherent challenges of creating an innovative bar exam that responds to the needs of the profession, the true difficulty comes from the demands everyone at NCBE places on themselves to get it right and to truly serve jurisdictions and their applicants’ needs. Throughout this process, NCBE has solicited, and received, an incredible amount of public comment, jurisdictional input, candidate feedback, and academic and psychometric review. Collecting and integrating that information to help create an accessible, rigorous, fair, valid, and reliable bar exam has shaped up to be a herculean task. Simultaneously, NCBE has been constructing two new digital delivery platforms: one for exam delivery, in an effort to provide candidates and jurisdictions with the best possible experience on exam day, and one for grading to aid the many dedicated bar examiners who will grade the new exam. It has required the devotion of hundreds of thousands of staff hours and significant financial resources, but we are proud to say that none of these development costs will be passed on to jurisdictions or their candidates.

The NextGen UBE is not without its critics; NCBE has done its very best to listen to, interact with, and in­­corporate feedback from those with differing outlooks. We consider those perspectives to be incredibly important to our development process, and we recognize that the intensity of many of those opinions comes from a shared devotion to bettering the profession. We appreciate the professionalism of the many NextGen debates, both internally and externally, and the relationships we have built, even with those who may disagree on certain issues. But whatever your views may be, I hope one thing is not in question: the commitment of everyone involved in the NextGen process—both within and outside of NCBE—to getting it right. That is our common ground, and we are incredibly proud to be part of this collective bar admissions community.

As a private pilot for many years, I’ve always loved the following quote by Wilbur Wright about flying:

[I]f you are looking for perfect safety, you will do well to sit on a fence and watch the birds; but if you really wish to learn, you must mount a machine and become acquainted with its tricks by actual trial.1

Over the past several years, many of us in this community have become acquainted with the knowledge and skills needed to build a new and innovative bar exam by actual trial. I am proud of NCBE for undertaking this daunting task, I treasure the relationships I have built along the way, and I am truly excited for the candidates who will benefit from this hard work in the years to come. Thanks to each of you for your tireless dedication to the profession and for your many contributions to help us get it right. 

Kindest regards,

Darin B. Scheer

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