On Jan. 6, the Supreme Court of Texas amended its Rules Governing Admission to the Bar of Texas, changing the definition of an “approved law school” to one accredited by the Supreme Court of Texas rather than the American Bar Association. The Supreme Court of Texas stated that the goal of the change was to provide “simple, objective and ideologically neutral criteria” for law school accreditation.
This shift in definition will effectively create two types of law schools in Texas: nationally recognized ABA-accredited schools and Texas-only recognized schools. While the Supreme Court of Texas has not yet changed their law school accreditation criteria from what was previously required by the ABA, they stated in their decision that they intend to work with law schools who wish to achieve accreditation that do not currently meet ABA standards.
The biggest issue these court-only accredited law schools will face is degree portability. Since the overwhelming majority of the nation requires graduates to have degrees from ABA-accredited schools to become licensed lawyers, students from non ABA-accredited schools will find it difficult to practice in other states.
Like many pre-law students, EPPS Dean Council Vice President and criminology senior Jasmine Kouhestani doesn’t want to spend her entire career in Texas. This makes these non-ABA-accredited schools much less appealing than other law schools in the country.
“If I go to a school in Texas and the university isn’t ABA-accredited, being able to go to practice law in a different state would make things substantially harder,” Kouhestani said. “That is something that I don’t think would be feasible for me and my path.”
Editor-in-Chief of the UTD Undergraduate Law Review and cognitive science senior Skandha Gopinath says that this expansion of eligible law schools may also have consequences on the quality of legal education in Texas.
“The question really comes down to if they’re going to get a quality education that lets them pass the bar [exam] and be an effective lawyer,” Gopinath said. “People who might not have been able to get into an ABA-accredited law school would then be going to one of these unaccredited law schools which would one, take their money, and two, not give them the proper legal education they need to pass the bar [exam] and be effective lawyers.”
The Supreme Court of Texas emphasized their desire to establish “ideologically neutral” accreditation standards. This emphasis on “ideologically neutral” criteria emerged in the wake of the ABA’s conflicts with the second Trump administration and it has the potential to affect every public law school in Texas.
These political tensions came to a head during controversies about the ABA’s stances on diversity. In February of 2025, a letter from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi warned the ABA that its position as the federally recognized body for law school accreditation could be revoked if the ABA did not end its diversity and inclusion mandates. Soon after, the ABA repealed its diversity requirement. Then in March, the ABA released a statement that criticized the Trump administration for targeting judges and other legal professionals that acted against the administration’s interests.
The Texas state government has also been critical of the ABA. In 2025, Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice James D. Blacklock criticized the ABA in his February State of the Judiciary address for “aggressively taking sides in the fight going on in Washington about the scope of the president’s executive power.”
While the Supreme Court of Texas stated that their decision intended to provide “stability, certainty and flexibility” to Texas law schools, Gopinath doubts whether this change is truly aimed at benefiting legal education.
“It just seems more like a way to weaken the independent control that the ABA has over Texas schools,” Gopinath said. “I think this is just part of a broader trend where we’re seeing the judicial branch, both at the state level and also on the national level, become more and more politicized.”
Dean of the University of Texas School of Law Robert Chesney authored an official opinion on the Supreme Court of Texas’s desire to part with the ABA where he stated that many law schools, including his own, had incentives to maintain ABA accreditation.
However, if Texas’ government decides that the ABA’s requirements remain too partisan and comes into conflict with legislation like Senate Bill 17, these incentives to maintain ABA accreditation would become irrelevant to state compliance. This means that public law schools looking to maintain national degree portability, including The University of Texas School of Law, University of Houston Law School and Texas A&M Law School could be affected by the change whether they want to or not.
Prior to the ruling, the University of Texas Law School was among Kouhestani’s top law school choices, as it is consistently ranked as the top law school in the state and among the top 20 in the nation. Even though the university has not separated from the ABA, the chance that it might in the future is too much of a risk to take for many students.
“I’m trying to get into a law school that is widely known so that I have the options and the doors open to go wherever I want,” Kouhestani said. “Now that UT [Law School] is deviating away from the ABA, that just puts everything into question.”
The University of Texas School of Law has already been affected by the closure of UT Austin’s diversity and inclusion offices, and The University of Houston Law School was impacted by the termination of the university’s LGBTQ+ Resource Center. If Texas were to reject the ABA completely to remain “ideologically neutral,” its public universities could be forced to abandon their ABA accreditation statuses.
“The ABA isn’t perfect, but it’s a national standard,” Kouhestani said. “What are we going to do? What is the new standard for Texas? If we’re not going by the ABA standard, then what is the new standard? There is no replacement. This is an issue and this is something that we need to keep an eye on.”