Ohio proposes steps to expand law school accreditation beyond ABA
The Ohio Supreme Court proposed amendments Thursday to "create opportunities for graduates of non-ABA-accredited law schools” to take the state's bar exam and take formal steps to establish an accreditation process administered by the state.
The justices in the Republican-controlled state supreme court told its administrative director to create a state-run accreditation process.
Ohio has nine ABA-accredited law schools.
The council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar is a separate and independent entity from the bar association that is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as the sole accrediting body for law schools.
State-specific accreditation is not new, as evidenced by California’s long-standing process.
“State accreditation working in parallel with the council preserves the current national accreditation system and allows for the portability of law degrees from council-accredited schools while also giving states the opportunity to pursue state-level objectives,” wrote Daniel Thies, the council’s chair, in a statement to the ABA Journal. “The council has been and will remain the gold standard for law school accreditation with a demonstrated ability to secure successful student outcomes across metrics such as bar passage rates, career success and professional discipline rates.”
The moves mark the latest step by the Ohio Supreme Court, which has been reevaluating ABA accreditation since July 2025, when it created an advisory committee to review the process. The committee includes representatives from the Ohio State Bar Association, deans of the state’s law schools, as well as state and federal legislators.
The proposal will be out for public comment until July 10.
Ohio’s reconsideration follows a move earlier this month by the Alabama Supreme Court to change rules for admissions to its bar that downgrades the involvement of the council and allows graduates of its three ABA-accredited law schools and two that are not, as well as out-of-state law graduates to take the bar as long as they qualify to do so in their home jurisdictions.
And Washington announced last week that it will begin allowing grads of non-ABA-accredited law schools to take the bar exam Sept. 1.
These differ from the moves in January by the Florida Supreme Court and the Texas Supreme Court, which killed their reliance on accreditation of law schools by the council. Tennessee is also reevaluating ABA accreditation.
“This trend is accelerating, and with each new state that makes such a change, the more likely that other states will consider doing so,” says Martin Pritikin, the dean of the Purdue Global Law School, a fully online law school based in Los Angeles that does not qualify for ABA accreditation.
The states’ moves follow the Trump administration’s April 2025 executive order aimed at higher education accreditors—specifically referencing the council—that mandates the dismantling of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts or risk federal funding cuts.
After that, the council suspended Standard 206 until Aug. 31, 2026, and at its quarterly meeting earlier this month, it voted to repeal the standard.
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