University of Austin Law School Rejects ABA Accreditation

The University of Austin (UATX) announced it will not seek accreditation from the American Bar Association's Accreditation Council for its law school. The five-year-old institution, co-founded by CBS News Editor in Chief Bari Weiss, made the declaration in a lengthy Substack post by its General Counsel, Adam Biggs.

This decision comes after the U.S. Department of Education recommended last month that the ABA Council lose its federal recognition to accredit law schools. Without that recognition, ABA accreditation would no longer unlock federal student aid. The Texas Supreme Court also ruled earlier this year to allow lawyers who did not graduate from ABA-accredited schools to practice in the state.

Criticisms of the ABA Model

In his post, Adam Biggs condemned the ABA as a private trade association. He argued it has spent seventy years enforcing a conformist, expensive, and outdated model for legal education.

The ABA is a private trade association that has spent seventy years making sure no one builds a law school that doesn’t conform to its exact vision for legal education, Biggs wrote. He claimed this model stifles innovation and makes creating legal clinics largely unavoidable, which he called the most expensive way to teach.

Biggs contrasted a property law professor who can teach hundreds of students with a clinical professor who works with about eight. He also attacked the high cost of legal education, stating that public-interest lawyers should not be forced into large-firm jobs just to service their loans.

A New Educational Partnership

UATX stated it will partner with the conservative Federalist Society for its undergraduate legal education. The partnership will support courses that look deeper into the Constitution's text, history, and tradition. These courses will be taught by judges, practicing lawyers, and scholars.

Biggs further criticized what he described as an "ABA-enforced pipeline" that leads to left-leaning faculty and student bodies at law schools. He asserted that legal clinics overwhelmingly support left-leaning causes, promoting a grievance-based study of law that he believes undermines the pursuit of truth.

The ABA's Response

In response, Melissa Hart, chair of the ABA Accreditation Council, defended the organization's role. In an emailed statement, she said the council accredits law schools with a wide range of missions and perspectives that innovate within their programs.

"States also recognize other law schools that-for a variety of reasons-do not choose to pursue Council accreditation," Hart stated. That system of combining national accreditation, which ensures degree portability, with parallel pathways to practice has worked well for many years, and it will continue to as the University of Austin builds its program.

UATX, which first accepted students in the fall of 2024, does not yet have institutional accreditation but is seeking it. The institution's announcement aligns with actions by some Republican-controlled states that have also targeted the ABA Council, which has faced criticism for its past support of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.