8 ms·

Texas first state to end American bar association oversight of law schools

66 points by randycupertino 10mo ago

CyanLite2 10mo ago
Not sure if this is the first state. Many other states have state-only-accredited law school programs.
nothercastle 10mo ago
Trying to break out of the trade group monopoly won’t be easy and Texas graduates will get punished for it.
- TitaRusell 10mo ago
  It will come down to who has the most money for campaign contributions.
- avs733 10mo ago
  they aren't doing that...they are just changing who is in charge of the trade group.
the_real_cher 10mo ago
Can anyone more familiar with this speculate what the potential implications are?
- Aboutplants 10mo ago
  “ The change means law school graduates who want to practice in Texas are no longer required to attend an ABA-accredited school. The power to approve those law schools now rests solely with the state's highest civil court.” It’s for control, more precisely political control
  - baggachipz 10mo ago
    Does this mean a "No woke lawyers" rule in Texas? I'm asking in all seriousness, I could see such a rule happening.
    - tw04 10mo ago
      That’s exactly what the end goal is. It’ll only be a matter of time before Texas has schools that don’t even attempt to teach impartiality.
    - vineyardmike 10mo ago
      Considering they explicitly cited DEI requirements as their impetus for change, this feels like a natural progression.
  - observationist 10mo ago
    Conversely, it's about the state of Texas asserting control over an unaccountable third party who does things that run counter to the interests of the State and people of Texas. If the state's highest civil court misbehaves, the people of Texas have recourse. If the ABA misbehaves, the people of Texas can do... nothing. From my perspective, I'd rather have a body held accountable to the people over which they are wielding power. Sometimes government makes sense.
    - masklinn 10mo ago
      > If the ABA misbehaves, the people of Texas can do... nothing. Nothing precludes suing the ABA, it's a professional association not magic pixie dust.
    - KittenInABox 10mo ago
      I want to agree with you, however, how do we guarantee that the people of Texas have recourse via their government? Didn't the Texas state government have national headlines recently to enact anti-democratic gerrymandering?
      - 10mo ago
- dhd415 10mo ago
  This is a better article on the topic explaining that the ABA's requirements for different forms of diversity oppose the administration's ban on DEI. It also points out that this could lower the cost of law school by reducing superfluous requirements for law school accreditation. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/texas-becomes-first-state-end-aba-role-lawyer-admissions-2026-01-07/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/texas-becomes-first...
Onavo 10mo ago
They need to do the same for medical schools, and especially for residency allocations.
- cestith 10mo ago
  I’m hesitant to agree offhand on accreditation, although you might be right. The residency system in its current form is terribly broken though. Something better needs to be available.
- fooqux 10mo ago
  > They need to do the same for medical schools I'm ignorant here. Why do you say this? From my admittedly uneducated viewpoint, having a board of some type makes sense because I don't care about the results of a test you took fifteen years ago. I care about how you behave today. I'm the case of lawyers, having the courts approve you makes some sense- they're all in the law system. Who would do this for doctors? Having a diploma is well and good but it seems like we need continued governance and the ability to revoke your license if you're a screw up. It doesn't make much sense to me to have the body approving your immediate start at a practice be different from those that will review your continuation of that practice at a later date.
  - Onavo 10mo ago
    The issue is not for ongoing malpractices, it's mostly because the medical professional associations do a lot of gatekeeping to restrict the supply of healthcare professionals (and lobby Congress to restrict the number of training positions, known as residencies, to create artificial scarcity).
tibbydudeza 10mo ago
How does it work in the US ?. Is a Texas qualified lawyer able to practice in another state with different laws - do you need to do a conversion course to get the proper accreditation since stuff like commercial law vary ?.
- tadfisher 10mo ago
  The lawyer would need to become a member of the other state's bar association. How to do so varies widely depending on existing state bar memberships and qualification criteria for the new membership; some states allow membership pretty much automatically if you have enough years of practice, and others may require state-specific exams or training.
- sounds 10mo ago
  "Bar Reciprocity" or "Reciprocal Admission" lets a lawyer do something like move to a different state. Example: Maine https://www.mainebar.org/page/ReciprocalAdmission https://www.mainebar.org/page/ReciprocalAdmission Texas State Bar is still a thing. This means that it has split from the American Bar Association, but the legal system of Texas is still part of the US Legal system.
  - dctoedt 10mo ago
