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NextGen resource provided subjects are family law and trusts and estates, supplied with the statutes and case law you need rather than memorised. Family law becomes a memorized subject in July 2028. Trusts and estates has no announced end date, and most summaries get that second point wrong.
Two: family law and trusts and estates (https://www.ncbex.org/exams/nextgen/content-scope).
They appear on every exam from July 2026 through February 2028, embedded within skills-focused questions rather than as standalone doctrine questions.
When they appear, the necessary legal resources such as statutes, regulations and case law are provided to the examinee. You are being tested on reading and applying supplied authority, not on having memorised it.
Not for exams through February 2028. From the July 2028 administration onward, yes.
NCBE has announced that family law becomes a memorized foundational concept beginning with the July 2028 administration, and has published a 2028 Family Law subject matter outline (https://www.ncbex.org/news-resources/update-nextgen-exam-content-extends-availability).
So the answer depends on which administration you are sitting, and for most current law students in the July 2028 cohort the answer is yes.
This page exists to correct a claim that is widely repeated and wrong.
NCBE has announced NO end date for the resource-provided treatment of trusts and estates. It has not said that trusts and estates becomes a memorized subject in 2028, and it has published no 2028 subject matter outline for it (https://www.ncbex.org/news-resources/update-nextgen-exam-content-extends-availability).
Most summaries in circulation say both subjects become memorized in July 2028. That is true of family law and it is not true of trusts and estates.
If a prep provider or a summary tells you to start memorising trusts and estates for a 2028 sitting, ask them for the NCBE citation. There is not one.
SubjectJuly 2026 to February 2028From July 2028NCBE 2028 outline publishedFamily lawResource provided, embedded in skills questionsMemorized foundational conceptYesTrusts and estatesResource provided, embedded in skills questionsNo announced changeNoConflict of lawsNot testedNo announced returnNoSecured transactions, UCC Article 9Not testedNo announced returnNo
From NCBE's content scope (https://www.ncbex.org/exams/nextgen/content-scope) and its content availability update (https://www.ncbex.org/news-resources/update-nextgen-exam-content-extends-availability). Verified July 27, 2026. Where the column reads no announced change, that is the published position and not an inference that the treatment is permanent.
It moves the work from recall to speed, and the two are not interchangeable preparation.
A memorized subject rewards flashcards and repetition. A resource-provided subject rewards being fast at locating a rule inside supplied material and applying it accurately under time pressure.
That is much closer to what a performance task tests than to what a doctrine question tests, which is consistent with NCBE embedding these subjects in skills-focused questions rather than giving them their own items.
Practical consequence: if you have limited hours, resource-provided subjects are the wrong place to spend memorisation time and the right place to spend timed-reading practice.
Three things collide and produce the error.
First, the two subjects were announced together and are usually listed together, so a reader generalises from one to both. Second, both were removed from the MEE at the same moment, in July 2026, which looks like symmetry. Third, NCBE's own update covers several changes in one document, and the family law outline is the specific thing that distinguishes them (https://www.ncbex.org/news-resources/update-nextgen-exam-content-extends-availability).
The tell is the subject matter outline. NCBE published a 2028 Family Law outline. It published no equivalent for trusts and estates, and an outline is what a memorized subject gets.
One framing point that governs this whole page. The first NextGen administration was July 28 and 29, 2026 (https://www.ncbex.org/exams/nextgen), so at the time of writing no NextGen exam had been sat anywhere in the world and no results existed. There is no NextGen pass rate, no score distribution, no repeater data and no retrospective on how it went, and anyone offering you one is inventing it.
And no administered exam yet exists to show how heavily either subject actually appeared. The July 2026 sitting was the first, so the practical weight of resource-provided material is unknown.
NCBE has not published a NextGen mean or standard deviation either. The figures are absent from the Guidance Brief, the Examinees' Guide, the Blueprint and every scoring page (https://www.ncbex.org/sites/default/files/2025-11/FOR%20RELEASE%20NCBE%20NextGen%20Guidance%20Brief-Recommended%20Passing%20Score%20Range-2.pdf), which is worth knowing before you read anyone's confident claim about difficulty.
