WASHINGTON — The federal government is expected to rule by the end of December on whether the American Bar Association keeps its decades-old federal standing as the national gatekeeper for law schools, a decision that could reshape how Americans train to become lawyers.
The call belongs to Nicholas Kent, the under secretary of education and the No. 2 official at the department. The council of the ABA legal education section has been the federally recognized accreditor of law schools since 1952, and there are 198 ABA-accredited schools in the country.
Department staff have already recommended taking that recognition away in an 86-page report. A federal advisory committee on accreditation that reviewed the case in September deadlocked after hours of debate and sent no recommendation either way, leaving Kent to decide from the hearing record and the staff report.
Council chair Melissa Hart has said in a statement that if recognition is denied, the council will appeal to the education secretary and go to court if needed, arguing there is no factual or legal basis for the move. Appeals and lawsuits could stretch on for months.
Losing federal recognition would not, on its own, end ABA accreditation or change bar admission rules. State supreme courts set those requirements, and many states require bar applicants to hold a degree from an ABA-accredited school. Those rules would stay in place unless each state changed them.
The sharpest near-term risk falls on independent law schools that are not part of a larger university. Most law schools reach federal student aid through their parent university’s accreditation, but the 15 standalone schools have no such backstop, and five of them still lack a second accreditor.
Supporters of a change argue it could open the door to cheaper and shorter paths into the profession. In Texas, the University of Austin is developing a law school that would operate without ABA accreditation, possibly with a two-year program and free tuition.
The ABA faces pressure on another front as well. The Justice Department, in a letter signed Oct. 7 by Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, gave the organization 15 days to revise or defend its limits on adjunct professors teaching core courses, raising the prospect of an antitrust inquiry.
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