With all the arguments for transparency and changes in legal education, the ABA is finally stepping up—but not without a fight. The ABA’s Standards Review Committee has proposed a number of changes to its accreditation standards, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.
One proposal addresses the transparency issue, also recently drawn attention to by U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer in a letter sent to the ABA President. Boxer encouraged the ABA and law schools to “ensure potential students have a full understanding of the costs and benefits of legal education.”
Accordingly, the committee had already proposed requiring law schools to post more detailed job-placement information, such as “the percentage of students whose employment status after nine months is unknown, as well as the percentage with law school-funded jobs. Schools would have to report the percentage of employed graduates who have jobs requiring bar passage and those in non-legal jobs. Schools would have to stipulate how many students are in part-time and full-time jobs, and would continue to disclose the number of graduates in business, government, judicial clerkships and academia.”
Other proposals would allow schools to remove the LSAT requirement from admissions and raise the bar exam required passage rate from 75 to 80 percent. Inciting some controversy, the committee also suggested that law schools not be required to have a tenure system, and could “instead devise their own, possibly cheaper, ways to ensure that professors have academic freedom.”
These potential changes have caused some upheaval for the Association of American Law Schools. As reported by New York Lawyer, the AALS is concerned that some proposals “weaken” legal education, and requests more time to open up the proposals to public debate. The ABA feels enough time has already been invested and that there has been ample opportunity for discussion.
What do you think? Is the ABA “rushing” or are the law schools stonewalling?
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Read the full article: ABA Proposes New Accreditation Standards
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