Diploma privilege is bar admission without the bar exam: a qualifying law school credential stands in for a test score, and the character-and-fitness review still applies.
Wisconsin's version covers graduates of its two law schools under Supreme Court Rule 40.03, while New Hampshire's Rule 42(XII) makes graduates of one honors program, the Daniel Webster Scholars, eligible for admission without the bar exam.
Here is how each route works, who qualifies, and what the credential does and doesn't do across state lines.
What is diploma privilege?
Diploma privilege is admission to a state bar without taking that state's bar exam.
The law school credential stands in for a test score: in Wisconsin, the school certifies that a graduate is legally competent, and the Board of Bar Examiners certifies character and fitness under the Wisconsin Supreme Court's Rule 40.03.
That Wisconsin model covers graduates of two schools — the University of Wisconsin Law School and Marquette University Law School.
New Hampshire's version is narrower: Rule 42(XII) lets graduates of one program, the Daniel Webster Scholar Honors Program at UNH Law, be admitted without taking the bar exam.
So "diploma privilege" describes two different designs — a rule keyed to a school's graduates, and one keyed to completing a specific honors program with its own application.
What neither skips is the admitting authority or the character and fitness review: the BBE handles character and fitness in Wisconsin, and New Hampshire's Committee on Character and Fitness reviews its applicants, without using NCBE's character-and-fitness services.
Which states have it?
This page covers the two whose admission rules our research read, and it does not attempt a count beyond them.
Admission rules are state-specific, they change, and a state's own admitting authority is the source for what routes it offers today.
Rules change — confirm before you rely on a route
Wisconsin diploma privilege: how it works
Wisconsin bar admission runs through the Board of Bar Examiners (BBE) — an 11-member board appointed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court that writes and grades the bar exam and enforces CLE compliance.
Admission itself comes from the Supreme Court, and every Wisconsin lawyer must join the State Bar of Wisconsin, the state's mandatory bar.
The diploma privilege sits in Supreme Court Rule 40.03: graduates of the University of Wisconsin Law School and Marquette University Law School can be admitted without a bar exam, because the school certifies their legal competence and the BBE certifies their character and fitness.
The rule carries a curriculum floor.
Diploma-privilege graduates must complete at least 84 law school credits, including at least 60 credits in listed subject areas — 30 of them in mandatory subjects such as constitutional law, contracts and criminal law.
Two things the privilege does not change.
Wisconsin requires no MPRE score for admission.
And the exam route still exists alongside it: Wisconsin began administering the Uniform Bar Examination with the July 2026 exam, at a 260 passing score, and its Supreme Court Rules direct the BBE to administer the UBE's successor, the NextGen UBE, starting July 2028.
The UBE route carries a requirement of its own: UBE takers and UBE-transfer applicants must complete a 21-hour Wisconsin law and practice educational component before admission — two hours each in Criminal Law, Ethics & Professional Responsibility, Evidence, Family Law, Torts and Trusts & Estates, plus nine elective hours — within 12 months of the pass notification or the transfer filing.
Wisconsin also admits lawyers from outside the state on transferred UBE scores of 260 or higher, filed within 36 months of the qualifying exam, and admits experienced lawyers on proof of practice if they were substantially engaged in practice for three of the last five years (SCR 40.05).
For the whole system — fees, deadlines, score transfer and the character-and-fitness process — see the state series page on Wisconsin bar admission.
New Hampshire: the Daniel Webster Scholar route
New Hampshire's admission is run by the New Hampshire Supreme Court Office of Bar Admissions under Supreme Court Rule 42.
The standard route is the UBE — the MPT, MEE and MBE, all of which must be taken in New Hampshire — with a move to the NextGen UBE scheduled for July 2028, an MPRE passing score of 79 that must be passed before admission, and a J.D. from an ABA-approved law school required to sit for the exam, per NCBE's jurisdiction profile.
The exception for graduates is Rule 42(XII): graduates of UNH Law's Daniel Webster Scholar Honors Program can be admitted to the New Hampshire bar without taking the bar exam.
The mechanics are specific.
DWS graduates apply by January 15 and pay $995 — the same fee the standard bar exam application carries — and they still must pass the MPRE.
The window is tight, too: the application has to come within one year of completing the program.
Set against Wisconsin's rule, the difference is structural.
Wisconsin's privilege runs through a school's certification of its graduates; New Hampshire's runs through completing one honors program at one school, with its own deadline, fee and MPRE requirement.
In both states, the character-and-fitness review still applies.
Does diploma privilege transfer to other states?
These are state rules with state boundaries.
New Hampshire's Rule 42(XII) admits Daniel Webster Scholar Honors Program graduates to the New Hampshire bar, and Wisconsin's Rule 40.03 is Wisconsin's admission rule.
An admission earned under one state's rule is an admission to that state's bar — practicing in another state means satisfying that state's own admission rules.
What the rules we read do specify is how each of these two states treats lawyers admitted elsewhere — and none of the routes they list runs through a law school's certification.
Into Wisconsin: transferred UBE scores of 260 or higher, with the application filed within 36 months of the qualifying exam, or admission on proof of practice after three of the last five years substantially spent in practice.
Into New Hampshire: transferred UBE scores of 270 or higher earned within the past three years — or three to five years out, with two years of active practice — on a $995 application, or admission on motion without examination under Rule 42(XI) for $2,500, MPRE first, with eligibility turning on New Hampshire's reciprocity list and special routes for Maine and Vermont lawyers.
For a diploma-privilege admittee, the practical takeaway is the one any mobile lawyer faces: the destination state's rules decide, and they are worth confirming before you move.
How lawyers waive into a state without sitting for its exam — admission on motion and reciprocity generally — is its own topic; see bar reciprocity and admission on motion.
Will more states adopt diploma privilege?
The record we read shows a state can hold both tracks at once.
Wisconsin began administering the UBE in July 2026 and its diploma privilege remains in place alongside the exam — adopting the uniform test did not retire the state's no-exam route.
Both states' next exam move points the same way, though.
New Hampshire switches to the NextGen UBE in July 2028, and Wisconsin's Supreme Court Rules direct the Board of Bar Examiners to administer the NextGen UBE starting the same month.
Beyond that, we won't project.
Whether other states create exam-free routes is a question their admitting authorities answer one rule change at a time, and nothing in the two states' rules we read predicts it.
If the possibility is shaping where you study or where you seek admission, ask the admitting authority in that state what routes it offers today — and check again near your application date, because Wisconsin's system changed as recently as July 2026.
Career information, not legal advice — bar admission rules change; confirm current requirements with the Wisconsin Board of Bar Examiners, the New Hampshire Supreme Court Office of Bar Admissions or the admitting authority where you intend to practice.