After receiving pushback from law school deans and with many logistical questions looming, the council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar voted to continue developing a proposal to start fully accrediting online-only law schools at its May 17 meeting in Chicago.
Updated: The 2024 U.S. News & World Report Best Law Schools rankings is riddled with ties, including three ties in the top tier, and a few unusual jumps. As predicted by rankings watchers, Stanford Law School and Yale Law School came out on top—but in a tie for first that those experts didn’t expect.
A proposal to accredit fully online law schools has met pushback from 26 law school deans, saying more information is needed regarding bar pass and employment rates of online law school graduates.
The George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School has demonstrated that it complies with an ABA accreditation standard requiring sufficient financial resources, according to an announcement posted online.
Western Michigan University’s Thomas M. Cooley Law School had the lowest two-year bar passage rate for 2021 graduates among ABA-accredited law schools, according to data released Monday by the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.
A law school that opened in Jacksonville, Florida, in August 2022 has obtained provisional accreditation from the ABA, paving the way for its graduates to take the bar exam.
Ray Brescia, a law professor at Albany Law School in New York, has taken a hard look at the country's legal system in his new book, Lawyer Nation: The Past, Present, and Future of the American Legal Profession.
Law schools that want to use the JD-Next exam in admissions will have to continue to seek a variance, the council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar determined at its Feb. 22 meeting.
Law schools will now be asked to explicitly protect free speech rights for faculty, students and staff as part of the ABA accreditation process. Though law school faculty have long enjoyed protections for academic freedom, this would be the first accreditation standard to address free speech for the entire community within law schools.
Two proposals regarding the accreditation of fully online law schools were posted for comment by the council of the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar this week.
After the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2023 decision striking down affirmative action, half of law school admissions officers are “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about creating a diverse student body, according to a survey conducted by test prep company Kaplan released Monday.
JD-Next, a prelaw school exam administered by Aspen Publishing, should be used only as a secondary supplement to more established measurements of potential law student success, such as undergraduate grades or more established testing scores, according to a new report from a consultant for the ABA.
As diversity remains a hot topic after the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College decision, the Law School Admission Council is piloting a hybrid version of its Plus Summer program to offer support to more potential law school applicants from underrepresented communities around Washington, D.C.
The ABA Journal wants to host and facilitate conversations among lawyers about their profession. We are now accepting thoughtful, non-promotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors.
