Delaware bar exam: Legacy or current exam until February 2028; NextGen afterward.
| July exam | Apr. 2, late filing May 7 |
| February exam | Nov. 5, late filing Dec. 3 |
| Fees | First-time $700 / $900; attorney $800 / $1,000; repeater $700 / $900; laptop $100 |
| MPRE minimum | 85 |
Dates can change. Check the board’s site before you pay.
Before filing in Delaware, check the current NCBE profile ↗.
| Rule | Del. Sup. Ct. R. 55.4: Limited Permission to Practice as a Military Spouse |
| Accommodation | Limited permission to practice without exam for the spouse of an active-duty service member on orders to Delaware |
| Duration | Tied to spouse's Delaware orders |
| Supervision | Required (a Preceptor and a Delaware Supervising Attorney under Rule 55.4(e)) |
| Adopted | 2019 |
Confirm current status directly with Delaware's bar admission authority ↗: this area of law shifted federally in December 2024 and states are still catching up.
Delaware requires a clerkship of 12 full-time work weeks of 40 hours, completed in Delaware under the supervision of a Delaware attorney. Each applicant must also complete a Clerkship Checklist of legal activities, which the Board posts under its Forms tab. Both the clerkship and the checklist must be satisfactorily completed before an applicant may be admitted (Delaware Supreme Court Rule 52).
The Board publishes pages on preceptor duties and on what to do if an applicant cannot find a preceptor. The clerkship was 21 weeks before the reforms the Supreme Court announced on February 21, 2023, and the checklist changed from a mandatory 25 items to 18 items out of 30 possible ones.
Source: Clerkship Requirements ↗
Delaware's Supreme Court announced on February 21, 2023 that its exam would be offered twice a year, with a February exam added in 2024 to the July one. Chief Justice Seitz said at the time that Delaware was the only state holding its bar exam just once a year, so a failed applicant waited a full year to try again. The release also reduced the cut score from 145 to 143 on the exam's scale, cut the essays from eight to four, and cut the topics that could be tested in those essays from 14 areas of law to 10.
Chief Justice Seitz said the reforms were not a lowering of the standards but a modernization of the process. Delaware's Board also began working with NCBE to compile the character and fitness application, and the Board posts a 2026 sample Delaware bar application and a 2026 sample NCBE character and fitness application. The same announcement cut the late application fee from $1,400 to $900 for law school graduates and from $1,600 to $1,000 for attorneys admitted in another jurisdiction. Those are the figures as announced in 2023, so confirm the current fee schedule with the Board.
Source: Delaware Judiciary release: changes to the Delaware Bar Exam (Feb. 21, 2023) ↗
The Delaware Board of Bar Examiners posts a results table for each exam with totals, passes, fails and a pass percentage for first-time and repeat applicants. February 2026 had 79 applicants and 40 passed, 50.63%: first-timers passed at 67.50% (27 of 40) and repeaters at 33.33% (13 of 39). July 2025 was much larger, 214 applicants and a 72.43% pass rate (155 passed), with first-timers at 81.46% (145 of 178) and repeaters at 27.78% (10 of 36).
Delaware's July exams draw roughly twice as many applicants as its February exams or more, and in the table's paired years the first-timer rate is higher in July. Across the table's July rows from 2023 to 2025, first-timers passed at 68.30% (2023), 75.15% (2024) and 81.46% (2025).
12 full-time work weeks of 40 hours each, completed in Delaware under a Delaware attorney. It was 21 weeks until the reforms the Supreme Court announced on February 21, 2023.
A checklist of legal activities that every applicant must complete along with the clerkship. Since the 2023 reforms it requires 18 of 30 possible items instead of a mandatory list of 25.
Twice: July, plus a February exam added starting in 2024. Before that Delaware was the only state giving its exam once a year, according to the Supreme Court's 2023 announcement.
Four, drawn from 10 areas of law. The 2023 reforms cut the essays from eight and the testable topics from 14 areas.
The Supreme Court reduced the cut score from 145 to 143 on the exam's scale in its 2023 reforms, and it called the change a modernization, not a lowering of the standard.
NCBE, in partnership with the Board of Bar Examiners, which is a change announced in the 2023 reforms. The Board posts a 2026 sample NCBE character and fitness application.
A Delaware attorney, called a preceptor. The Board publishes pages on a preceptor's duties and on what to do if you cannot find a preceptor.
In Delaware Supreme Court Rule 52. The Board's clerkship page also links a 2009 Bar Examiner article by Justice Randy J. Holland, "The Delaware Clerkship Requirement: A Long-Standing Tradition."
72.43% overall (155 of 214 applicants), and 81.46% for first-time applicants, according to the Board of Bar Examiners.
79 in February 2026 and 92 in February 2025, against 214 and 199 in the July exams of 2025 and 2024.
Compare other state bar exam guides: District of Columbia · Florida · Georgia · Hawaii · Idaho · Illinois
Source: NCBE Comprehensive Guide: Delaware ↗ · reviewed August 21, 2026.