Opinion ID: 197918
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the accreditation process

Text: 8 For more than 70 years, the ABA has promulgated the standards for law school accreditation (the Standards). It is widely believed among legal educators and regulatory organizations that compliance with the Standards enhances the quality of legal education. MSL disputes this conventional wisdom but, since 1952, the United States Department of Education (the DOE) has recognized the ABA as a reliable authority anent the quality of legal education and has designated it as the relevant accrediting body. 20 U.S.C. § 1099b(a). 1 As a result of this recognition, ABA-accredited schools are eligible to participate in federal student loan programs. See 20 U.S.C. § 1141(a)(5). Accredited institutions also receive various state-based benefits, not the least of which is that all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico deem graduation from an ABA-accredited institution sufficient to satisfy the legal education requirement for admission to the bar. 9 The accreditation process works something like this. A law school may apply for ABA accreditation after three years of operation. Its application must include a self-study, delineating its perception of its present and projected compliance with the Standards and explaining any deviations from them. The Committee reviews each application and appoints a site-visit team to conduct interviews and inspect the applicant's physical plant. This team reports its findings to the Committee. If the Committee determines that the school is in compliance with the Standards, the accreditation process moves forward. If a school is found not to be in compliance with the Standards, the Committee nonetheless may recommend provisional accreditation if it receives satisfactory assurances that the applicant will achieve compliance within three years. See Standard 104(a). 10 In the absence of compliance (actual or anticipated), there is another potential route to accreditation: the applicant may request a variance from the Standards, and the body that oversees the accreditation process, the Council of the Section (the Council), may choose to grant it as a matter of discretion. Standard 802 governs the variance procedure. Because this Standard is central to MSL's accreditation effort, we reprint it in full: 11 A law school proposing to offer a program of legal education contrary to the terms of the Standards may apply to the Council for a variance. The variance may be granted if the Council finds that the proposal is consistent with the general purpose of the Standards. The Council may impose such conditions or qualifications as it deems appropriate.