Texas is investigating the American Bar Association’s alleged anti-competitive law school accreditation practices.
According to Attorney General Ken Paxton, the investigation will examine whether accreditation requirements set by the American Bar Association (ABA) “have unlawfully restricted competition or increased the cost of legal education, including through requirements affecting faculty compensation and law school operations.”
Paxton alleged that the American Bar Association has “weaponized” its “significant influence over legal education” across the nation to “artificially inflate faculty salaries, exclude law schools who challenged the ABA’s view of ‘elite’ legal education, and impose costly, burdensome accreditation requirements.”
Additionally, he alleged that the ABA uses its accreditation power to “impose unconstitutional racial and gender preference requirements on law schools’ admissions and hiring processes.”
Paxton also argued in his Wednesday announcement that this anticompetitiveness has levied significant costs on both existing and potential law schools, which deprives “the market of innovative, lower-cost approaches to legal education.”
“There must be competition and a fair playing field when it comes to law school accreditation, or else we risk inflated costs for students, unfair restrictions, and illegal discriminatory practices,” said Paxton. “My office will investigate whether the law school accreditation process has been used to unlawfully limit competition and burden students and institutions. No organization should be permitted to use its position of influence to violate our antitrust laws.”
Earlier this year, the Texas Supreme Court issued an opinion that eliminates the requirement for law students to attend an ABA accredited law school before taking the state bar exam, which Paxton noted will open new avenues for students to attain a legal education.
The court’s opinion highlighted that it intends to continue giving “approval to schools that satisfy a set of simple, objective, and ideologically neutral criteria using metrics no more onerous than those currently required by the ABA.”
An already-approved law school need only ensure compliance with certain ABA standards to maintain approval, which the Court also noted.
Texas Scorecard’s request for comment from the ABA was directed to the Accreditation Council, which operates separately and independently from the ABA. The council’s spokesperson said that they “are in receipt of the Texas AG’s Civil Investigative Demand and will work with the Texas AG’s office to respond to their inquiry.”
