Florida Supreme Court rejects ‘gatekeeper’ accreditation role for American Bar Association

Aspiring lawyers may soon have more paths to a legal career.

In a 5-1 decision, the Florida Supreme Court amended its rule making the American Bar Association (ABA) “the sole accrediting agency for law schools whose graduates are eligible to sit for this state’s General Bar Examination.”

The revision will “expand the accrediting agencies by which a law school may be approved or provisionally approved” to allow law school graduates to take the Bar.

The opinion, which follows the lead of Texas, was issued after Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier called for alternative accreditors, with the former taking issue with the ABA’s “progressive agenda” and the latter criticizing the organization as “woke” and accusing it of discriminating against Catholics.

“Mission accomplished,” exulted Jason Weida, Chief of Staff for the Governor.

The high court started a workgroup last year to explore alternatives to the ABA given its perceived political stances and “accreditation standards on racial and ethnic diversity in law schools,” with an eye toward trying to “reduce Florida’s near-exclusive reliance on the ABA while promoting greater flexibility and innovation in legal education.”

That study provided the framework for the rule revision.

“Based on its independent study and its consideration of the workgroup’s report, the Court is persuaded that it is not in Floridians’ best interest for the ABA to be the sole gatekeeper deciding which law schools’ graduates are eligible to sit for the state’s General Bar Examination and become licensed attorneys in Florida,” reads the opinion, which was led by Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz, with Justices John Couriel, Jamie Grosshans, Renatha Francis and Meredith Sasso concurring.

“Instead, the rule changes create the opportunity for additional entities to carry out an accrediting and gatekeeping function on behalf of the Court.”

The revised rule opens the door “to a programmatic accrediting agency recognized by the United States Department of Education to accredit programs in legal education that lead to the first professional degree in law or an institutional accrediting agency recognized by the United States Department of Education to accredit institutions of higher education, provided the institutional accrediting agency is also approved by the Court.”

In a dissent, Justice Jorge Labarga worried about “detrimental” consequences for “replacing an established entity with an unknown alternative.”