How Do You Get Admitted to the North Dakota Bar?

The State Board of Law Examiners handles North Dakota bar admission.

The board dates to 1905 and consists of three resident licensed members of the North Dakota Bar appointed by the Supreme Court of North Dakota, plus the Clerk of the Supreme Court, who serves as ex-officio secretary-treasurer.

NCBE writes the exams North Dakota uses, but the state administers them and makes its own admission decisions.

North Dakota gives the Uniform Bar Exam until July 2027, when its bar examination becomes the NextGen UBE.

The UBE is NCBE's exam, made up of the Multistate Essay Examination, two Multistate Performance Test tasks and the Multistate Bar Examination; on the legacy UBE the MBE is weighted 50%, the MEE 30% and the MPT 20%, and total scores are reported on a 400-point scale.

To pass in North Dakota, an applicant must receive a scaled score of 260 or above on the UBE, or a 610 or above on the NextGen UBE.

The rule also caps attempts: an applicant who fails to achieve a passing score after taking six UBE, MBE or NGUBE bar examinations may not take additional bar examinations for admission in North Dakota.

North Dakota's eligibility rule requires a juris doctor or equivalent degree from a law school approved or provisionally approved for accreditation by the American Bar Association.

Beyond the law-school requirement, our research did not collect the rest of North Dakota's exam eligibility rules, such as filing steps and deadlines, so confirm the current requirements with the State Board of Law Examiners before you apply.

The UBE itself does not standardize eligibility: NCBE notes that UBE jurisdictions still independently decide who may sit and be admitted, educational requirements, character and fitness, retake limits and local-law components.

North Dakota requires a scaled MPRE score of 85 or above, earned within five years of filing an application.

NCBE's jurisdiction page for North Dakota listed the same 85 minimum as of October 2026.

The MPRE is a two-hour, 60-question multiple-choice exam offered three times a year; scaled scores run from 50 to 150, and each jurisdiction sets its own passing score.

Admission on motion by test score uses a longer MPRE window of seven years, covered below.

Character and fitness review is part of the admission process in every U.S. jurisdiction.

NCBE runs background investigations and hosts applications for many jurisdictions, but it makes no character and fitness decisions or recommendations; each jurisdiction decides who is fit to practice.

Each jurisdiction also decides which questions applicants answer on the standardized NCBE character report and how the answers are evaluated.

Our research did not collect North Dakota's own character and fitness procedures, so questions about a specific history belong with the State Board of Law Examiners.

Yes.

North Dakota's rules provide two ways in without sitting for the state's exam.

By practice: a lawyer who has been licensed for at least 5 years in another jurisdiction and actively engaged in practice for at least 4 of the last 5 years before applying.

By test score: an applicant with a scaled score of 260 or above on the UBE, 610 or above on the NextGen UBE, or 150 or above on the MBE earned in another jurisdiction, with an MPRE score of 85 within seven years; the application is due within 2 years of the exam, or within 5 years of licensure for applicants who have been practicing.

Motion applicants must also verify 12 hours of approved or approvable continuing legal education course work from the prior 36 months, one hour of it in ethics; our research records an exception for recent test-score transfers.

North Dakota's transferred-score window is one of the shortest in NCBE's list: a maximum age of 2 years, alongside Rhode Island.

A transferred score does not skip character and fitness, either — the receiving jurisdiction runs its own review.

Our research did not establish North Dakota's current exam application fee, its pass rates or when it releases results.

Check with the State Board of Law Examiners for the current fee schedule and result dates before you file.

Two related fees are set nationally: the MPRE test fee is $185 at all 2026 and 2027 administrations, and a score transfer uses an NCBE Official Bar Exam Score Transcript, which costs $30.

North Dakota moves to the NextGen UBE in July 2027.

Its rule says the state's bar examination will be the UBE until July 2027, and NCBE lists North Dakota among the jurisdictions scheduled to start the NextGen UBE that month.

The state's last legacy UBE administration is in February 2027, and it has accepted transferred NextGen UBE scores at a 610 minimum since July 2026; NCBE's announced NextGen passing score for North Dakota is also 610.

The NextGen UBE runs nine hours over a day and a half — two 3-hour sessions on day one and one on day two — taken on the examinee's own laptop at in-person, proctored testing sites.

It reports one score on a 500–750 scale, and NCBE cautions that legacy 400-scale scores and NextGen scores should not be compared directly.

NextGen examinees also pay NCBE a $149 exam software and technology fee on top of the jurisdiction's application fee.