Texas is now the first state in the U.S. to eliminate American Bar Association oversight of its law schools, ending the state's 42-year-long reliance on the national organization.
The Texas Supreme Court issued an order Tuesday finalizing a tentative September opinion, asserting the ABA should "no longer have the final say" on which law school graduates can take the bar exam — a requirement to becoming a licensed lawyer in each state.
"The Court advised that it intends to provide stability, certainty, and flexibility to currently approved law schools by guaranteeing ongoing approval to schools that satisfy a set of simple, objective, and ideologically neutral criteria using metrics no more onerous than those currently required by the ABA," reads the order signed by all nine justices.
The change means law school graduates who want to practice in Texas are no longer required to attend an ABA-accredited school. The power to approve those law schools now rests solely with the state's highest civil court.
In the absence of national guidance, however, the Texas Supreme Court stipulated in Tuesday's order that it intends to preserve graduates' ability to use Texas law school degrees in other states and out-of-state law degrees in Texas. The court also doesn't anticipate immediate changes to the current list of approved law schools and could return to relying on a different multi-state accrediting entity in the future.
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