"Florida Supreme Court Appoints Workgroup To Consider Bar Exam Requirements"

That’s the headline over at the Florida Supreme Court’s website. From the press release:

To be admitted to the Florida Bar and gain the privilege of practicing law in this state, applicants must pass the Florida Bar Examination. In turn, with limited exceptions, the Florida Supreme Court’s rules require graduation from an ABA accredited law school as a prerequisite to taking the Bar exam. The ABA has been the sole accrediting body recognized in the Court’s rules since 1992, though the rules have relied on ABA accreditation since 1955.

The Court has appointed a Workgroup to study the current ABA accreditation requirement in the Bar admission rules and to propose possible alternatives. Former Justice Ricky Polston will chair the Workgroup, which will submit its report to the Court by September 30. The Court has asked the Workgroup to be “guided in its study and deliberations by the goals of promoting excellence in Florida’s legal profession; not hindering law schools from providing high-quality, cost-effective, and innovative legal education, in a nondiscriminatory setting; and protecting the public and meeting Floridians’ need for legal services.”

The Court believes a study of this kind is warranted due to increasing public interest in governments’ reliance on ABA accreditation in regulations dealing with lawyer licensing and access to financial aid. Reasonable questions have arisen about the ABA’s accreditation standards on racial and ethnic diversity in law schools and about the ABA’s active political engagement. Scholars have also questioned how ABA accreditation requirements affect costs and innovation in legal education.

I blogged earlier that the ABA’s role as law school accreditor is “fairly secure.” It is possible, of course, for states to permit the practice of law for graduates of non-ABA accredited schools (California among them). And it’s possible that more deregulation from states (or from a substantial cohort of states) weakens the ABA’s influence, or creates additional competition in the marketplace from non-ABA accredited schools. But I’ll be watching this development in Florida closely to see how they examine the legal profession, legal education, and attorney licensing.