Rhineland-Palatinate is piloting the first fully digitized state bar exam

Mainz / Cologne, May 26, 2026 – Rhineland-Palatinate is continuing to drive forward the digitization of the legal examination system and is the first federal state to pilot a fully digitized state bar exam.

As part of a mock exam to prepare for the Second State Bar Exam, approximately 180 law clerks were able, for the first time on May 19 and 20, 2026, not only to take their written exams electronically but also to use digital versions of statutory texts and commentaries during the exam.

This marks the first time a central component of legal examinations has been fully transferred to a digital examination environment: the paper documents, collections of laws, and commentaries previously used have been replaced by digital tools.

For the legal exam market, this is a significant step—moving away from decades of paper-based exam procedures toward a modern, more practice-oriented, and technologically reliable exam environment.

The digital resources were made available to the participants on a second screen. While taking the exam, they were able to access digital legal literature from the eExam library of the publisher C.H.BECK.

IQUL not only provides the technical exam infrastructure for this, but also develops the secure and legally compliant exam software that integrates digital exam-taking and digital aids into a controlled exam environment.

The new product “Digital Aids” is the result of more than a year of collaborative development between IQUL and the publisher C.H.BECK. The goal of the collaboration is to integrate specialized legal content into digital state examinations in such a way that it can be used reliably, securely, and user-friendly under exam conditions.

Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection Dr. Helmut Martin comments:

“The requirements for legal education and examinations are constantly changing. We are addressing this change by consistently modernizing our examination structures. Rhineland-Palatinate is once again demonstrating that digitalization and examination procedures that are reliable under the rule of law can be successfully combined.”

From IQUL’s perspective, the pilot project demonstrates that digital exams are no longer merely about entering answers electronically, but can transform entire exam ecosystems.

Dr. Jonas vor dem Esche, Managing Director of IQUL GmbH, says:

“This pilot project reveals what the state bar exam of the future will look like: digital, secure, practical, and consistently oriented toward the working realities of modern lawyers.

The fact that digital tools are being integrated directly into a state examination setting for the first time is a milestone for the examination system.

Together with C.H.BECK, we have worked for over a year to bring legal literature into a secure and legally compliant digital examination environment.”

Feedback from participants in the evaluation also confirms the relevance of the new format: 84 percent of respondents stated that using the second screen supported their workflow during the mock exam.

Rhineland-Palatinate had already taken a pioneering role in electronic exams. Since October 2021, supervised exams for the Second State Law Examination have been able to be completed electronically using IQUL’s technology; since August 2023, this has also been the case for exams in the mandatory subjects of the First State Law Examination.

The next step in digitization follows with the now-tested combination of electronic exam completion and digital aids.

Once the pilot phase is complete, the fully digitized exam is to be integrated into regular exam operations starting with the next exam cycle in October. The use of digital aids—as well as the electronic completion of exams—remains voluntary.

About IQUL

IQUL GmbH is Germany’s market leader in digital exams, e-assessment, SaaS solutions, and full-service test centers.

The company develops secure and legally compliant exam software and supports universities, public institutions, ministries, professional associations, and other organizations in the scalable administration of digital exams.