ExamSoft is an exam delivery vendor, and Examplify is its exam software — the application you type into where your board contracts ExamSoft to deliver the written sessions by laptop.
Where your board charges for laptop testing, you register for it and pay that fee — to the board, or, as in Mississippi, straight to ExamSoft.
Under the NextGen UBE, ExamSoft is out: NCBE delivers the exam in its own secure testing browser on your own laptop.
What is ExamSoft?
ExamSoft is an exam delivery vendor, and Examplify is its exam software — the application you type into when a jurisdiction contracts ExamSoft to deliver its written bar exam sessions by laptop.
For the February 2027 exam, California's State Bar contracted ExamSoft as the exam delivery vendor for the written sessions, with applicants submitting their written responses from their personal laptops.
California's February 2027 arrangement splits the exam in two: the written sessions are typed in Examplify, while MBE answers are bubbled on a Scantron sheet in pencil — and handwriting the written sessions is still allowed.
Beyond that, the arrangement is jurisdiction by jurisdiction: Mississippi's laptop-testing charge is paid to ExamSoft, while Alaska's is a separate laptop registration alongside its application fee.
Whether laptop testing is offered where you're sitting, which vendor your board has contracted and what the fee is — your board's pages are the authority on all three.
New to the exam itself?
Our bar exam overview covers the format, the sections and who runs it.
Registration and laptop fees
Where a laptop fee applies, it sits alongside your jurisdiction's application fee — a separate registration line in Alaska, a charge paid to ExamSoft in Mississippi.
There is no single published price: fees vary board by board, and a board's figure can change between exams.
A few published examples.
Alaska's bar exam application fee is $876 for first-time applicants or $618 for re-applicants for the February 2027 and July 2027 exams, including a 3% transaction fee, with laptop registration at $129.
Mississippi adds a $25 fee to every application and charges $113.00, paid to ExamSoft, for laptop testing — a figure the board's page marks as current but subject to change — and refunds no fees.
Hawaii's bar examination fee is $500, in effect since February 2014, with NCBE character-and-fitness and ExamSoft laptop fees extra on top.
NCBE's guide for NextGen examinees describes legacy laptop software fees as typically $90–$150 — a range, not a fixed price, and the fee your own board publishes is the one that applies to you.
Confirm the fee with your board
Mock exams before exam day
Whether your board requires a mock exam before you sit the real one is a jurisdiction question — and it is one our research did not capture jurisdiction by jurisdiction.
Our research captured no mock-exam or practice-exam process for Examplify in any jurisdiction's materials, so we won't describe steps we haven't verified.
Treat your board's laptop registration materials as the only authoritative checklist: if a practice or mock exam is required, its deadline and its requirements come from that document.
If your board offers an optional rehearsal, taking it on the laptop you will actually bring, in the room setup you will actually use, is the easiest way to find software problems while there is still time to fix them.
Software rehearsal is not the same as studying.
For practice questions and full-length exams, see our guide to bar exam practice tests.
What happens if the software crashes mid-exam
The recent exam-technology failure our research documented involves the NextGen UBE, not ExamSoft — and the record covers both the failure and the make-up that followed.
Washington's July 2026 NextGen UBE was cancelled for some applicants after technology failures at the Yakima Convention Center; a make-up exam was held September 1–2, 2026, in Tacoma, with scores due in early October 2026.
We won't speculate about the cause.
For crashes on legacy, ExamSoft-based exams, our research did not capture a published restart or make-up policy jurisdiction by jurisdiction — any restart or make-up policy would appear in your board's exam-day instructions.
If it happens to you, alert a proctor immediately and follow the board's posted procedure rather than improvising.
Read the procedure before exam day, while you can still ask the board questions.
What changes under the NextGen UBE
Under the NextGen UBE, ExamSoft is out.
The exam is taken on your own laptop at in-person, proctored testing sites run by the jurisdiction, using NCBE's own secure testing browser — and it is not given at commercial test centers.
ExamSoft is not part of the NextGen UBE.
The fee moves to NCBE too.
NextGen examinees pay a $149 exam software/technology fee through their NCBE Account, on top of the jurisdiction's application fee.
The switch is staged, so which software you face depends on when you sit.
The NextGen UBE was first administered in July 2026 in Connecticut, Guam, Idaho, Maryland, Missouri, the Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon, Palau, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Washington, and the July 2028 wave includes California, Florida, New York and Texas.
Until your jurisdiction's switch date arrives, its own laptop rules — ExamSoft's, where that board uses ExamSoft — still govern your exam.
Career information, not legal advice. Exam software, fees and procedures are set jurisdiction by jurisdiction — confirm current requirements with the bar admission authority where you intend to sit before you rely on anything here.