Exclusive | Justice Department Threatens Probe of American Bar Association on Law School Rules
A facts-only brief, written by a local AI model from this article in The Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2026. It may contain mistakes, and it is not the article: the full story is at wsj.com.
The U.S. Department of Justice warned the American Bar Association that it may face an antitrust investigation if it does not modify rules restricting the teaching roles of part-time law professors. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward stated in an October 7 letter that limiting adjunct faculty harms education quality and drives up tuition costs. Woodward argued that the current accreditation standards unfairly prevent adjuncts from teaching first-year students, a restriction he noted also affects his own ability to instruct at Catholic University. The Justice Department gave the ABA 15 days to either change the standard or provide a legal justification for why the rule does not violate federal antitrust laws.
Background
- The ABA’s current accreditation standards require full-time faculty to teach substantially all of the first one-third of each student’s coursework.
- The ABA proposed eliminating this specific requirement last month, though the new standard would still mandate that full-time faculty teach more than half of all credit hours.
- The Education Department has taken steps to end its official acknowledgment of the ABA council’s authority to certify law schools, a status required for access to federal student-loan funds.
- A spokeswoman for the ABA’s accreditation council indicated the group plans to respond to the Justice Department’s letter.
Read the full article at wsj.com
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