    > Texas State Bar is still a thing. This means that it has split from the American Bar Association, but the legal system of Texas is still part of the US Legal system. Lawyer here, member of Texas and California bars. There seems to be a misunderstanding here: 1. A state bar is what a lawyer has to belong to in order to practice regularly in that state (with some exceptions, e.g., for federal-court practice). Example: To practice regularly in California, a lawyer must be a member of the State Bar of California. That normally requires passing a bar exam or (in some states if you're an experienced lawyer), getting in by "reciprocity." AFAIK, every state bar is separately regulated by the highest court of the state (and, sometimes, by state statute). Example: The State Bar of Texas is subject to regulations promulgated by the Supreme Court of Texas. 2. In contrast, The ABA is a purely-voluntary private association of lawyers. A lawyer doesn't have to belong to the ABA in order to be a lawyer or practice law. 3. IIRC, the ABA's governing body includes liaisons from state bars. But AFAIK, there's never been any official governing connection between the ABA and any state bar. 4. The ABA's law-school accreditation standards [0] are a way for states to adopt uniform standards, thus avoiding the cost of developing individual standards (and of complying with a variety of standards). Those ABA standards are roughly analogous to national model building codes for plumbing, etc. — they're adopted by various jurisdictions but have little or no legal standing in any given jurisdiction unless adopted. [0] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_education/accreditation/standards/standards-rules/ https://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_education/accredita...
jiqiren 10mo ago
IMHO, what determines if you're a lawyer or not should be completely test-based and not have anything to do with where you learned. There is a lot of gatekeeping going on with ABA to keep people from even taking the test.
- derbOac 10mo ago
  There's more to being a lawyer than what can be measured on a test, just like any profession. Not trying to support the ABA or not support the ABA, but I have experience with this type of issue in other areas and reducing qualifications purely to tests or other outcomes has its own set of issues.
  - soco 10mo ago
    In Switzerland even to get your driving licence you need the exams AND prove that you had at least that many (unsure about number) driving lessons with a driving school. I would think being a lawyer means more responsibility...
    - fooqux 10mo ago
      > being a lawyer means more responsibility... I'm not so sure. People often trivialize the kinetic energy involved with driving. Yes, a bad lawyer can potentially cause an innocent to be punished if enough other checks and balances fail. But being behind the wheel of a car is something else. Even a small passenger car is over a ton of metal moving at oftentimes high speeds. Most people don't seem to appreciate the sheer destructive capability driving gives someone.
- 4fterd4rk 10mo ago
  Just curious... would you rely on a doctor that passed some tests rather than going to an accredited medical school?
  - ryandrake 10mo ago
    If I had cancer, I definitely don't want an oncologist who learned from YouTube. And if I was on trial for murder, I wouldn't want a defense attorney who taught himself with ChatGPT.
tyjen 10mo ago
Texas and most other states should push for additional freedom in this space. Anyone who can pass the state's bar exam, should be allowed to practice law. Let the legal market sort out the rest from there. California, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington already allow people to practice law within their states without attending law school, but via "reading the law" type apprenticeships. Extending this nationally would benefit lawyers and the people who need them.
- pohl 10mo ago
  How would "the legal market" sort out someone who repeatedly uses the legal system in bad faith but, because they're in Donald's orbit the only hope left of consequences is the threat of disbarment? It increasingly seems like the last line of defense of late.
  - dhd415 10mo ago
    This question is orthogonal to the question of whether ABA accreditation is beneficial.
  - barbazoo 10mo ago
    It's not about removing the requirement of the bar exam, just who decides who can take it > The Texas Supreme Court issued an order Tuesday finalizing a tentative September opinion, asserting the ABA should "no longer have the final say" on which law school graduates can take the bar exam — a requirement to becoming a licensed lawyer in each state.
- realslimjd 10mo ago
  There's not a shortage of lawyers and Texas is not pushing for freedom. They're taking over accreditation so they can start bullying law schools the same way they have with undergraduate institutions like A&M.
  - palmotea 10mo ago
    > There's not a shortage of lawyers and Texas is not pushing for freedom. Exactly. Law isn't medicine, and there are so many law graduates that many of them can't even find work in the legal industry, and the earnings of many graduates are surprisingly low (the distribution is bimodal: https://www.nalp.org/salarydistrib https://www.nalp.org/salarydistrib). Unfortunately too many here will reflexively believe some libertarian narrative of "professional organization limiting supply to drive salaries up," even when it doesn't apply.
Eufrat 10mo ago
People arguing this is a first step in true reform fail to see what Texas has been doing, trying to return to the days of “Pappy” O’Daniel. I suppose naked grifting is just the law of the land at this point and we should just all be gaslighted into accepting it as reform.
hbarka 10mo ago
It’s interesting to see the contrast in sentiments here versus Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1q7mt5f/texas_becomes_first_state_to_end_american_bar/ https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1q7mt5f/texas_becomes...

