JD-Next is an alternative law school admission test: an assessment that ABA-accredited law schools can consider in place of the LSAT or GRE when they hold what its publisher calls an ABA variance.
Its publisher's list showed 68 approved schools as of October 2026, and fall 2025 ABA data shows 30 schools actually enrolling first-years admitted with it — about 127 students in total.
What is JD-Next?
JD-Next is an alternative law school admission test — an assessment that some ABA-accredited law schools consider from applicants in place of the LSAT or GRE, per the test's publisher.
It is not an across-the-board option the way the LSAT is: individual schools opt in, and Aspen Publishing, the company that owns JD-Next, publishes the list of schools approved to use it.
Approval dates on that list run from 2023 through 2026.
The regulatory hook, as JD-Next's publisher describes it: ABA Standard 503 requires accredited law schools to use a "valid and reliable" admission test, and a variance is the ABA's permission for a school to use JD-Next in place of the LSAT or GRE.
That description comes from the test's owner — the ABA's own standard text was not accessible when we researched this page in October 2026.
Treat it as the publisher's account, and confirm the current standard with the ABA and with any school you are considering.
That puts JD-Next alongside the LSAT and the GRE.
Per LSAC, the LSAT is the only admission test accepted by all ABA-approved law schools.
The GRE is another alternative admission test, accepted by some schools — how it stacks up against the LSAT is a comparison of its own, which the LSAT vs GRE guide owns.
JD-Next is accepted by some schools only: per its publisher, those holding an ABA variance.
Accepted-by-some-only is the property that shapes everything else on this page.
A JD-Next result is portable only to schools that take it, so the test's value to you depends entirely on your target list.
How does the course and exam work?
Straight answer first: our October 2026 research verified JD-Next's standing as an alternative admission test, the count of schools approved to use it and the number of students entering with it.
It did not verify the course and exam mechanics themselves — the course's length or subject matter, the price, how the exam is administered, or how results are reported to schools.
We won't guess at any of that here.
What the verified pieces do establish is how JD-Next fits an application.
A school holding an ABA approval may consider JD-Next in place of the LSAT or GRE — the publisher's description of the variance.
How heavily a JD-Next result counts in an admissions decision is not something our sources answer: the publisher's page documents the permission, not how any school weighs the result, so that question goes to each admissions office.
So the working details come from two places.
The test's own site, for what the course and exam involve and what they cost.
And the admissions office of every school on your list, for how it treats JD-Next results.
Ask before you register, not after — the useful answer is school-specific.
What our research did not verify
Which law schools accept it?
The acceptance count comes from the publisher.
JD-Next's variance list showed 68 ABA-accredited law schools approved to use JD-Next as an alternative admission test as of October 2026, and the approval dates on that list run from 2023 through 2026.
Approval and use are separate data points.
In the ABA's fall 2025 Standard 509 data, 30 law schools reported first-year students admitted with JD-Next — about 127 students in total.
A school can hold one of the 68 approvals and still be absent from the 30-school enrollee count in a given year, which is why both numbers matter when you judge how live the option is.
We are not reproducing the school-by-school list here.
Our research records the count and the date range, not a verified copy of each school's entry, and both the list and individual schools' policies can change between admissions cycles.
The publisher's variance-schools page carries its current list, and each admissions office can tell you what it accepts today.
Confirm acceptance before you skip the LSAT or GRE
Who should consider it?
Scale first: the ABA's fall 2025 Standard 509 data covers 42,812 first-year students in total, and about 127 of them were reported as admitted with JD-Next.
Whatever individual school policies allow, those are the actual entry numbers for that year.
Portability is the trade-off that follows.
Per LSAC, the LSAT is the only admission test accepted by all ABA-approved law schools, while JD-Next works only at schools that accept it — per its publisher, those holding an ABA variance.
If your list is already concentrated at schools that take JD-Next and each admissions office has confirmed its policy, the test can fit.
If your list is broad or still taking shape, start with the test every school accepts — our guide to what the LSAT is covers it.
Order of operations matters more than test preference: settle the school list first, confirm each school's testing policy, then pick the test that covers it.
Doing it in reverse — registering for a test and discovering acceptance questions later — is how an applicant can end up with a score the schools they prefer will not read.
Career information, not legal advice — admission policies change, so confirm current testing requirements with each law school's admissions office before you apply.