ABA Considers Accrediting Overseas Law SchoolsPosted by Claire Zillman

An American Bar Association committee has recommended that the ABA consider accrediting law schools outside the United States, according to a story in Am Law Daily sibling publication The National Law Journal.

The committee--composed of law professors, attorneys, judges, and law school deans--distributed its report to state supreme court justices, ABA leaders, and top law school administrators last week, the NLJ reports.

In the report, the panel said that--with state supreme courts and bar associations are under mounting pressure to make decisions about whether to admit foreign lawyers--expanding the ABA's accreditation would "provide additional guidance for state supreme courts when lawyers trained outside the U.S. seek to be allowed to sit for a U.S. bar examination," the NLJ reports.

Broadening the ABA's accreditation overseas would be in line with the globalization of the legal profession, the committee said. The panel cited figures from the National Conference of Bar Examiners that show between 4,000 and 5,000 foreign-trained lawyers sit for the bar each year in the U.S. If the ABA continues to limit its accreditation to the U.S., the committee wrote, states will be inconsistent in how they admit foreign-trained lawyers, according to the NLJ.

One possible downside to accrediting international school, according to the committee: doing so could expand practice opportunities for lawyers trained overseas, while providing no reciprocal benefit for U.S. law school graduates. There could also be political fallout if the ABA failed to accredit a government-sponsored law school, reports the NLJ. The committee said that foreign law schools, not the ABA, should pay for the cost of overseas accreditation.

The committee was appointed in June; the ABA's Council on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar will consider its recommendations in December

http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2010/08/overseaslawschools.html

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15810582)

That means they're arbiter of who gets to take out ultimately bad debt (student loans for TTTs) from the feds.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15810610)

Mostly insufferable ivory tower types, but they'd do a much better job than the ABA has.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15811934)

the AMA does a much better job representing its profession.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15810600)

the ABA literally does everything in its power to funnel MOAR LAWYERS into what is already a comically oversaturated market

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15810879)

OMG RLY?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15810623)

EXCEPT - Tulane, LSU and Loyola grads.

DIDN'T STUDY CIVIL LAW AND CAN'T SPEAK A SECOND LANGUAGE PWN3D.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15810737)

But what frightens me is that we are pussies. we should be organizing and starting firms and being alpha and causing trouble. Instead its - "just got lathamed. can i get into library school?"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15810745)

*strives for a big client who can provide good revenue stream

*fails utterly

*joins the crowded contingency-fee marketplace

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15810753)

*takes out emergency bar study loan to fund a discovery request in pro se litigation

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15810803)

"got law degree. No big firm job. Can i be a gym teacher?"

It's sad man.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15810830)

insurance companies and/or whatever deep pocket you sue will attempt to bankrupt you unless you have an exceedingly cut-and-dried case - that's their litigation strategy.

a simple car crash PI case will probably incur 5k in expenses. do you have that kind of cash to float?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15810842)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15810873)

you don't actually believe that the subject of the subpoena has to pay for the photocopies of the materials, do you?

lulz.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15810908)

who do i believe? alpha friends and family member who have giant balls and who are successful and play the game like a sport or shitlaw steve who couldn't earn enough money of his own volition to dry-clean his yarmulke?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15811526)

ABA says: "Ok, let's do this"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15810752)

30K demand. 15K of that 30K is temping.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15810847)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15810859)

http://www.abanet.org/media/zackbio.html

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15810833)

it's the perfect scheme.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15811034)

When student debt levels get so high that they can't take shitwork and still service their debt, import lawyers from China.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15811080)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15811115)

Law will go the way of engineering and IT professions. And much like technical workers, lawyers on the whole will be too beta to do anything about their profession getting gutted.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15811039)

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad232/akxr79/MISC/sitch.gif

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15811089)

I lol even harder at people accusing me of being Indian or saying MM = PP after our STYLIN on tinychat.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15811106)

Optometrist >>>>>>>>>>> lawyer ??

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15811242)

May they all die in a fire.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15812026)

If someone were really, truly serious about trying to compete with the ABA, it wouldn't be very hard to do, if someone were committed. A number of attorneys, generally more conservative, and a number of organizations, like the Federalist Society, really despise a lot of the work of the ABA. They've moved away from a more neutral arbiter acting on behalf of all lawyers to a captured group intent on promoting certain substantive aims of the law (for instance, the unanimous resolution advocating for same-sex marriage last week), or in its judicial rankings (well documented for whatever you can make of it). Which may all be well and good, but it shows that the ABA isn't terribly committed to serving the 1 million JDs out there.

So you'd need to get some of that Federalist Society-backed money and outrage to create a more selective, truly neutral organization that would have more rigorous and exacting credentials, and one that would largely stay out of substantive legal disputes. (Granted, one could debate all day about even procedure, but that's another matter.) It wouldn't take much to place a second layer over the law schools, requesting information, transparency, giving approval (but to a slightly smaller group of the 201 and counting schools). It could make substantive critiques about the objectives in the multi-state bar examination, or weigh in on the seriousnessness of grading. And then, you get a few states, perhaps the most conservative ones, to lead a political charge of swapping out the ABA with this new organization as the arbiter of accreditation, bar exams, and so on.

I don't mean it's not a challenge to do; I just mean, it's not difficult to capture all this outrage, coming from so many different directions (apathy from attorneys who see the ABA as a waste, cronyism of the "network" in the ABA, law students deceived by lack of transparency, a glut of law schools, a lack of legal jobs, sagging wages, a perceived liberal bias), and ball it up into, if someone had the vision, a new organization.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1398111&forum_id=2#15812527)