Law360 (August 27, 2026, 3:29 PM EDT) -- The American Bar Association council responsible for accrediting law schools is fighting on multiple fronts to retain its status as a nationwide accreditor, fending off challenges at both the federal and state levels.

The ABA's Council for the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, which operates independently of the wider association, is facing a U.S. Department of Education recommendation that it be dropped as a nationwide accreditor.

The council has maintained it is in compliance with the department's rules for accreditors and is preparing to make its case to the nonpartisan National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity in September, though the final decision rests with the secretary of education.

The council also faces increasing skepticism from conservative-led states and attention from the Federal Trade Commission, which has alleged the council has a monopoly on law school accreditation.

The ABA is determined to fight to remain an accreditor, said Melissa Hart, co-chair of the ABA council. "We work together with law schools to make sure graduates are set up for success, and we're going to keep doing that," she said.

A Department of Education Review

In an 86-page staff memo released last week, Department of Education staff recommended the department decline to renew the ABA council's status as a recognized accreditor, which was first granted in 1952 and most recently renewed in 2021.

In its memo, the department identified issues it said contributed to the recommendation, including the council's independence from the wider ABA, policies surrounding distance learning and the way it enforces its standards.

One of those standards, the council's diversity and inclusion standard, Standard 206, was referenced directly only in the context of whether the council addresses necessary changes to its standards promptly. The council has stated its contentious plan to eliminate Standard 206, which sparked strong debate at the ABA's recent annual meeting, was motivated in part by messages from the DOE to other accreditors saying similar policies would prevent them from maintaining their accreditor status.

The council is insistent it is in compliance with all Education Department standards.

"All of [the objections are] things that we're quite confident we can respond to," council chair Hart said. "We are very confident that we comply with the Higher Education Act and with the department's requirements for accreditors. We spent considerable time … going back and forth with the department about ensuring that we understood and complied with those requirements. And we look forward to the opportunity to address anything that might have gotten lost in translation along the way."

The council is prepared to take its fight to the courts if it comes to that, Hart said. A nationwide accreditor is in the best interest of students, she said, noting this ensures law degrees are portable across the country. Hart pointed to research showing that graduates of ABA-accredited schools have better career outcomes and are less likely to face disciplinary action.

The research picture is not as straightforward as that implies, said Joshua Aaron Jones, a professor at California Western School of Law.

For instance, he said, law schools in California operating with the approval of the State Bar of California but not the ABA tend to draw from different student populations. Many are adult professionals seeking a law degree without intending to practice or are parents going to school part-time, he said, whereas ABA-accredited schools include institutions such as Harvard and Yale, making comparison tricky.

However, Jones agreed that having the ABA act as a national accreditor creates a more straightforward system for aspiring lawyers. It is also important, he said, in states such as Florida that do not have reciprocity in bar admissions, meaning even lawyers who are admitted in other states must take the bar exam on the same basis as new graduates in order to practice there.

Next Steps

The next step in the Department of Education process is for the council to meet with NACIQI, an 18-member board appointed by Congress and the secretary of education. That meeting is scheduled for late September, with the council planning to meet Sept. 8 to vote on the fate of Standard 206 ahead of the meeting.

The process is playing out in a highly politicized environment, with many conservatives adopting a hostile stance towards the ABA. In a heated congressional hearing last month, Republican members of Congress grilled the organization's president over the consideration of diversity, equity and inclusion in law school accreditation.

President Donald Trump directed the secretary of education in an April 2025 executive order to reconsider the ABA's role as an accreditor based in large part on its allegedly "unlawful 'diversity, equity, and inclusion' requirements."

The NACIQI committee, however, is meant to be bipartisan, with the 12 members appointed by Congress split evenly between Democrats and Republicans. Wallace Boston, a former NACIQI member whose term ended in 2025, said that in his experience, the committee was neutral.

"I found it rather refreshing that generally we voted in a way that was not political," he said.

