FTC Endorses Ohio Supreme Court Proposal To Reduce Reliance On American Bar Association Accreditation

While antitrust law has long recognized that professional boards and trade associations may undermine competition in certain cases,¹ state and federal antitrust enforcers have started to focus on higher education and accrediting associations more aggressively. This activity, including the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) recent letter to the Ohio Supreme Court, reflects a broader strategy to investigate or reconsider accreditation, eligibility, and licensing regimes that erect barriers to entry or expansion in labor markets.

Background

The American Bar Association (ABA) has long served as the primary accrediting body for law schools in the United States, with many state bar admission rules requiring that attorneys hold degrees from ABA-accredited institutions. Proponents of this system argue that it ensures consistent quality standards in legal education and protects clients who rely on licensed attorneys. Critics, however, contend that the arrangement limits competition and contributes to higher costs in both legal education and legal services.

Ohio is now considering removing its requirement that attorneys must graduate from an ABA-accredited law school to qualify for admission to the Ohio bar. On July 10, 2026, the FTC endorsed the Ohio Supreme Court’s proposal, which would remove Ohio’s express reliance on law school accreditation by the ABA and instead adopt alternative methods to determine whether a law school’s graduates are eligible for admission to the Ohio bar.²

The FTC’s Position

In response to the court's invitation to comment, Directors of the FTC's Office of Policy Planning and Bureau of Competition jointly submitted a letter supporting the policy change. The FTC claimed there are “serious competitive risks” raised by Ohio’s decision to broadly delegate to the ABA the state’s authority to set eligibility requirements for the Ohio bar.³

Specifically, the FTC claimed that the ABA is “dominated by practicing attorneys, who have strong incentives to limit the supply of lawyers competing to provide legal services,” and that the ABA’s internal accreditation group is “dominated by law school faculty and administrators with strong incentives to thwart lower cost alternatives for legal education.”⁴ The FTC further argued that the ABA’s accreditation standards unjustifiably increase the costs of legal education for students, resulting in fewer qualified attorneys being admitted to the Ohio bar and thus limiting the legal services available to the public.

The FTC urged Ohio, as well as other states, to initiate or expand law school accreditation programs and to consider extending approval to non-ABA accredited law schools that have been accredited by other states.

A National Trend

Ohio is not alone. The Florida and Texas Supreme Courts have already amended their rules to reduce the ABA's role as the exclusive authority over educational requirements for bar admission, and the Tennessee Supreme Court is also considering similar changes.⁵ The FTC has expressed support for these developments as well.⁶ The Department of Education also has supported expanding the number of recognized accrediting bodies in higher education more broadly.⁷

In addition, similar claims have been leveled against educational and accreditation practices in the healthcare industry. In February 2025, a putative class of hospital pharmacy residents alleged that the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists leveraged its power to set accreditation and residency-matching rules that constituted a per se illegal wage-fixing and output-restricting agreement in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.⁸ Similarly, in March 2026, the House Judiciary Committee issued a report claiming that the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), which matches medical residency candidates with hospitals, was causing anticompetitive effects by (1) constraining competition, resulting in stunted wage growth and inflated expenses for medical residents; (2) exacerbating physician shortages, leading to burnt out physicians and long wait times for patients; and (3) maintaining monopoly power for the NRMP in the market for medical residencies.⁹

Taken together, these developments suggest that antitrust enforcers are beginning to view educational and accreditation requirements as potentially anticompetitive practices that are erecting entry barriers or creating bottlenecks for certain labor markets.

Looking Ahead

The Ohio Supreme Court's proposal remains under consideration. The FTC's letter is one of likely many perspectives submitted during the comment process. How Ohio and other states ultimately resolve these questions could have meaningful implications for legal education, bar admissions, and the broader availability of legal services across the country.

More broadly, the convergence of antitrust scrutiny across professional accreditation bodies and residency matching programs reflects a growing regulatory interest in ensuring that institutions in educational and professional sectors are not operating in ways that restrict competition or suppress compensation.

Footnotes

1. See e.g., Compl., United States v. Am. Bar Ass’n, No. 95-cv-01211 (D.D.C. June 27, 1995), https://www.justice.gov/atr/case-document/file/485696/dl (Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ) filed a civil lawsuit against the ABA in connection with its alleged accreditation monopoly); United States v. Am. Bar Ass’n, 934 F. Supp. 435, 436–37 (D.D.C. 1996) (consent decree settling DOJ lawsuit against ABA).

2. Letter from FTC Off. of Pol’y Plan. and Bureau of Competition, to Sup. Ct. of Ohio (July 10, 2026), https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/AdvocacyFilingCommenttoOhioSupremeCourt-7-13-2026.pdf.

3. Id.

4. Id. at 2-3.

5. In Re: Amendments to Rules Regulating the Fla. Bar and Rules of the Supreme Court Relating to Admissions to the Bar 2, Dkt. No. SC2025-2064, 2026 LX 27933 (Fla. Sup. Ct. Jan. 15, 2026); Final Approval of Amendments to Rule 1 of the Rules Governing Admission to the Bar of Tx., ¶ 6(d), Misc. Dkt. No. 26-9002, 2026 LX 95888 (Tex. Sup. Ct. Jan. 6, 2026).

6. FTC Endorses Florida Supreme Court Action Eliminating the ABA’s Bar Admission Monopoly | Federal Trade Commission; FTC Endorses Texas Supreme Court’s Proposed Rule Change Eliminating ABA’s Monopoly Control Over Bar Admission | Federal Trade Commission; FTC Urges Tennessee Supreme Court to Oppose the ABA’s Law School Accreditation Monopoly | Federal Trade Commission.

7. Exec. Order No. 14279, Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education, 90 Fed. Reg. 17529 (Apr. 23, 2025), https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/reforming-accreditation-to-strengthen-higher-education/.

8. Albert v. American Society of Health System Pharmacists, No. 8:25-cv-00673 (D. Md. Feb. 28, 2025).

9. House Judiciary Comm., Medical Mis-Match: How a Residency Hiring Monopoly Harms Patients, Doctors, and the American Public (Mar. 27, 2026), medical-residency-report-final.pdf.

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