\n<\/p>\n
For the first time in 43 years, lawyers who want to practice in Texas will no longer be required to hold a degree from a law school accredited by the American Bar Association, the Texas Supreme Court decided last week.<\/p>\n
While the ABA is \u201ccontinuing to work with the Texas Supreme Court\u2014and all other state supreme courts and bar admitting authorities\u2014to help preserve the portability of law school degrees throughout the country,\u201d the policy \u201creinforces the authority that the Supreme Court of Texas has always had over the licensure of JD graduates,\u201d Jenn Rosato Perea, managing director of the ABA\u2019s accrediting arm, wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed<\/em>. <\/p>\n Since 1983, Texas has ceded some of that authority to the ABA, whose Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar accredits the majority of law schools in the United States. Most other states have similar ABA oversight in place; it became a popular move in the 1980s because law was becoming increasingly national business. Widespread adoption of ABA accreditation as a licensure standard offered more uniformity and has made it easier for lawyers to practice in multiple states. <\/p>\n The new Texas policy comes amid the broader crackdown on higher education accreditors by the Trump administration and its allies, and specifically on the ABA, which has become a target of the Republican-led anti-DEI crusade in recent years. Indeed, the ABA suspended its diversity, equity and inclusion standards last year. Now Texas has become the first state to say it will no longer rely on the accreditor to help to set law licensure standards. <\/p>\n \u201c[The Court] intends to provide stability, certainty, and flexibility to currently approved law schools by guaranteeing ongoing approval to schools that satisfy a set of simple, objective, and ideologically neutral criteria (such as bar exam passage rate) using metrics no more onerous than those currently required by the ABA,\u201d read a Jan. 6 order signed by all nine justices of the Texas Supreme Court. \u201c[It] does not intend to impose additional accreditation, compliance, or administrative burdens on currently approved law schools.\u201d<\/p>\n While the policy likely won\u2019t change much in the short term, critics say it invites the creation of alternative law school accreditors, which could make it harder for lawyers to move their practice across state lines. <\/p>\n Republican-controlled Florida, Ohio and Tennessee are weighing similar measures.<\/p>\n \u201cThis could be the beginning of the end of the ABA as the accreditor of choice for law schools nationally,\u201d Peter Lake, a law professor at Stetson College of Law\u2019s Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy, told Inside Higher Ed<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s a little too early to call the game, but this is a significant step toward a goal the Trump administration and many states want to see happen.\u201d <\/p>\n Part of that goal involves asserting more control over higher education accreditors. <\/p>\n In April, Trump issued an executive order directing the Department of Education to suspend or terminate the federal recognition of accreditors found \u201cto engage in unlawful discrimination in accreditation-related activity under the guise of \u2018diversity, equity, and inclusion\u2019 initiatives.\u201d It specifically called for an investigation of the ABA and the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which accredits medical schools. In June, six states\u2014Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas\u2014announced the launch of a new regional accreditor, the Commission for Public Higher Education; at the time, Florida governor Ron DeSantis described it as part of an effort to root out \u201cwoke ideology\u201d in higher education and break up the \u201caccreditation cartel.\u201d <\/p>\n The federal government made adjacent arguments in supporting the Texas Supreme Court\u2019s plan to minimize the ABA\u2019s oversight of legal education, also announced last April. In December, the Federal Trade Commission submitted a public comment letter in support of the policy, accusing the ABA of having a \u201cmonopoly on the accreditation of American law schools\u201d and of imposing \u201crigid and costly requirements\u201d mandating \u201cevery law school follow an expensive, elitist model of legal education.