66 points by randycupertino 10mo ago

CyanLite2 10mo ago

Not sure if this is the first state. Many other states have state-only-accredited law school programs.

nothercastle 10mo ago

Trying to break out of the trade group monopoly won’t be easy and Texas graduates will get punished for it.

TitaRusell 10mo ago
It will come down to who has the most money for campaign contributions.
avs733 10mo ago
they aren't doing that...they are just changing who is in charge of the trade group.

the_real_cher 10mo ago

Can anyone more familiar with this speculate what the potential implications are?

Aboutplants 10mo ago
“ The change means law school graduates who want to practice in Texas are no longer required to attend an ABA-accredited school. The power to approve those law schools now rests solely with the state's highest civil court.” It’s for control, more precisely political control
- baggachipz 10mo ago
  Does this mean a "No woke lawyers" rule in Texas? I'm asking in all seriousness, I could see such a rule happening.
  - tw04 10mo ago
    That’s exactly what the end goal is. It’ll only be a matter of time before Texas has schools that don’t even attempt to teach impartiality.
  - vineyardmike 10mo ago
    Considering they explicitly cited DEI requirements as their impetus for change, this feels like a natural progression.
- observationist 10mo ago
  Conversely, it's about the state of Texas asserting control over an unaccountable third party who does things that run counter to the interests of the State and people of Texas. If the state's highest civil court misbehaves, the people of Texas have recourse. If the ABA misbehaves, the people of Texas can do... nothing. From my perspective, I'd rather have a body held accountable to the people over which they are wielding power. Sometimes government makes sense.
  - masklinn 10mo ago
    > If the ABA misbehaves, the people of Texas can do... nothing. Nothing precludes suing the ABA, it's a professional association not magic pixie dust.
  - KittenInABox 10mo ago
    I want to agree with you, however, how do we guarantee that the people of Texas have recourse via their government? Didn't the Texas state government have national headlines recently to enact anti-democratic gerrymandering?
    - 10mo ago
dhd415 10mo ago
This is a better article on the topic explaining that the ABA's requirements for different forms of diversity oppose the administration's ban on DEI. It also points out that this could lower the cost of law school by reducing superfluous requirements for law school accreditation. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/texas-becomes-first-state-end-aba-role-lawyer-admissions-2026-01-07/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/texas-becomes-first...

Onavo 10mo ago

They need to do the same for medical schools, and especially for residency allocations.

cestith 10mo ago
I’m hesitant to agree offhand on accreditation, although you might be right. The residency system in its current form is terribly broken though. Something better needs to be available.
fooqux 10mo ago
> They need to do the same for medical schools I'm ignorant here. Why do you say this? From my admittedly uneducated viewpoint, having a board of some type makes sense because I don't care about the results of a test you took fifteen years ago. I care about how you behave today. I'm the case of lawyers, having the courts approve you makes some sense- they're all in the law system. Who would do this for doctors? Having a diploma is well and good but it seems like we need continued governance and the ability to revoke your license if you're a screw up. It doesn't make much sense to me to have the body approving your immediate start at a practice be different from those that will review your continuation of that practice at a later date.
- Onavo 10mo ago
  The issue is not for ongoing malpractices, it's mostly because the medical professional associations do a lot of gatekeeping to restrict the supply of healthcare professionals (and lobby Congress to restrict the number of training positions, known as residencies, to create artificial scarcity).

tibbydudeza 10mo ago

How does it work in the US ?. Is a Texas qualified lawyer able to practice in another state with different laws - do you need to do a conversion course to get the proper accreditation since stuff like commercial law vary ?.

