University of St. Thomas Law Journal

Who Gets to Control Legal Education? States, the ABA, and a Shifting Balance of Power 

Grace Sjoberg* 

Recent shifts to bar admission rules in Texas and Florida may be the first cracks in the American Bar Association’s (ABA) near-monopoly on legal education. As Republican-led states push back against ABA accreditation standards and align with federal priorities under the Trump Administration, the national and uniform model of legal education may be giving way to a new era of state-driven autonomy.

The ABA’s Traditional Role in Legal Education 

Bar eligibility in most states depends on graduation from an “approved law school,” a credential widely regarded as a mark of quality legal education.1 That term generally refers to an institution accredited by the ABA,2 which the US Department of Education has recognized since 1952 as the national accrediting body for Juris Doctor (JD) programs.3 ABA approval signifies that a school meets the minimum standards established by the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.4 Today, ABA accreditation remains the prevailing  benchmark for legal education in the US, with only a small number of jurisdictions offering an alternative pathway to bar eligibility.5 This model promotes national uniformity and degree portability while serving as an important signal of educational quality to employers.6 

Critiques of ABA Accreditation   

The ABA’s authority over law school accreditation has long been contested. Though concerns began gaining traction as early as the 1990s “among both law schools and federal officials,”7 the roots of the debate stretch back much further. In the early twentieth century, the ABA began accrediting law schools in response to what it perceived as an “overcrowding” of the legal profession.8 Between 1890 and 1930, the number of law schools tripled and the number of practicing lawyers nearly doubled.9 As demand for legal education grew, the ABA formalized its accreditation process; by 1941, forty-one states required graduation from an ABA-approved law school as a condition of bar licensure.10 Critics have argued that these measures were designed, in part, to protect the economic interests of established lawyers and to keep minorities from entering the field.11 

Contemporary critiques center on several interrelated concerns. ABA standards (i.e., rules) are said to overregulate legal education, driving up costs and stifling innovation.12 Compliance entails significant administrative, faculty, and personnel expenses that schools frequently pass on to students through higher tuition.13 Critics further contend that rigid accreditation expectations discourage experimentation with new educational models and push faculty toward academic publishing at the expense of practical training.14 The standards often fixate on “high-cost inputs,” such as the number of full-time faculty, the number of books in the law library, and physical facilities, with little demonstrable connection to educational quality or professional competence.15 Reviewers of the ABA’s role have concluded that these requirements erect unnecessary barriers to access while contributing to stagnation in legal education.16  

Critics also argue that ABA accreditation is structurally rigid in ways that constrain how schools operate, hire, and teach. For example, Standard 306 caps distance education, limiting the growth of more affordable and flexible online programs.17 Standard 403 mandates a full-time faculty system,18 which can lock schools into high labor costs and foreclose more cost-effective adjunct models. In April 2024, over seventy law school deans submitted a joint letter to the ABA criticizing its proposed new accreditation standards.19 The letter urged the ABA to exercise “greater restraint,” challenged their “need[] to micromanage law school curricula,” and argued that schools should have greater autonomy to assess, manage, and teach their programs.20 Law school leaders have elsewhere described the ABA’s accreditation regime as “intrusive, inflexible, . . . and . . . costly,” underscoring that many of the criticism comes from within legal education itself.21

Federal Pressure and the Trump Administration 

    Federal criticism of the ABA predates the Trump Administration, but recent years have brought concrete steps to reshape the accreditation regime itself. In April 2025, President Trump signed an executive order declaring that accreditors, including the ABA, had “abused their enormous authority,” and directing the Secretary of Education and the Attorney General to investigate and potentially suspend federal recognition of any accreditor imposing unlawful DEI standards.22 Other federal officials voiced their “disappointment” with the ABA, citing its perceived left-wing “bias” and calling it an “ideologically captured institution.”23 In response, the ABA extended the suspension of its diversity and inclusion standard (Standard 206) through August 31, 2026.24 The ABA also filed suit against the federal government, alleging intimidation and coercion of lawyers and bar institutions.25

    States Reasserting Authority 

      Whatever the driving forces, states are no longer treating ABA accreditation as untouchable. In late 2025 and early 2026, two of the nation’s largest states took concrete steps to loosen the ABA’s gatekeeping role in bar admission. On September 26, 2025, the Texas Supreme Court issued a preliminary order approving an amendment to Rule 1 of the Rules Governing Admission to the Bar of Texas.26 Under the prior rule, an “approved law school” meant “a law school approved by the American Bar Association.”27 The amendment redefined the term to mean a school approved by the Texas Supreme Court itself,28 and the court published a list of institutions it considers as “satisfying the law study requirements for admission to the Texas Bar.”29   