Boston added that he had many criticisms of the ABA, which he said has not done enough to stop the rising costs of legal education and, in some cases, has taken actions that raise the cost. However, he said, he does not see issues like diversity, equity and inclusion or the independence of the council to be issues NACIQI should focus on.

Hart said the council is confident it can convince NACIQI it is in compliance, pointing to steps the council has taken to clarify its independence from the wider ABA and noting its funding does not come from the ABA.

Regardless of the NACIQI determination, the secretary of education will have the final decision. The Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment.

Beyond the Department of Education

If the ABA does lose its recognition as an accreditor with the Education Department, the most immediate effect would be that students at schools only accredited by the ABA would no longer be eligible for federal financial aid, said Peter Joy, a professor of law at Washington University School of Law.

For law schools attached to a university that has its own accreditation, this would not be an issue, but the country's handful of independent law schools would have to seek a new accreditor.

Jones, who teaches at one of those schools, said California Western School of Law "saw the writing on the wall" and has already sought accreditation with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.

Beyond federal recognition, however, the most important decision-makers for law school accreditation are the state supreme courts, which govern the practice of law in their state and thus decide which law school graduates are eligible to sit for the bar. For decades, every state agreed that graduates of ABA-accredited schools could sit for the bar, making law degrees portable across the country.

Since January, however, three states have modified their rules to remove reference to the ABA, and two more are considering it.

In practice, all three states — Texas, Florida and Alabama — are still partly relying on the ABA council.

The Supreme Court of Texas redefined "approved law schools" to mean those approved by the Supreme Court of Texas, not the ABA, but also listed all current ABA-accredited schools as approved.

Also in January, Florida's Supreme Court changed its rules to recognize law schools approved by an accreditor acknowledged by the Department of Education — which for now includes the ABA but is not limited to it.

And in Alabama, the state Supreme Court in April indicated that graduates could sit for the bar if they had graduated from any of the listed Alabama schools — three with ABA approval and two without — or had graduated from an out-of-state school that made them eligible to sit from the bar in that state.

However, the ABA council has been making the case that a patchwork system of accreditation will likely create confusion for law schools and for students, and that a single, nationwide system is the best approach.

"The cascade of harms is quite remarkable," council chair Hart said. In addition to providing rigorous standards that ensure uniform quality of education across the country, she said, the ABA also collects and publishes information on the nation's law schools that allow students to compare schools and make informed decisions, something that would be lost in a patchwork system.

Further, if schools are forced to go state by state to seek accreditation, she said, that process is likely to be cumbersome and expensive — costs that are passed along to students.

In practice, Joy at Washington University said he expects most schools would try to maintain their accreditation with the ABA, especially since there is no other organization that seems likely to step in to fill the void.

In the long term, though, he said, a lack of a common accreditor could cause issues for the profession, including states' willingness to admit lawyers from other states to the state bar.

"If there isn't a national accreditor who steps in, I'm not sure how reciprocity would end up working," he said. "You need a national accreditor for there to be some confidence in the quality of graduates."

Moving Forward

The issue of law school accreditation is likely to remain active. Ohio and Tennessee are considering their own possible move to drop the ABA as an accreditor, with the Federal Trade Commission weighing in to support the idea and labeling the ABA a monopoly.

Jones said he sees the FTC comments as "a warning shot." If the Department of Education does not recommend removing the council as an accreditor, he said, the FTC may well take its own action.

More states may also question the role of the ABA, leading to an even more fragmented system.

Hart said that in trying to avoid that outcome, the council has been reaching out to state supreme courts to try to build relationships and ensure they understand the work the council does to ensure quality in legal education.

"The work that we do is hard work," she said. "It takes a lot of volunteers and an extraordinarily talented staff working [very hard] to provide the service that we provide, and I don't think that's going to change."

--Editing by Lakshna Mehta. 

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the past funding source of the council. The error has been corrected.

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