Lael Weinberger is a law professor at George Mason University.
The Texas Supreme Court announced this month that the court itself, not the American Bar Association, which has held near monopoly control of American legal education, would decide which law schools qualify graduates for the Texas bar. On Thursday, Florida followed suit.
The immediate announcement provided occasion for some to celebrate. But it also prompted many questions.
The ABA has exercised near-exclusive control over law school accreditation for decades, effectively controlling the pathway to becoming a lawyer. Every state relies on ABA accreditation as the default gatekeeper for bar eligibility. That arrangement has been justified as a quality-control mechanism, but it also has the function of a cartel, setting costly and rigid requirements to restrict entry into the legal profession.
In other words, the ABA has been able to engage in professional protectionism but with a virtuous front. The result has been a legal education system that is expensive to enter and slow to innovate, and, in turn, has not served ordinary Americans well.
The ABA’s increasingly partisan politics aren’t helping either. The organization recently attempted to push controversial diversity, equity, and inclusion policies as accreditation requirements, alienating conservatives.
2025 saw multiple states beginning to reconsider the powerful role that the ABA has been given to control the pipeline to practicing law. Now Texas has made it official by ending the organizations control over the path to practice law in the Lone Star State. So has Florida. Others may follow. Ohio’s Supreme Court has a review underway of the ABA’s role. Tennessee’s high court does as well.
I have advocated states to cut back on the ABA’s role, and I am glad to see progress in this direction. The next step will take some work as states — and potentially new accrediting bodies — become involved in assessing law schools. Florida’s updated rules chart a path forward. What might not be obvious to the public is how these developments are not just about the politics of the ABA. When done right, they could also enhance access to justice.
First, the end of ABA control doesn’t have to mean the end of reciprocity between states when it comes to the practice of law. States already impose idiosyncratic bar requirements, character-and-fitness rules, and continuing-education mandates. State supreme courts already regulate the practice of law by setting ethics rules, overseeing bar exams and disciplining attorneys. They could just as easily craft reciprocal recognition rules tied to outcomes — such as bar passage rates or supervised practice — rather than blanket deference to the ABA’s checklist.
Consider, for example, a rule Wisconsin already has in place, which gives options to individuals who want to take the Wisconsin bar. They can attend an ABA-accredited law school, or they can rely on a reciprocity provision: If you can qualify for, and pass, the bar exam in another state, then you can take the Wisconsin bar exam. The rule facilitates reciprocity, does not impede other states from deciding to innovate and it still sets a meaningful limit on the ability to practice.
Second, the departure from exclusive ABA control does not mean an end to an interest in quality legal education. But it provides an opportunity to rethink what that looks like. First a student, now a teacher, I have seen firsthand the value of the in-class experience. But legal education may be less of a one-size-fits-all model than the ABA has long demanded. As a student, I’ve had good experiences with nontraditional online education and with the most traditional of law schools. There’s a place for both.
Control over legal education is not just an academic issue. Many Americans go without legal help on critical issues because lawyers are too few, too costly or too distant. The United States has lots of law on the books. And it has lots of lawyers. What it doesn’t have are a lot of affordable lawyers.
Millions of Americans face legal problems — evictions, custody disputes, probate issues, consumer debt, immigration matters — without meaningful legal assistance. Middle to low-income Americans are often priced out entirely, while legal aid organizations are overwhelmed. At the same time, the cost of becoming a lawyer has soared. Barriers that keep legal education expensive and tightly controlled by a single national body shrink the supply of new lawyers and raise their cost.
Texas and Florida has taken an important step in breaking ABA’s control. Other states will hopefully follow suit. And as they do, they have the chance to encourage innovation. If that leads to more flexible pathways, lower costs and a pool of lawyers able to meet ordinary Americans’ legal needs, the unraveling of the ABA’s exclusive control will only let the American legal profession serve the public better.
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