      Florida moved in the same direction. On January 15, 2026, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that beginning October 1, 2026, Florida law schools no longer need ABA accreditation for their graduates to sit for the Florida Bar.30 Schools may instead “be accredited by other U.S. Department of Education-certified entities.”31 A court-appointed workgroup evaluated the relative merits of ABA-accreditation and proposed several regulatory alternatives.32 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis praised the decision, calling the ABA “highly partisan” and declaring that it “should not be a gatekeeper for legal education or the legal profession.”33

      What this Means for Law Schools and Students 

        The immediate practical impact is limited. The Texas Supreme Court’s January 2026 final order expressly stated that it does not intend to impose additional accreditation, compliance, or administrative burdens on currently approved law schools, and its list of approved schools is identical to the ABA’s.34 Several Texas law school deans, initially among the most vocal critics of the proposal, have since acknowledged that little will change in the near term —the University of Houston Law Center, the University of Texas School of Law, and St. Mary’s University all confirmed they will maintain ABA accreditation regardless of the court’s order.35 The same holds in Florida, where graduates of ABA-accredited schools remain eligible to sit for the bar, and nothing in the new rule prevents any law school from continuing to seek ABA accreditation.36  

        The more significant question is what these decisions enable, not what they immediately require. By severing the formal link between ABA accreditation and bar eligibility, Texas and Florida have opened the door for future non-ABA-accredited schools to enter the market. Whether that proves beneficial depends heavily on what standards those schools follow. Proponents argue it could lower costs and expand access: Texas A&M University School of Law Dean Robert Ahdieh stated that approving non-ABA-accredited schools “has the potential to reduce the cost of legal education and increase access to lawyers.”37 Critics, however, point to California as a cautionary tale. California has long permitted graduates of state-accredited and unaccredited schools to sit for its bar exam, but the outcomes are stark: in July 2022, graduates of ABA-accredited schools passed at sixty-seven percent, while graduates of California-accredited schools passed at just twenty-one percent.38 Students who invest in lower-cost, non-ABA programs therefore risk trading short-term savings and expanded access for diminished bar passage prospects and a weaker legal education.   

        Portability presents a separate concern. The vast majority of states still require ABA accreditation for bar eligibility,39 meaning a graduate of a hypothetical Texas-or-Florida-approved, non-ABA-accredited school could practice in their home state but would face significant obstacles elsewhere. As one legal educator put it, “[a]ccreditation isn’t just an academic issue – it’s about whether a law degree is worth what students pay for it.”40 The Texas deans’ joint letter made the same point, warning that abandoning ABA accreditation would impair graduates’ ability to find employment outside of Texas and damage Texas law schools’ national reputations.41 They also noted that twelve percent of Texas law school graduates in 2023 began their careers in other states.42 

        The deeper structural risk is fragmentation: states may form regional accreditation blocs and recognize one another’s approved schools through political alignment rather than educational merit.43 That  dynamic would transform the national legal profession into a patchwork of state-specific pipelines.44  

        Ultimately, Texas and Florida have not yet changed legal education, but they have reserved the right to. Whether that right is exercised responsibly, with alternative standards that genuinely protect students and the public, or whether it becomes a vehicle for cost-cutting at the expense of quality, remains an open question. Students enrolling in Texas or Florida law schools today face no immediate disruption, but students enrolling several years from now may not be so fortunate. 

        *Grace Sjoberg, J.D. Candidate, University of St. Thomas School of Law Class of 2026 (Senior Editor).   

