The Tennessee Supreme Court has issued an order on October 2 to potentially eliminate the American Bar Association’s (ABA) monopoly over law school accreditation.
In its ruling, the court declared that it will amend Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 7 to reduce reliance on ABA accreditation. Currently, Rule 7 requires law schools to be “accredited by the ABA” for graduates to qualify for admission to the Tennessee Bar, effectively granting the ABA a monopoly over practicing law in the state.
The revised rule mandates that law schools must be “accredited by an Approved Accreditor.” The court noted that the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar will remain on the list of approved accreditors for now, but it plans to add additional or alternative accreditors in the future, including other state supreme courts.
This action follows similar moves by other states. Florida’s Supreme Court announced a comparable change in January, and Ohio’s court stated in May that it intends to follow suit. Texas has developed its own list of approved law schools, while Alabama now relies on recognition by other state supreme courts rather than the ABA.
Federal authorities are also taking steps to limit the ABA’s influence. On April 23, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. Secretary of Education to assess whether to suspend or terminate the status of the ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar as an accrediting agency under federal law. In August 2026, the Department of Education released a report recommending that the ABA lose its accreditation status, though no final decision has been made.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has taken additional actions against the ABA. In May 2025, it announced it would no longer follow the ABA’s ratings process for federal judicial nominees and prohibited DOJ attorneys from attending or speaking at ABA events in April 2025. The DOJ also pressured the ABA to end its “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) requirement for law schools, which it implemented in September 2026.
The ABA’s DEI requirement has demonstrated a strong bias against conservative and traditionalist principles. It is not hyperbolic to describe the organization’s accumulation of significant quasi-governmental power over the legal profession as a threat to America’s founding principles.
Beyond the inherent issue of granting a nongovernmental entity such extensive authority, the ABA and its state-level equivalents undermine republican government in favor of technocracy (“rule by technical experts”). For example, unelected lawyers affiliated with the ABA or state bar associations often dominate state judicial nominating commissions.
During the 20th century, a method for selecting judges that grew in popularity — albeit one repugnant to republican principles — was judicial “merit selection,” also known as the “Missouri Plan” after the state that first adopted it in 1940. Under this system, judicial nominating commissions (typically composed of unelected lawyers) select a limited number of nominees. The governor must then choose one nominee without considering alternatives. Although proponents claim merit selection produces more qualified judges, the process exemplifies technocracy because unelected “experts” rather than elected officials make critical decisions. Furthermore, judges appointed through this system lean left compared to those selected by other means. Research shows: A 2009 law-review paper by Professor Brian Fitzpatrick of Vanderbilt University argued that merit selection may align judicial selection with the ideological preferences of bar associations, which tend to be left-leaning. In a 2017 study, Fitzpatrick found that states using merit selection or nonpartisan elections had judiciaries skewed to the left relative to their citizenry.
The Tennessee Supreme Court’s order represents a significant development in efforts to reduce the ABA’s control over law school accreditation.