tadfisher 10mo ago
The lawyer would need to become a member of the other state's bar association. How to do so varies widely depending on existing state bar memberships and qualification criteria for the new membership; some states allow membership pretty much automatically if you have enough years of practice, and others may require state-specific exams or training.
sounds 10mo ago
"Bar Reciprocity" or "Reciprocal Admission" lets a lawyer do something like move to a different state. Example: Maine https://www.mainebar.org/page/ReciprocalAdmission https://www.mainebar.org/page/ReciprocalAdmission Texas State Bar is still a thing. This means that it has split from the American Bar Association, but the legal system of Texas is still part of the US Legal system.
- dctoedt 10mo ago
  > Texas State Bar is still a thing. This means that it has split from the American Bar Association, but the legal system of Texas is still part of the US Legal system. Lawyer here, member of Texas and California bars. There seems to be a misunderstanding here: 1. A state bar is what a lawyer has to belong to in order to practice regularly in that state (with some exceptions, e.g., for federal-court practice). Example: To practice regularly in California, a lawyer must be a member of the State Bar of California. That normally requires passing a bar exam or (in some states if you're an experienced lawyer), getting in by "reciprocity." AFAIK, every state bar is separately regulated by the highest court of the state (and, sometimes, by state statute). Example: The State Bar of Texas is subject to regulations promulgated by the Supreme Court of Texas. 2. In contrast, The ABA is a purely-voluntary private association of lawyers. A lawyer doesn't have to belong to the ABA in order to be a lawyer or practice law. 3. IIRC, the ABA's governing body includes liaisons from state bars. But AFAIK, there's never been any official governing connection between the ABA and any state bar. 4. The ABA's law-school accreditation standards [0] are a way for states to adopt uniform standards, thus avoiding the cost of developing individual standards (and of complying with a variety of standards). Those ABA standards are roughly analogous to national model building codes for plumbing, etc. — they're adopted by various jurisdictions but have little or no legal standing in any given jurisdiction unless adopted. [0] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_education/accreditation/standards/standards-rules/ https://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_education/accredita...

jiqiren 10mo ago

IMHO, what determines if you're a lawyer or not should be completely test-based and not have anything to do with where you learned. There is a lot of gatekeeping going on with ABA to keep people from even taking the test.

derbOac 10mo ago
There's more to being a lawyer than what can be measured on a test, just like any profession. Not trying to support the ABA or not support the ABA, but I have experience with this type of issue in other areas and reducing qualifications purely to tests or other outcomes has its own set of issues.
- soco 10mo ago
  In Switzerland even to get your driving licence you need the exams AND prove that you had at least that many (unsure about number) driving lessons with a driving school. I would think being a lawyer means more responsibility...
  - fooqux 10mo ago
    > being a lawyer means more responsibility... I'm not so sure. People often trivialize the kinetic energy involved with driving. Yes, a bad lawyer can potentially cause an innocent to be punished if enough other checks and balances fail. But being behind the wheel of a car is something else. Even a small passenger car is over a ton of metal moving at oftentimes high speeds. Most people don't seem to appreciate the sheer destructive capability driving gives someone.
4fterd4rk 10mo ago
Just curious... would you rely on a doctor that passed some tests rather than going to an accredited medical school?
- ryandrake 10mo ago
  If I had cancer, I definitely don't want an oncologist who learned from YouTube. And if I was on trial for murder, I wouldn't want a defense attorney who taught himself with ChatGPT.

tyjen 10mo ago

Texas and most other states should push for additional freedom in this space. Anyone who can pass the state's bar exam, should be allowed to practice law. Let the legal market sort out the rest from there. California, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington already allow people to practice law within their states without attending law school, but via "reading the law" type apprenticeships. Extending this nationally would benefit lawyers and the people who need them.

pohl 10mo ago
How would "the legal market" sort out someone who repeatedly uses the legal system in bad faith but, because they're in Donald's orbit the only hope left of consequences is the threat of disbarment? It increasingly seems like the last line of defense of late.
- dhd415 10mo ago
  This question is orthogonal to the question of whether ABA accreditation is beneficial.
- barbazoo 10mo ago
  It's not about removing the requirement of the bar exam, just who decides who can take it > The Texas Supreme Court issued an order Tuesday finalizing a tentative September opinion, asserting the ABA should "no longer have the final say" on which law school graduates can take the bar exam — a requirement to becoming a licensed lawyer in each state.
realslimjd 10mo ago
There's not a shortage of lawyers and Texas is not pushing for freedom. They're taking over accreditation so they can start bullying law schools the same way they have with undergraduate institutions like A&M.
- palmotea 10mo ago
  > There's not a shortage of lawyers and Texas is not pushing for freedom. Exactly. Law isn't medicine, and there are so many law graduates that many of them can't even find work in the legal industry, and the earnings of many graduates are surprisingly low (the distribution is bimodal: https://www.nalp.org/salarydistrib https://www.nalp.org/salarydistrib). Unfortunately too many here will reflexively believe some libertarian narrative of "professional organization limiting supply to drive salaries up," even when it doesn't apply.

Eufrat 10mo ago

People arguing this is a first step in true reform fail to see what Texas has been doing, trying to return to the days of “Pappy” O’Daniel. I suppose naked grifting is just the law of the land at this point and we should just all be gaslighted into accepting it as reform.

hbarka 10mo ago

It’s interesting to see the contrast in sentiments here versus Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1q7mt5f/texas_becomes_first_state_to_end_american_bar/ https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1q7mt5f/texas_becomes...