Every fact here was read on NCBE's own pages or the jurisdiction's own board or supreme court pages on July 27, 2026. No prep company, no aggregator, no forum and no news summary was used as a source for anything.
Where a jurisdiction's own site was unreachable, robots-blocked or JavaScript-gated, we say the fact rests on NCBE alone rather than presenting it as confirmed. That happened more often than you would expect and it is named on the page each time.
Where two official sources disagree, we publish the conflict and name which one we treat as operational. We do not pick quietly and we do not average them.
Where nothing is published, the page says not yet published by the board. It never says a number we worked out ourselves, because an estimate that looks like a disclosure is worse than a gap.
This page is one spoke of a cluster. The hub is our NextGen bar exam pillar, which carries the whole transition in one place and links every spoke including this one.
The two most closely related pages here are nextgen bar exam subjects and nextgen vs ube.
Everything across the cluster is drawn from the same verified fact set and carries the same verified-as-of date, so the numbers agree with each other by construction rather than by coincidence.
It cannot tell you what your own board will do. Jurisdictions set their own dates, fees, cut scores, deadlines and admission rules, and NCBE compiles those decisions rather than making them.
It cannot substitute for reading your jurisdiction's rule text. Compilation charts are an index into the rules, not the rules, and every material decision should be checked against the authority itself.
The first is adoption. Supreme courts issue orders on their own schedule and NCBE's compilation pages lag them, which is exactly what happened with California in July 2026.
The second is the calendar. Most jurisdictions had not posted 2027 dates or 2027 fees at verification, and several were serving prior-cycle pages without saying so.
The third is cut scores. NCBE states on its own page that jurisdictions are currently evaluating its recommended NextGen range (https://www.ncbex.org/exams/nextgen/minimum-passing-scores), so that list grows month by month.
None of those three settles before autumn. Treat September as the re-check point for anything on this page that carries a date or a number.
Start at NCBE's jurisdiction index (https://www.ncbex.org/jurisdictions) to find the name of your admitting authority, which is often not the state bar association and is sometimes a board sitting under the supreme court.
Then go to that authority's own site and look for a dated page. A page with no cycle label is the warning sign, not the exception; several boards serve prior-cycle information with no year on it anywhere.
Cross-check the deadlines page against the program page, because they disagree more often than they should. We found boards contradicting themselves on dates in the same week.
If the two disagree and you cannot tell which is current, email the board and keep the reply. A dated email from the board is better evidence than any table, including this one.
Open your own jurisdiction's board page and confirm every date and number on this page against it.
Where this page says not yet published, check again in September, which is when most boards refresh.
If your plan turns on a figure here, get it from the board in writing rather than from any table.
Everything on this page about the resource-provided subjects was read on the source pages listed inline on July 27, 2026, and the date is on the page rather than buried in a footer because this material moves faster than anything else we publish.
Three separate clocks are running against it. Supreme courts issue adoption orders and NCBE's own pages lag them.
Most jurisdictions had not posted 2027 dates or fees. NextGen passing scores are being set jurisdiction by jurisdiction right now, and NCBE says so on its own page (https://www.ncbex.org/exams/nextgen/minimum-passing-scores).
Re-check your own jurisdiction's board before you rely on any date or number here, including ours. A figure quoted anywhere without a cycle label and a date attached is unverified by definition.
Family law and trusts and estates, on every exam from July 2026 through February 2028, embedded in skills questions with the statutes, regulations and case law supplied.
Not through February 2028. From the July 2028 administration it becomes a memorized foundational concept, and NCBE has published a 2028 Family Law subject matter outline.
No. NCBE has announced no end date for its resource-provided treatment and has published no 2028 outline for it. Summaries saying both subjects become memorized in 2028 are wrong about trusts and estates.
With timed reading and application practice rather than memorisation. You are being tested on locating and applying supplied authority quickly, which is closer to a performance task than to a doctrine question.
Written by Ali, Georgetown Law, founder of Lovare Institut.
July 30, 2026
July 30, 2026