Don’t Mess With TX: Attorney General Ken Paxton Investigates the American Bar Association Over Potential Anti-competitive Conduct in Accreditation of Law Schools

AUSTIN – Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation into the American Bar Association (“ABA”) over potential anti-competitive conduct relating to the accreditation of law schools.

Since 1952, the ABA has served as the federally recognized accreditor of U.S. law schools. Through its accreditation standards, the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar exercises significant influence over legal education nationwide. For years, the ABA has weaponized its accreditation authority 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, it has used its accrediting power to impose unconstitutional racial and gender preference requirements on law schools’ admissions and hiring processes. This conduct has imposed substantial costs on existing and potential new law schools, and deprived the market of innovative, lower-cost approaches to legal education.

In response to these concerns, the Supreme Court of Texas recently ended the ABA’s monopoly over accreditation for Texas law schools for admission to the Texas state bar, opening the door for new models for legal education. Attorney General Paxton’s investigation will focus on ABA’s accreditation standards, and whether and how they have impacted competition for legal education and the prices for legal services in Texas.

“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 Attorney General 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.”

As part of the investigation, the Office of the Attorney General has issued a Civil Investigative Demand (“CID”) to the ABA. 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. The Office of the Attorney General also provided related testimony to the Department of Education’s National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (“NACIQI”).

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