In September, the Supreme Court of Texas signaled that it would remove the American Bar Association as the "final say" on accreditation. After a comment period, SCOTX adopted its draft proposal without any revisions. In the short term, any school that is currently ABA-accredited will be accredited by SCOTX. Texas will soon adopt a new standard:
In Misc. Dkt. No. 25-9070, the Court advised that it intends to provide stability, certainty, and flexibility to currently approved law schools by guaranteeing ongoing approval to schools that satisfy a set of simple, objective, and ideologically neutral criteria using metrics no more onerous than those currently required by the ABA.
To be sure, schools can voluntarily maintain ABA accreditation. At least in the short term, I suspect most schools (including my own) will not change the status quo. But once the question of portability is worked out, schools may be more amenable to innovation. Indeed, SCOTX signaled that a multi-state accrediting entity other than the ABA may be in the works:
