Texas Breaks with the ABA: Supreme Court Takes Control of Law School Accreditation

By Michael Phillips | TXBayNews

Austin, TX — In a landmark decision with national implications, the Texas Supreme Court finalized a rule change on January 6, 2026, ending Texas’ 42-year reliance on the American Bar Association (ABA) as the gatekeeper for law school accreditation.

Texas is now the first state in the country to remove the ABA as the final authority over which law schools qualify graduates to sit for the state bar exam—marking a major shift in legal education oversight, professional licensing, and state autonomy.

What Changed—and What Didn’t

For decades, Texas—like nearly every other state—required aspiring attorneys to graduate from an ABA-accredited law school to become licensed. Under the new rule:

• The Texas Supreme Court now directly approves law schools whose graduates may sit for the Texas bar.
• All currently ABA-accredited Texas law schools remain approved, with no immediate disruption to students or recent graduates.
• Schools must still comply with key performance-based standards, including bar passage rates and baseline resource requirements.
• The court emphasized future approvals will rely on “simple, objective, and ideologically neutral criteria”, rather than broader institutional mandates.

In other words, the change is structural—not sudden—and current students are unaffected in the near term.

Why Texas Made the Move

The shift follows more than a year of review, beginning in April 2025, when the court sought public comment on whether continued reliance on the ABA served Texas’ interests. A tentative decision was issued in September, followed by a formal public comment period that closed in December.

Supporters argue the ABA has become:

• Cost-inflating, driving up tuition through rigid facility, staffing, and administrative mandates.
• Anti-competitive, functioning as a near-monopoly over legal education.
• Ideologically prescriptive, particularly through past diversity and inclusion requirements that critics say strayed beyond core educational outcomes.

The Federal Trade Commission weighed in favor of the change, warning that ABA dominance restricts innovation and competition in legal education—an unusual but notable intervention.

Political and Legal Context

The decision also lands amid broader national tensions between conservative policymakers and the ABA. During the Trump administration, the organization faced sharp criticism over accreditation standards viewed as conflicting with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling limiting affirmative action in higher education. Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and other officials publicly challenged the ABA’s role, and the association has faced antitrust scrutiny before, including a DOJ settlement in the 1990s.

While the Texas Supreme Court’s order avoids explicit political language, the emphasis on neutrality and outcomes reflects those ongoing debates.

Pushback from Law Schools

Not everyone is on board. Deans from eight of Texas’ ten ABA-accredited law schools opposed the change in a joint letter last summer, warning it could:

• Undermine degree portability, making it harder for graduates to practice in other states.
• Create uncertainty for applicants and employers.
• Risk reputational harm if national standards fragment.

Notably, the dean of the University of Texas School of Law did not join the opposition, instead encouraging exploration of alternatives.

The ABA itself expressed disappointment but acknowledged the Texas Supreme Court’s ultimate authority over licensure and pledged to continue promoting national standards and reciprocity.

What Comes Next

The court has made clear it wants to preserve reciprocity—both for Texans practicing elsewhere and for out-of-state lawyers coming to Texas. It also left the door open to recognizing a different multi-state accreditor in the future if one emerges.

Longer term, Texas could become a test case for:

• Lower-cost or more flexible law programs
• Expanded access to legal education in underserved regions
• Increased pressure on the ABA to reform or modernize its standards

Other states—including Florida, Ohio, and Tennessee—are already watching closely.

The Bottom Line

From a center-right perspective, Texas’ move is less about lowering standards and more about restoring state control, promoting competition, and refocusing on measurable outcomes—like whether graduates can actually pass the bar and practice law.

If Texas succeeds in maintaining quality while reducing cost and ideological friction, the ABA’s century-long dominance may finally face real competition. If not, the experiment will serve as a cautionary tale.

Either way, the national legal education landscape just changed—and Texas fired the opening shot.