Buckeye Institute Pushes ABA to Loosen Law School Accreditation Rules — Could It Affect Ohio's Legal Pipeline?

When you need a lawyer in Pickaway County, you're competing with 2,000 other people for the same attorney. In 57 Ohio counties, the ratio is worse than one lawyer per 1,500 residents—so when you need help with a will, a divorce, or a criminal defense, you might not find anyone at all. Now a Columbus think tank wants to shake up the rules that govern who gets to become a lawyer, and the outcome could either fix Ohio's legal desert or turn it into a diploma mill wasteland.

The Buckeye Institute, an Ohio-based free-market think tank, has filed comment letters with the American Bar Association urging comprehensive reforms to law school accreditation standards. The push comes as 82 of Ohio's 88 counties have fewer than one private practice attorney per 700 residents—the threshold the Ohio Bar considers adequate. Seventy-three percent of Ohio's roughly 18,600 private practicing attorneys are concentrated in just seven counties, leaving rural areas severely underserved.

Ohio is simultaneously establishing a state-administered law school accreditation process as an alternative to the ABA, mirroring moves by Texas and Florida—a shift that could either expand opportunity or create new problems.

What the Buckeye Institute Says Is Broken

The Buckeye Institute argues that ABA accreditation standards have become excessively burdensome and should be streamlined to focus on student outcomes and institutional autonomy rather than prescriptive process mandates. The Institute urges repeal of Standard 303(c), which mandates law schools provide education on bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism at two specific times during legal education, arguing it exceeds accreditation's proper role. "Standard 303(c) has not effectively achieved its purpose since being added in 2022," the Institute wrote. "The standard exceeds the proper role of accreditation."

The Institute also proposes amending all tenure-related standards to permit but not require tenure, allowing schools to decide based on their mission, and recommends repealing or amending Standards 205, 206, and 207 to return faculty decision-making authority to school administrators and governing boards rather than the ABA Council.

The Federal Trade Commission has also weighed in, arguing that the ABA's monopoly on law school accreditation drives up education costs and limits the supply of affordable legal services. "The ABA's standards serve the anticompetitive interests of lawyers while undermining consumers seeking affordable legal services," the FTC stated.

The Buckeye Institute supports Ohio's move to create outcome-based, state-administered accreditation, arguing sole ABA accreditation hinders innovation and raises costs.

The Concrete Ohio Problem

The Ohio Bar Association's Rural Practice Gap Task Force found that the number of private practice attorneys in rural areas is not keeping pace, leading to a looming crisis. Only 14 percent of rural individuals receive assistance for civil legal problems, less than half the national average. The problem may worsen before it improves, as many rural attorneys are nearing retirement with few new lawyers replacing them. Fairfield County has one attorney for about 1,700 residents.

Debt is a major reason graduates don't fill those gaps. The average annual tuition and fees for an ABA-accredited law school in the 2025-26 academic year were $50,720, with typical three-year total costs running between $88,830 for in-state public schools and $173,781 for private schools. Since 2012, ABA-accredited schools have raised tuition by an average of $1,339 per year. Case Western Reserve University law graduates in 2022 had the highest average loan disbursement among Ohio law schools at $102,238, while Ohio State University Moritz College of Law graduates averaged $83,831, and Ohio Northern University graduates averaged $78,236.

Over 70 percent of lawyers with $100,000-$200,000 in debt, and over 80 percent of those with over $200,000, report high or overwhelming stress. Two-thirds of first-generation law students cite financial concerns and debt as a major source of stress, compared to less than half of non-first-gen students. Studies show that when law students receive tuition remission or free tuition, they are more likely to choose government or public-interest careers—but rural legal practice typically offers lower compensation than urban corporate law, making it financially unfeasible for graduates carrying significant debt.

Ohio has nine ABA-accredited law schools spread across the state, from Akron to Toledo to Dayton, but graduates are being funneled away from the communities that need them most.

The Risk of Predatory Schools

Legal experts warn that removing ABA exclusivity could create opportunities for exploitative non-ABA law schools, similar to those already present in California. For-profit law schools are characterized as predatory due to abysmal graduation rates, disproportionately high student debt, and low bar passage rates that leave students with nondischargeable debt and poor job prospects.

Eighty-nine percent of students at for-profit institutions take out student loans, rising to 95 percent for Black students. Graduates leave with double the debt of their public or nonprofit counterparts, with 96 percent carrying debt. Arizona Summit Law School, a for-profit institution, ranked 5th out of 191 law schools for leading to the most student debt, with an average of $162,627 in 2013 and 97 percent of students graduating with debt.

Students at for-profit colleges are twice as likely to default on their loans compared to those at public schools. Among students who drop out of for-profit institutions, 62 percent default on average, rising to 75 percent for Black students. For-profit colleges alone comprise close to half of all loan defaults nationally, with more than one in five students defaulting within three years of repayment.

ABA accreditation ensures standardized curriculum, faculty qualifications, and student support services, which directly affects bar passage rates and employability. Most states require graduation from an ABA-accredited law school to sit for the bar exam. Critics note that without a credible, nationally accepted alternative, removing ABA accreditation could create fragmentation, limit bar reciprocity, and reduce graduate mobility across states.

Who Benefits From Reform?

Texas became the first state to end its reliance on the ABA for law school accreditation in 2026, transferring final approval authority to the Texas Supreme Court with standards focused on ideologically neutral metrics, followed nine days later by Florida. "Retaining ABA accreditation was not in Floridians' best interest, as ABA standards require or result in discrimination," the Florida Supreme Court stated.

However, neither state has yet established specific processes or criteria for new non-ABA schools to apply for approval. Both intend to preserve the portability of law degrees to ensure graduates can still practice in other states.

The stakes for Ohio are clear. If cheaper, lower-quality schools emerge, they may enroll students from exactly the communities that need lawyers—first-generation and working-class Ohioans—only to leave them with debt and no viable path to practice. If state-administered accreditation allows for innovation and lower costs while maintaining quality standards, it could genuinely expand the pipeline of lawyers willing to serve rural Ohio.

What Happens Next

The Supreme Court of Ohio established a Law School Accreditation Advisory Committee, chaired by Administrative Director Robert W. Horner, III, to review standards and align legal education with the evolving legal landscape. The committee includes deans from Ohio State University and the University of Akron. "The committee has delivered remarkably comprehensive work in a short period of time," Horner said. "Their detailed evaluation and innovative recommendations have provided the Court with a clear framework to modernize our oversight of legal education."

The public comment period for proposed amendments to Ohio's law school accreditation rule ended July 10, 2026, meaning the state's next steps could come soon. Ohio's law schools are expected to submit a variance request to the ABA to relieve them of outdated processes and costs while supporting innovation. The ABA Council on Legal Education itself proposed on May 20, 2026, to repeal Standard 303(c), the diversity-training mandate the Buckeye Institute also targeted, signaling some openness to reform within the accrediting body.

The Rural Practice Gap Task Force recommends creating high school rural practice pipeline programs, adding a staff position at the Ohio Bar to coordinate rural practice support, developing mentorship programs for new rural practitioners, and expanding the Rural Practice Incentive Program that offers loan repayment for qualifying attorneys in underserved areas.

As Ohio moves forward, residents should ask: Will new state standards include strong safeguards against predatory schools? Will they maintain bar passage rates and graduate employability? Will they actually lower costs for students, or just lower standards? And most importantly, will changes create pathways for local kids to become lawyers who stay and serve their hometowns, or just open the door for diploma mills?

The answers will determine whether Ohio's legal-services crisis begins to heal—or whether the state trades one set of problems for another.