Texas First State to End American Bar Association Oversight of Law Schools

It will come down to who has the most money for campaign contributions.

they aren't doing that...they are just changing who is in charge of the trade group.

“ 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

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...

> 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.

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.

"Bar Reciprocity" or "Reciprocal Admission" lets a lawyer do something like move to a different state.

Example: Maine 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.

Lawyers are licensed in each state. Typically, only lawyers licensed in a state can practice law in the state. What exactly that means is fuzzy. Generally you need to be licensed in a state to appear in court in that state. Though for federal courts you can appear on a temporary basis in another state, usually if you’re working with another lawyer who is licensed in that state. But lawyers in one state typically can advise a client in that state about laws in another state—usually when the client’s activity is nationwide.

For clients with interstate business, they usually have a team of lawyers. A lawsuit being heard in Minnesota state court may primarily be handled by a big national firm with lawyers licensed in New York, with local lawyers licensed in Minnesota to handle filings and court appearances.

Afaik, you need to be licensed on each state you want to practice, and take the bar exam for that state.

For example, the LegalEagle youtuber always says he is licensed to practice law in specific states in his videos, here is his georgetown law profile with the states where he is allowed to practice:

https://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/devin-j-stone/

California Maryland New York Virginia District of Columbia (D.C.)

Most (all?) states will also offer pro hac vice, meaning the lawyer can temporarily practice in that case only, typically after applying by way of motion, paying a fee (usually a couple hundred dollars or so) and having an associated local counsel, who is supposed to advise on local legal matters and oversee the foreign attorney (but often does neither).

Courts in many states will start rejecting pro hac requests as they approach the line of abuse, so the attorney will need to become a member of the state's bar.

While pro hac, the attorney generally will have at least the same ethical and competency obligations as any attorney regularly admitted to that state's bar.

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.

1. get a waiver, usually after some time of practice (e.g. for the DC bar it's 3 years: https://admissions.dcappeals.gov/appinfo.action?id=200)

2. apply for reciprocity if that's an option

3. I understand that you can transfer between states with the same bar exam (mostly the so-called UBE states) as long as you pass the target states' admission score and any other qualification they require

4. pass the bar exam in each state

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.

Just curious... would you rely on a doctor that passed some tests rather than going to an accredited medical school?

This is not about the Bar exam (the test), this is about accreditation of law degrees. The issue is about here is about who determines whether a legal education is sufficient to trust that a lawyer who passes the test is prepared for practice. This issue is the opposite of being completely test-based. The ABA also creates the most common bar exam (the MBE or multistate bar exam) but some states like California use a different exam. The legal profession does not, but many have long argued should, have a practice requirement for independent licensure to practice.

It is akin to ABET (previously Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology) in engineering. having an ABET accredited engineering degree has long been a component (alongside testing and mentored practice) for being a licensed engineer who can stamp drawings (e.g., structural plans for buildings). There are two tests (FE and PE) but they are not created by ABET they are created by an organization called NCEES - The National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying.

ABET and NCEES are different organizations, part of the confusion here is that ABA is both the accreditor and the tester in many states. The difference in path between accreditor -> testing -> licensure is:

ABA accredited degree -> ABA (MBE) or other (non-ABA) Bar exam -> Lawyer

ABET accredited degree -> FE exam (made by NCEES) -> mentored work experience -> PE exam (made by NCEES) -> Professional Engineer

Why do you want to promote more lawyers? There's a lot of ways lawyers can make money that you'll probably hate. It's not evident to me that increasing market pressure on lawyers will be societally beneficial.

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.

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.

I disagree, in my opinion passing the bar exam is necessary but not nearly sufficient for competently practicing law.

The bar is an imperfect filter. One could study for the exam and pass and still be hugely deficient in ability as an attorney.

I would argue there's no exam that could replace the evaluative and experiential component of 3 years in law school, and accreditation helps enforce at least some standard of quality in the profession. More incompetent lawyers -> more wasteful behavior -> a more bloated and slower legal system -> worse outcomes for everyone.

I think reducing barriers to completing the legal education (part-time programs, lower cost, etc) are better avenues for increasing access.

Agreed.

I'm currently looking to get a law degree and the education requirements are... silly. I've done a significant amount of law-and-law-accessories work over the past ten years and have had a nice career in sysadmin/sre/devops/ops work. Yet I need a(ny) bachelors to even get started and I don't even have an associates.

It truly feels like the only way forward is to waste several years of my life and exhaust myself to the bone to get a degree.

(WGU is awful and is not the answer here)

> Let the legal market sort out the rest from there.

This isn’t a field where supply demand free market economics should be the goal. Literal lives could be at stake. Should we also let surgery market sort itself out by allowing people to perform surgeries if they pass an exam?

Agree. Also, most JD programs in most states require a 4 year degree to enter.

That sounds like "a good idea" to a lot of people in the context of high school graduates. But for someone older who had a (let's say successful) career in the trades, or software engineering, without needing a 4 year degree.. It's a huge barrier to entry needing 4 years of college before even starting JD for those interested in law later in life.

> 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.

Famously this is how Kim Kardashian tried to become an attorney without ever attending undergrad, let alone law school. However, to date she has not be able to pass the bar exam.

https://people.com/kim-kardashian-cries-has-mental-breakdown...

Her boyfriend already got a "My girl's a lawyer" tattoo though so hopefully she will pass on her next attempt! https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/kim-kardashian-pe...

There are already way too many attorneys, and way too many lawyers who can't even get jobs as attorneys, I'm not sure how letting anyone who takes the bar exam cosplay as an attorney will help things.

(I am not an attorney, or a lawyer, and I've never attended law school)

Fun fact: the reason bar associations exist is because people got tired of the free market free-for-all that existed before bar associations.

Law, like medicine, isn't something you want some rando handling. The free market is not a magical panacea. Rules are created for a reason, and that reason is usually grounded in human suffering.