Alabama sidelines ABA in lawyer admissions while Tennessee weighs similar move

By Karen Sloan

May 4 (Reuters) - Alabama has become the third Republican-led U.S. state in recent months to limit the role of the American Bar Association in lawyer licensing, and Tennessee could be next.

The Supreme Court of Alabama on Thursday revised its admissions rules to eliminate graduation from an ABA-accredited law school as a requirement to take its bar exam — following the lead of both Texas and Florida and ratcheting up efforts during President Donald Trump's second term to dislodge the ABA as the primary accreditor of U.S. law schools.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of Tennessee is weighing whether to eliminate its requirement that attorneys graduate from an ABA-accredited law school or a law school approved by the state’s Board of Law Examiners, as part of a larger inquiry into improving access to justice in the state.

An Alabama Supreme Court spokesperson said Monday that the court would not comment beyond its Thursday order, which did not provide its rationale for striking the ABA from its admissions rules.

Under the revised rule, graduates of five Alabama law schools are eligible to sit for the state's bar exam. Graduates of out-of-state law schools may also take the Alabama bar as long as they qualify for the bar exam in those other jurisdictions. That means graduates of ABA-accredited law schools will still be able to take the Alabama bar exam, as will certain graduates of non-ABA accredited law schools recognized by other states.

The court's order said it had been examining the admissions rule changes for several months and had consulted with the Alabama Board of Law Examiners.

ABA accreditation continues to be "gold standard for law schools," said Daniel Thies, Chair of the ABA's Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. “A national accreditor is in the best interests of law students, law schools, states and the profession," he said.

The states' moves to shrink the ABA's law school oversight come amid a wider conflict between the ABA and the Republican Trump administration over issues ranging from judicial nominations to the president's targeting of law firms.

The ABA’s law school accreditation arm, which operates independently from the larger ABA, has been under pressure from the federal government since April 2025, when the administration directed the U.S. Department of Education to assess whether to suspend or terminate the council as the government’s official law school accreditor, citing its “unlawful ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ requirements.”

The ABA is on course this month to eliminate its diversity and inclusion rule, which requires law schools to demonstrate their ​commitment to diversity in recruitment, admissions and student programming. That rule has been suspended since February 2025.

Tennessee has described its reconsideration of its ABA requirement as an access-to-justice issue with a goal of lowering barriers into the legal profession and reducing the cost of legal services in the state.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission endorsed dropping the ABA requirement in an April 30 letter to the Tennessee high court, one of hundreds of pages of public comments on proposed regulatory reforms related to access to justice.

The FTC said "allowing the ABA to monopolize the determination of the education requirements for taking the bar examination" limits the supply of lawyers in the state, drives up the cost of legal services, and stifles competition among law schools. The letter was also signed by officials in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and Braden Boucek, the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee.

The ABA in a March 16 letter to the court highlighted the benefits of a national system of accreditation that sets minimum educational requirements and enables law graduates to move between states without navigating a patchwork of admissions requirements.

Many other individuals and groups backed Tennessee’s continued reliance on ABA accreditation in their own letters to the court, including the Tennessee Bar Association; the Law School Admission Council; and the Nashville Bar Association.

Read more:

Tennessee joins states eying end to ABA's role in law school accreditation

Trump executive order says ABA's role as law school accreditor may be revoked