The award honors Joe E. Covington, a former dean of the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law who was the first Director of Testing for NCBE. The Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) was created and launched largely through his vision and perseverance.

The award is intended to provide support for graduate students in any discipline doing research germane to bar admissions. The research may address some general issue in licensure testing (possibly using bar examination data for examples), or it can focus on bar examinations in particular. For more information, use the Call for Submissions link on this page.