How Do You Get Admitted to the Maine Bar?

The Maine Board of Bar Examiners, based in Brunswick, handles bar admission in Maine.

The board works under the Maine Bar Admission Rules, which the Maine Supreme Judicial Court has adopted.

Every route into the bar covered on this page — the exam, the MPRE requirement, UBE score transfers, admission by motion and law-office study — runs through the board under those rules.

Maine gives the Uniform Bar Examination: the Multistate Essay Examination, two Multistate Performance Test tasks and the Multistate Bar Examination, prepared by the National Conference of Bar Examiners.

Maine has used the UBE since July 2017 and has no Maine-specific law component for exam takers.

The exam is given on the last Tuesday and Wednesday of February and July.

On the legacy UBE, the MBE is weighted 50%, the MEE 30% and the MPT 20%, with total scores reported on a 400-point scale.

Maine's minimum UBE score is 270, and the same 270 minimum applies to scores transferred in from other UBE jurisdictions.

Maine requires bar exam applicants to hold a bachelor's degree as well as a JD or LLB from an ABA-accredited law school.

The admission rules provide alternatives for experienced US and foreign-trained lawyers, but our research did not capture the detail of those alternatives, so read the Board of Bar Examiners' rules before you apply.

Maine also has a law-office-study route, which we cover below.

Maine requires an MPRE scaled score of 80, under Maine Bar Admission Rule 11.

Since an October 4, 2022 amendment, exam applicants do not need to have passed the MPRE before sitting for the Maine bar exam — the passing score must be earned within 15 years before admission.

The MPRE itself is a two-hour, 60-question multiple-choice exam offered three times a year by NCBE.

Background investigations are part of the admission process in every jurisdiction, and NCBE runs investigations and hosts applications for many boards, though not all of them.

In Maine, the exam fees and the score-transfer fees are charged on top of the NCBE character and fitness application fee.

Our research did not capture how the Maine Board of Bar Examiners conducts or weighs its review, so questions about a specific history belong with the board.

Yes, in two ways.

Admission by motion (Rule 11A) requires active practice for at least 3 of the 5 years before filing, a JD from an ABA-approved law school, a passed MPRE, no failed Maine bar exam in the last 5 years, and 15 hours of Maine practice-and-procedure (PRACPRO) CLE; a $250 preliminary eligibility fee applies.

Those 15 PRACPRO hours must include 1 live ethics hour and 1 live harassment and discrimination hour, with no more than 7 of the remaining 13 earned through on-demand courses, completed within one year before certification.

Our research did not confirm whether Maine limits admission by motion to lawyers from reciprocal jurisdictions, so confirm your eligibility with the board.

The other route is a transferred UBE score: Maine accepts scores earned within 3 years before the application is received (Rule 11B), with a 270 minimum, and fees of $900 or $1,000 depending on whether you have been admitted elsewhere for a year or more.

If you are sitting the UBE in another jurisdiction, Maine accepts concurrent applications.

Maine bar exam fees, in effect since March 15, 2025, are $800 for applicants never admitted in any jurisdiction or admitted in another for less than one year, and $900 for lawyers admitted elsewhere for one year or more — both on top of the NCBE character and fitness application fee, with a 3% convenience fee for card payments.

Score-transfer applicants pay $900, or $1,000 if admitted elsewhere for a year or more, and admission by motion carries a $250 preliminary eligibility fee.

For the February 2027 exam, applications are accepted October 15 through December 20, 2026, until 5 p.m., with no late-filing option, and Maine has suspended courtesy seating.

Our research did not establish current Maine pass rates or a results-release schedule, so confirm both with the board.

NCBE lists Maine as planning to first administer the NextGen UBE in July 2028, after a final legacy UBE in February 2028, and Maine has accepted transferred NextGen scores of 620 or higher since July 2026 — all as of September 2026, per NCBE.

The Maine board's own pages we read did not confirm the switch date, so check with the board before you plan around it.

Yes.

An applicant who has completed two-thirds of an ABA-accredited JD may pursue the study of law in the office of an attorney in active practice in Maine, continuously and on a full-time basis, for at least one year, under a Board-approved course of study, and then sit the bar.

Read the rule's terms closely: two-thirds of graduation requirements, not two years of law school; the study year must be full-time; and the supervising attorney must be in active Maine practice.