Bar Association’s New Rules Settle Accreditation Suit

The Justice Department sued the American Bar Assn. on Tuesday, accusing the nation’s largest group of lawyers of misusing its accreditation powers to inflate the salaries of law school professors.

The association, without admitting wrongdoing, agreed to settle the civil suit by changing its process for determining whether law schools get the association’s prestigious stamp of approval. ABA President George E. Bushnell Jr. said the settlement was made “to avoid chaotically disrupting a legal education system that is the model for much of the world.”

In a news conference announcing the suit and the settlement, Deputy Assistant Atty. Gen. Joel Klein said the ABA pressured law schools to raise salaries to artificially high levels before their programs were accredited.

Anne K. Bingaman, assistant attorney general in charge of the antitrust division, said the salary provision and some other requirements the schools faced “had little to do with the quality of the legal education they provided.”

She added: “The powerful status of the ABA does not insulate it from antitrust laws.”

Bushnell said in a statement that the ABA was proud of its role in assuring strong legal training programs. “Nothing that has occurred today detracts from that pride, nor does it change the role this association plays in legal education,” he added.

Bar association accreditation adds considerably to a law school’s reputation. Many states do not allow graduates of non-accredited schools to take licensing exams.

The settlement must be approved by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Under the settlement, the ABA agreed not to use faculty salaries as a factor when considering whether a law school should receive the association’s approval. Also, no more than half the members of the ABA’s accreditation committee can be law school deans or faculty members.

To meet ABA standards, law schools are required, among other things, to keep their student-faculty ratios to less than 25 to 1, limit the hours faculty members teach, keep a certain number of books on library shelves, and limit the number of hours students can work at outside jobs.