Florida workgroup offers dozen alternatives to ABA law school accreditation
A workgroup created by the Florida Supreme Court has developed a dozen alternative methods for law school accreditation as the state considers options beyond the council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, including requesting that the council become independent from the ABA.
Formed in March, the group was charged with weighing the pros and cons of the current accreditation system and considering how to “reduce Florida’s near-exclusive reliance on the ABA,” according to the report.
The 52-page report, submitted to the state’s justices on Tuesday, spells out nine alternatives that the court could implement independently using its constitutional authority, along with three options that would include working with outside entities, including the ABA. The court could mix and match portions of various proposals, and some options could completely replace ABA accreditation, the report states.
The timeline for the court to act on the recommendations have not been set, according to a spokeswoman for the Florida Office of the State Courts Administrator.
Currently, Florida has 12 ABA-accredited law schools and tests the fourth-largest number of bar candidates each year, according to the National Conference of Board Examiners. Like most states, Florida currently mandates that candidates must graduate from an ABA-accredited law school to take the bar exam, a caveat now being reconsidered.
According to the report, the Florida Supreme Court’s authority allows it to implement options ranging from proscribing “discrimination in the ABA’s Standards, to authorizing graduation from any law school regardless of accreditation, to creating law school-specific approval models with measures of varying rigor.” Creating an alternative pathway to licensure via an apprenticeship program was also presented.
But some options would involve coordination with other groups, including forming a new accrediting council in collaboration with other state supreme courts, collaborating with the ABA council to revise its accreditation standards and requesting that the council be decoupled from the larger American Bar Association.
The council of Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar is an independent arm of the ABA and recognized by the Department of Education as the sole accrediting body for U.S. law schools. It served as a source of information for the Florida workgroup along with the Florida Board of Bar Examiners, the U.S. Department of Education, lawyers, judges and law school administrators. Also, in May, Florida’s workgroup collected public comments on the topic, with more than half supporting the reduction or elimination of the ABA’s role in licensure.
Jennifer Rosato Perea, managing director of accreditation and legal education at the ABA, said in a statement that the council is “grateful for the workgroup’s outreach to the council as part of its process” and looks forward to collaborating as the council reviews standards and examines its “governance structure to ensure that it promotes the council’s efforts to provide a fair, effective and efficient national accrediting system for American law schools.”
But Florida is not alone in looking at other options. Texas, Tennessee and Ohio are also reconsidering the ABA as a national accreditor, heightening concerns about bar exam score portability.
In April, Austen Parrish, president of the Association of American Law Schools, and AALS CEO Kellye Testy co-wrote an open letter in defense of maintaining a national accreditor, citing how lawyer mobility is common and “experiments with non-ABA accredited law schools have largely been unsuccessful.”
While some of Florida workgroup’s options would have modest potential impact on national portability, Parrish says, “others could potentially jeopardize the eligibility of Florida law school graduates to sit for other bar exams and could lead to overlapping/conflicting regulation depending on what other states do.”
“As the report notes, ‘preserving Florida Bar Exam eligibility for graduates of ABA-accredited law schools is essential to maintain continuity in the current national system of legal education and bar admission,’” notes Parrish, also the dean of University of California Irvine School of Law.
Also on the table is divorcing the council from the association. “The council is more independent than some critics suggest, but the perception appears to be hindering the council’s credibility,” Parrish writes. “Given the perception by some that the ABA council is overly connected with the association it might be a reasonable option.”
Florida’s move comes after the White House executive order and the “Dear Colleague” letter from the Department of Education earlier this year demanding the dismantling of DEI efforts or risk retribution.
That led the council to suspend accreditation Standard 206 focused on diversity, equity and inclusion until Aug. 31, 2026. Florida’s bar preempted that move, eliminating DEI language in December from its organizational policy after the state supreme court mandated the bar stop funding diversity and inclusion initiatives.
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