FTC calls on Tennessee Supreme Court to end reliance on ABA law school accreditation
The ABA headquarters in Chicago. The Federal Trade Commission is urging the Tennessee Supreme Court to open its law school accreditation to competition. (Photo by John O’Brien/ABA Journal)
The Federal Trade Commission is urging the Tennessee Supreme Court to open its law school accreditation to competition.
Brendan Chestnut, the director of the FTC’s Office of Policy Planning, and Daniel Guarnera, director of its Bureau of Competition, wrote in an April 30 letter that the state supreme court should reassess its “reliance on American Bar Association law school accreditation.” They said allowing the ABA to determine educational requirements for taking the bar exam and practicing law in Tennessee “raises serious competitive risks.”
“The ABA is dominated by practicing attorneys, who have strong incentives to limit the supply of lawyers competing to provide legal services,” Chestnut and Guarnera wrote. “And its accreditation group is dominated by law school faculty and administrators with strong incentives to thwart lower cost alternatives for legal education.”
A May 1 press release with additional information is here.
Chestnut and Guarnera encouraged the Tennessee Supreme Court to expand opportunities for graduates of non-ABA-accredited law schools in Tennessee to take the bar exam. They also suggested that Tennessee should look at Alabama, California or several other states that already have rules or statutes that allow for the approval of non-ABA-accredited law schools.
“The court could, for example, change its rules to allow the Board of Law Examiners to approve unaccredited law schools located outside Tennessee,” Chestnut and Guarnera wrote. “Or the court could work with other states to encourage the entry of alternative law school accreditors.”
“Such actions would help to undermine the ABA’s monopoly and resulting power to impose costly, overly burdensome law school accreditation requirements,” they added.
The FTC’s letter came in response to the Tennessee Supreme Court’s request for public comment on whether it should “modify, reduce or eliminate its reliance on ABA accreditation,” according to Law.com, which also has coverage.
In a statement provided to Law.com, Daniel Thies, the chair of the council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, said, “The council shares the court’s interest in ensuring that all Tennesseans have access to affordable quality legal services, and we believe an accreditor recognized by all states—which allows national portability of law degrees—is in the best interests of law students, law schools, states, the public and the profession.”
Braden Boucek, the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, and officials in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division also signed the FTC’s letter.
The Florida Supreme Court and the Texas Supreme Court recently eliminated their express reliance on ABA accreditation of law schools, the FTC noted in its press release.
See also:
Speculation swirls over what law school accreditation might look like if states break away from ABA
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