Trump administration recommends stripping American Bar Association of law school oversight authority

[Bigun]

Trump administration recommends stripping American Bar Association of law school oversight authority

The ABA, which accredits roughly 200 law schools, has come under GOP criticism over promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion standards.

Education Department staff on Friday suggested ending the American Bar Association’s ability to oversee law school programs across the country amid fierce Republican criticism of the organization.

The association has had government approval to oversee law schools since 1952, but agency staff said its next renewal bid should be denied because of alleged conflicts of interest. The association was last approved to accredit nearly 200 law schools in 2021, with its oversight authority up for review next month.

The recommendation marks a major development in President Donald Trump’s efforts to reshape the college oversight system, which he has criticized as too liberal. Critics fear this will politicize the accreditation process, but the department’s skepticism of close relationships between accreditors and trade associations is shared across the political aisle.

Accreditors are the nongovernmental agencies tasked with reviewing educational quality. For freestanding law schools that aren’t affiliated with a university, the ABA determines if the school can accept federal student aid. ...

Rest at headline link

[Bigun]

If this actually happens it will be the best thing to happen in legal education in 6 decades!

[Bigun]

Attorney David Clements Torches the Legal Establishment After Education Department Moves to Strip the Corrupt American Bar Association of Its Power to Accredit Law Schools:

“The BAR Is One of the Most Corrupt Entities on Earth”

The U.S. Department of Education on Friday recommended stripping the American Bar Association of its longstanding authority to accredit nearly 200 law schools across the country.

According to a leak, a 500-page staff report concluded that the group is not sufficiently “separate and independent” from the larger ABA, operates like a cartel, and has injected its own political ideology into the process, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Assistant Secretary of Education David Barker put it bluntly: when there’s no competition, “accreditors feel free to inject their own political preferences, their own ideologies into the work that they do.”

The ABA has held a near-monopoly since 1952 over which law schools can access federal student loans and whose graduates can sit for the bar in most states. ...

Rest at headline link

[mountaineer]

ABA never should have had such authority. I'll never forget being told by a high-ranking Democrat elected official in Missouri that the ABA was worthless and that he wouldn't recommend any lawyer joining it.

[Cyber Liberty]

ABA never should have had such authority. I'll never forget being told by a high-ranking Democrat elected official in Missouri that the ABA was worthless and that he wouldn't recommend any lawyer joining it.

That's well and good, but try practicing law without it.

[Bigun]

The strawman argument for the existence of the BAR, is the notion that judges and attorneys are necessary to regulate their own profession for ethical breaches.

The only thing these judges and attorneys are interested in, is regulating political speech they disagree with.

The solution is simple.  The profession should be regulated by public citizens.  Not on boards, or another layer of bureaucracy.  Rather, focusing on common law tort actions already on the books: negligence, legal malpractice, etc.

Harm or lie to a client, you should be sued like any other profession.  Expand protections for pro se litigants to file away.  The day that people understand they can sue without resorting to the micromanagement of an insurance carrier, an inept attorney only there for the billable hour, and that their best shot is in front of a jury of their peers, will be a good day.

https://x.com/theprofsrecord/status/2091177561036619950

I was writing about this $%^t thirty years ago at TOS.

[mountaineer]

That's well and good, but try practicing law without it.

You don't have to be an ABA member to practice law.

[Luis Gonzalez]

That's well and good, but try practicing law without it.

I have lawyers in the family galore. You are correct.

[mountaineer]

Attorney licensing is done by a state entity.
 The debate is over  why the ABA has any say in accrediting law schools.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Attorney licensing is done by a state entity.
 The debate is over  why the ABA has any say in accrediting law schools.

So the question then is, how did private professional standards become so deeply embedded in the public licensing machinery that states effectively depend on them?