Attorney General Ken Paxton has opened an antitrust investigation of the American Bar Association over how it accredits law schools, his office announced September 30. The move comes nearly nine months after the Supreme Court of Texas stopped relying on the ABA to decide which law schools qualify graduates for the Texas bar.
The office issued the ABA a civil investigative demand, a formal request for documents and information. The investigation will examine “whether accreditation requirements have unlawfully restricted competition or increased the cost of legal education, including through requirements affecting faculty compensation and law school operations,” according to the announcement. The office also testified on the issue to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, the panel that advises on which accreditors the federal government recognizes.
“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,” Paxton said. “No organization should be permitted to use its position of influence to violate our antitrust laws.”
The announcement accuses the ABA, which has been the federally recognized accreditor of law schools since 1952, of using that role to “artificially inflate faculty salaries,” to shut out schools that challenged its view of legal education, and to impose racial and gender preference requirements on admissions and hiring. Those are the office’s allegations. A civil investigative demand opens an inquiry, and the office has announced no charge or finding.
Texas had already changed the ABA’s place in its own system. In a January 6 order, the Supreme Court of Texas gave final approval to amendments to its rules for admission to the bar and took over the list of approved law schools itself. Every school approved under the old rules stayed on the list. To remain there, a school now needs to meet only four specific ABA standards, and the court said losing ABA accreditation will not by itself be grounds for removal. It also said it may later rely on a multistate accreditor “other than the ABA” if a suitable one becomes available.
The court described its order as “re-asserting its authority over the approval of law schools.” Who may practice law in Texas is decided by Texas’s own highest court. The attorney general’s investigation asks how the national accreditor used the authority the state relied on it to exercise for decades.
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