        1. Frequently Asked Questions, ABA, https://www.americanbar.org/ groups/legal_education/accreditation/faqs/ [https://perma.cc/2HE6-RXQQ] (last visited Feb. 8, 2025).   ↩︎
        2. Id.  ↩︎
        3. Id.  ↩︎
        4. Id.  ↩︎
        5. Do You Have to Go to Law School to Take the Bar Exam?, Barbri (Sept. 10, 2025), https://www.barbri.com/resources/do-you-have-to-go-to-law-school-to-take-the-bar-exam [https://perma.cc/H8Z3-5F4N].  ↩︎
        6. Susannah Pollvogt, JD Portability: One Reason Why ABA Accreditation Probably Isn’t Going Anywhere, LSAC: Law:Fully (Oct. 20, 2025), https://www.lsac.org/blog/jd-portability-one-reason-why-aba-accreditation-probably-isnt-going-anywhere %5Bhttps://perma.cc/77J6-WWCV%5D; see generally ABA, Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools 2025-2026, (2025), https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/legal_education_and_admissions_to_the_bar/standards/2025-2026/2025-2026-standards-and-rules-of-procedure-for-approval-of-law-schools.pdf %5Bhttps://perma.cc/6GBL-KDTX%5D (explaining the uniform practices that ABA-approved schools must follow).   ↩︎
        7. Lindsey Luebchow, Gaming the Law School Accreditation Process, New Am.: Higher Educ. (May 23, 2007), https://www.newamerica.org/higher-education/higher-ed-watch/gaming-the-law-school-accreditation-process/ %5Bhttps://perma.cc/NJM4-3DSZ%5D.  ↩︎
        8. Benjamin M. Lepak, Breaking the ABA’s Law School Cartel: A Proposal to Make Oklahoma Top-Ten in Innovative Lawyer Education, 1889 Institute, Mar. 2020, at 2, https://1889institute.org/w p-cont ent/uploads/2020/10/1889_ABAaccredita tion_ PolicyAnalysis.pdf [https://perma.cc/8MLC-VJUZ].   ↩︎
        9. Id.  ↩︎
        10. Id.  ↩︎
        11. Id.  ↩︎
        12. Camila Ruiz, The Role of the American Bar Association in Advancing Legal Education, Vintti (Jan. 26, 2024), https://www.vintti.com/blog/the-role-of-the-american-bar-association-in-advancing-legal-education %5Bhttps://perma.cc/49VD-BR6F%5D.  ↩︎
        13. Id. ↩︎
        14. Id. ↩︎
        15. Luebchow, supra note 7; see also Adam M. Foslid et al., Workgroup on the Role of the American Bar Association in Bar Admission Requirements Final Report, at 5 (Oct. 27, 2025) https://www-media.floridabar.org/uploads/2025/10/Final-Report-of-the-Workgroup-on-the-Role-of-the-ABA-in-Bar-Admission-Requirements.pdf [https://perma.cc/D7QC-6EH6] (“Critics also contend that ABA accreditation is a poor indicator of educational quality because it emphasizes inputs, such as facilities or library size, rather than outcomes.”).   ↩︎
        16. Foslid et al., supra note 15, at 5 (“[C]ritics of the ABA argue that, while some Standards serve legitimate purposes, others extend beyond baseline adequacy and reflect the Council’s own conception of best practices and educational policies. These Standards are said to be ill-conceived, stifle competition, innovation, and access, while intruding on law schools’ self-governance and imposing ideological mandates.”).  ↩︎
        17. John O. McGinnis, Deregulating Legal Education, Law & Liberty (Feb. 27, 2025), https://lawliberty.org/deregulating-legal-education/ [https://perma.cc/8J79-M2MP].  ↩︎
        18. ABA, supra note 6, at 34.  ↩︎
        19. Dorothy Atkins, Law School Deans Fight ABA’s ‘Unnecessary’ New Standards, Law360 (Apr. 18, 2024, 21:40 ET), https://www.law360.com /articles/1827138/law-school-deans-fight-aba-s-unnecessary-new-standards [https://perma.cc/GD75-87C2].  ↩︎
        20. Id.  ↩︎
        21. Lepak, supra note 8, at 4.  ↩︎
        22. Exec. Order No. 14279, 90 Fed. Reg. 17529 (Apr. 23, 2025).  ↩︎
        23. Letter from Eric S. Schmitt, Michael S. Lee, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Marsha Blackburn, & Bernie Moreno, United States Senators, to William R. Bay, President ABA (Mar. 7, 2025), https://www.schmitt.se nate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/3.7.20 25-Senate-Oversight-Letter-to-the-ABA-final.pdf [https://perma.cc/EBG8-79AD]. ↩︎