\u201d<\/p>\n While the Texas court stopped short of establishing a new law school accreditor, it acknowledged that it might in the future consider \u201creturning to greater reliance on a multistate accrediting entity other than the ABA should a suitable entity become available,\u201d according to the final version of the policy. <\/p>\n Lake said that could happen eventually, especially if other states decide to follow Texas and ditch the ABA\u2019s oversight. \u201cThis is an open invitation to form a [new law school\u2013accrediting] organization,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I suspect that whatever group forms will probably be a little more aligned with the Trump administration\u2019s goals and ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n Educators and experts believe such a move will only impede the goals of legal education and practice. <\/p>\n \u201cABA accreditation provides a nationally recognized framework for quality assurance and transparency; portability of licensure through recognition of ABA accreditation by all 50 states, which is critical for graduates\u2019 career flexibility; consumer protections and public accountability through disclosure standards; and a baseline of educational quality that correlates with higher bar passage rates and better employment outcomes,\u201d the deans of eight of the state\u2019s 10 ABA-accredited law schools wrote in a letter to the Texas Supreme Court in June.<\/p>\n The dean of South Texas College of Law Houston was among those that objected to minimizing the ABA\u2019s oversight of law licenses in the state. <\/p>\n JHVEPhoto\/iStock\/Getty Images<\/p>\n A degree from an ABA-accredited law school is generally required to pursue a career as a lawyer, said Oren R. Griffin, a law professor at the University of Tulsa College of Law. <\/p>\n \u201cABA accreditation is a national stamp of approval,\u201d he said. \u201cLaw schools may differ on what they prioritize, such as curriculum or clinics they offer, but the standards have identified some basic requirements that allow all law schools to operate at an efficient, effective level.\u201d<\/p>\n And even if a state says it will license lawyers who didn\u2019t graduate from an ABA-accredited law school, graduates from such institutions may still face limited opportunities. <\/p>\n \u201cLaw schools have been very well served by these standards,\u201c Griffin said. \u201cIf other states were to follow suit and begin to not require ABA accreditation as a national standard, you could end up with some real disparities or differences among the 50 states, which could increase the complexities for students who are graduating and want to be able to practice in multiple states.\u201d<\/p>\n Regardless of the Texas Supreme Court\u2019s new policy, law schools won\u2019t likely abandon ABA accreditation anytime soon, said Austen L. Parrish, dean of the University of California, Irvine, School of Law and president of the Association of American Law Schools. <\/p>\n \u201cFor example, a school like the University of Texas\u2014where about 40\u00a0percent of students come from out of state and some 30\u00a0percent of graduates are placed out of state\u2014cannot afford to not be ABA accredited. And I suspect that\u2019s true for all of the ABA-accredited schools,\u201d he said, adding that any school that eventually gives up ABA accreditation would be charting \u201ca very dangerous path.\u201d<\/p>\n Students who are not held to the ABA\u2019s national accreditation standards are less likely to receive a quality legal education, Parrish said\u2014a result long demonstrated by the poor outcomes at California\u2019s handful of non-ABA-accredited law schools, which have high attrition and low bar-passage rates, he added.<\/p>\n \u201cThe unraveling of the national accreditation system would be really harmful to students and law schools,\u201d Parrish said. \u201cWe\u2019re in a world where schools need to recruit from all over and students end up practicing all over. To have a school that doesn\u2019t do that makes them less attractive to students and more likely to create some of the problems at some of the unaccredited schools in California.\u201d <\/p>\n And even if Texas and other states do band together to form their own law school accreditor, rivaling the ABA\u2019s influence would be a challenge.<\/p>\n First, \u201cit\u2019s very difficult to set up an accrediting body and takes quite a bit of money,\u201d Parrish said. \u201cThey could set up a regional accreditor, but it\u2019s not necessarily clear who will see that as sufficient for licensing eligibility, which means the schools in those states will still have to go with ABA accreditation\u00a0\u2026 I\u2019m skeptical that more progressive states are going to buy into something that\u2019s blatantly political.\u201d <\/p>\n For now, he interprets the Texas order as a placeholder. <\/p>\n \u201cThere probably won\u2019t be many changes right now,\u201d he said, \u201cother than keeping the pressure on the ABA, because [Texas] has signaled a willingness to move to a different approach, though it\u2019s not clear what that is right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For the first time in 43 years, lawyers who want to practice in Texas will no longer be required to hold a degree from a law school accredited by the American Bar Association, the Texas Supreme Court decided last week. While the ABA is \u201ccontinuing to work with the Texas Supreme Court\u2014and all other state<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[22074,5083,13827,2573,2541,3457,1010],"class_list":{"0":"post-41417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-aba","9":"tag-antidei","10":"tag-crusade","11":"tag-drops","12":"tag-lawyers","13":"tag-oversight","14":"tag-texas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Texas Open to ABA Alternative<\/h2>\n