        24. Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education Extends Standard 206 Suspension to 2026, ABA (May 9, 2025), https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2025/05/aba-council-extends-206-suspension/ [https://perma.cc/3VK4-KH7R]; see also Julianne Hill, Legal Ed Council Moves Forward Proposals to End Diversity Standard, Allow Alternative Bar Pathway, ABA J. (Feb. 23, 2026, 9:52 CT), https://www.abajournal.com/web/article/legal-ed-council-moves-forward-proposals-to-end-diversity-standard-allow-alternative-bar-pathways %5Bhttps://perma.cc/8XE2-HXZJ%5D (explaining Standard 206 and its suspension).    ↩︎
        25. American Bar Association Files Suit to Halt Government Intimidation of Lawyers and Law Firms, ABA (June 16, 2025), https://www.americanb ar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2025/06/aba-files-suit-to-halt-govt-intimidation/ [https://perma.cc/6882-ZHFE].  ↩︎
        26. Preliminary Approval of Amendments to Rule 1 of the Rules Governing Admission to the Bar of Texas, Misc. Docket. No. 25-9070, at 1 (Tex. Sept. 26, 2025).  ↩︎
        27. Id. at 5.  ↩︎
        28. Id.  ↩︎
        29. Id. at 6–8. ↩︎
        30. Cameron Countryman, Florida Law Schools Soon Won’t Need the American Bar Association for Accreditation, Alligator (Feb. 1, 2026, 20:09 ET), https://www.alligator.org/article/2026/02/florida-law-schools-won-t-need-american-bar-association-for-accreditation [https://perma.cc/NBK4-T699].  ↩︎
        31. Id.  ↩︎
        32. Foslid et al., supra note 15, at 51.  ↩︎
        33. Countryman, supra note 30.  ↩︎
        34. Final Approval of Amendments to Rule 1 of the Rules Governing Admission to the Bar of Texas, Misc. Docket No. 26-9002 (Tex. Jan. 6, 2026), https://www.txcourts.gov/media/1461882/269002.pdf [https://perma.cc/CH3W-XEPM].  ↩︎
        35. Texas Law Deans Push Back on Proposal to Eliminate ABA Accreditation Requirement, Legal.io (July 8, 2025), https://www.legal.io/articles/5698486/Texas-Law-Deans-Push-Back-on-Proposal-to-Eliminate-ABA-Accreditation-Requirement %5Bhttps://perma.cc/D9B5-KFKL%5D.  ↩︎
        36.  Samadhi Jones, Court Opens Door to New Law School Accreditors for Bar Admission, Fla. Bar News (Jan. 16, 2026), https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-news/court-opens-door-to-new-law-school-accreditors-for-bar-admission/ %5Bhttps://perma.cc/8WNE-VJVC%5D. ↩︎
        37. Texas Ends ABA Accreditation Requirement for Law Schools, Insight Academia (Jan. 12, 2026), https://insightintoacademia.com/texas-aba-accreditation/ [https://perma.cc/GW37-5FSY].   ↩︎
        38. Toluwani Osibamowo, Texas Dropped ABA Law School Accreditation After 4 Decades. Can It Come Up with a Better System?, KERANews (Feb. 2, 2026, 07:38 CT), https://www.keranews.org/news/2026-02-02/why-the-texas-supreme-court-ended-american-bar-association-accreditation-after-four-decades-law-school-state-bar-exam-eligibility?_amp=true&utm [https://perma.cc/K7UW-CRAV]. ↩︎
        39. Id. ↩︎
        40. The 10 Texas Law Schools Face Uncertainty as the State Seeks Comments on the Continued Viability of ABA Accreditation, Univ. of Houston L. Ctr. (May 29, 2025), https://www.law.uh.edu/news/summer2025/AB A.asp [https://perma.cc/D7WR-TN66].  ↩︎
        41. Vaidehi Mehta, Is Texas Breaking Up with the ABA?, FindLaw (last updated July 16, 2025), https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/practice-of-law/is-texas-breaking-up-with-the-aba [https://perma.cc/FPR8-RDQQ] (arguing that ABA accreditation “ensures 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’ career flexibility; consumer protections and accountability through disclosure standards; and a baseline of educational quality that correlates with higher bar passage rates and better employment outcomes.’”).   ↩︎
        42. Id. ↩︎
        43. Julianne Hill, Speculation Swirls over What Law School Accreditation Might Look Like if States Break Away from ABA, ABA J. (Jan. 13, 2026, 9:20AM CT), https://www.abajournal.com/web/article/if-not-the-aba-council-then-what-speculation-swirls-regarding-what-law-school-accreditation-might-look-like-if-states-break-away [https://perma.cc/56ZM-5253].  ↩︎
        44. Id. ↩︎

        Who Gets to Control Legal Education? States, the ABA, and a Shifting Balance of Power 

        By Grace Sjoberg 

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