American Bar Association
The American Bar Association is a voluntary national bar association of lawyers and law students in the United States, and not specific to any single jurisdiction. Founded in 1878, the ABA's stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation of model ethical codes related to the legal profession. As of fiscal year 2017, the ABA had 194,000 dues-paying members, constituting approximately 24.4% of American attorneys. In 1979, half of all lawyers in the U.S. were members of the ABA. In 2016, about one third of the 1.3 million practicing lawyers in the U.S. were included in the ABA membership of 400,000, with figures largely unchanged in 2024; Included are "about 150,000 paying members" for 2024–2025, according to Reuters.
The organization's national headquarters are in Chicago, Illinois, with a branch office in Washington, D.C.. The association is affiliated with the law, legal, and professional research sponsoring organization the American Bar Foundation.
History
The ABA was founded on August 21, 1878, in Saratoga Springs, New York, by 75 lawyers from 20 states and the District of Columbia. According to the ABA website:The purpose of the original organization, as set forth in its first constitution, was "the advancement of the science of jurisprudence, the promotion of the administration of justice and a uniformity of legislation throughout the country...."
In 1918, the first women were admitted to the ABA – Judge Mary Belle Grossman of Cleveland and Mary Florence Lathrop of Denver.
Prior to 1943, the ABA did not knowingly admit any African-American members and its discrimination led to the formation in 1937 of the National Lawyers Guild. The ABA denied admittance to Francis E. Rivers in 1943 and several prominent members threatened to quit as a result and the organization was finally integrated.
The ABA appointed Jill Wine-Banks as its first woman executive director, who served from 1987 to 1990. Roberta Cooper Ramo was the first female president of the ABA from 1995 to 1996.
In 2016 ABA introduced a new ethics rule prohibiting attorneys from using sexist, racist and condescending terms. The rule also prohibits attorneys from engaging in discrimination based on age in the conduct of bar association activities.
On May 1, 2019, the ABA launched a new membership model aimed at reversing declining membership and revenue. As mentioned in "Criticisms", below, and despite ABA's own rule against age-discriminatory conduct, the "experience-based" component of the ABA dues structure is a proxy for age discrimination, imposing significantly higher dues on lawyers as their years in practice increase.
2025 federal lawsuit and member targeting by the Trump administration
In 2025, the ABA, as well as some members of the organization, became targets of the Trump administration. On February 11, with tens of millions of dollars in its USAID and U.S. State Department funding frozen by Executive Order 14169, issued on Trump's first day following re-election, the ABA and other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit which asserts that the administration's actions were arbitrary and a capricious violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. The case, Global Health Council v. Trump, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and assigned to Judge Amir Ali. Two days later he issued a temporary restraining order, allowing some foreign assistance programs to resume.On February 14, Federal Trade Commission chair Andrew N. Ferguson ordered his roster of political appointees not to renew memberships in the ABA, hold any ABA position, or attend any ABA events.
Following a February 25, 2025, memo revoking security clearances for the law firm that had assisted Special Counsel Jack Smith by the president, on February 28, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to the ABA saying that the diversity requirements of Standard 206 of the Standards of Rules and Procedure for Approval of Law Schools conflicts with Chief Justice John Roberts' 2023 decision that affirmative action in college admissions is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, and violates civil law, while threatening to rescind ABA accreditation authority of U.S. law schools.
The ABA released a statement on March 3, 2025, encouraging members to challenge Trump's actions that it perceives to undermine the courts and the legal profession, with more than 50 smaller bar associations joining the call for solidarity. While the ABA strongly condemned the Trump administration's actions; on March 25, Reuters reported that "President Donald Trump expanded his attacks on major U.S. law firms" in issuing his fourth executive order targeting a law firm in two months.
On June 16, 2025, Susman Godfrey, an EO-targeted firm that subsequently prevailed in court, filed a lawsuit on behalf of the ABA alleging that executive orders issued against law firms, and other actions, reflect a "law firm intimidation policy" of the Trump administration, which aims "to intimidate and coerce law firms and lawyers to refrain from challenging the President or his Administration in court, or from even speaking publicly in support of policies or causes that the President does not like." The ABA issued a statement, in which President Bay said, "There has never been a more urgent time for the ABA to defend its members, our profession and the rule of law itself". On August 11, 2025, the ABA adopted a resolution in opposition to White House efforts designed to punish "lawyers, law firms, or other organizations for representing or having represented any particular client or cause disfavored by the government."
Leadership and governance
The ABA adopts "policy" on certain legislative and national issues, as voted on by its elected, 589-member House of Delegates. Its board of governors, with 44 members, has the authority to act for the ABA, consistent with previous action of the House of Delegates, when the House is not in session.The ABA president, elected to a one-year term, is chief executive officer of the association, while the appointed, longer-serving executive director works as chief operating officer. The conclusion of the ABA annual meeting, in August, is when a new president takes office, as well as when the main sessions of the House of Delegates take place. The annual meeting also gives the general membership the opportunity to participate in educational programs and hear speakers address many issues.
In 2010, Jack L. Rives, formerly TJAG, was appointed executive director and chief operating officer. Alpha M. Brady was named ABA Executive Director/COO after Rives' retirement in March 2023. She joined the ABA staff in 1988 and rose through the ranks at the association before being named deputy executive director in 2022.
Accreditation of U.S. law schools since 1923
The United States Department of Education recognises the Council of the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar as a professional accrediting agency for law schools in the U.S. American law schools that are accredited by the council are termed "approved" by the ABA, which indicates the law school was found to be in compliance with ABA accreditation standards.ABA accreditation is important not only because it affects the recognition of the law schools involved, but it also affects a graduate's ability to practice law in a particular state. Specifically, in most U.S. jurisdictions, graduation from an ABA-accredited law school is prerequisite towards being allowed to sit for that state's bar exam, and even for existing lawyers to be admitted to the bar of another state upon motion. Even states which recognize unaccredited schools within their borders will generally not recognize such schools from other jurisdictions for purposes of bar admission.
For law students attending ABA-accredited schools, memberships are available for free. Students attending non-ABA accredited law schools are permitted to join the ABA as associate members.
In November 2022, the ABA Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar Council voted to eliminate its accreditation requirement that law schools in the United States require prospective students submit results on the LSAT or an alternative valid and reliable standardized admissions test. The ABA’s House of Delegates rejected that proposal in 2023 over concerns it would make admissions offices more dependent on subjective measures such as the prestige of an applicant’s college, potentially putting minority applicants at a disadvantage.
In 2024, the council created a new variance process by which individual law schools may apply for permission to bypass the existing admission test requirement. This new process does not require approval from the House of Delegates as it is not part of accreditation standards.
Accreditation process criticisms
The ABA accreditation process has been widely criticized for failing to ensure that law schools are disclosing accurate post-graduate statistics which may mislead students regarding the post-graduate job market, especially in light of ever-growing student loan debt. There are heated debates over requirements placed on law schools by the ABA. Many states and practitioners believe ABA requirements to be unnecessary, costly, outdated and lacking innovation. Some legal professionals and academics feel these requirements promote the rising cost of tuition. The collision of attorney layoffs in 2009, the glut of fresh non-top-tier law graduates without work, and the continued expansion of law schools raised questions on whether the ABA has been too lenient in its accreditation process.A non-profit organization, Law School Transparency, called upon the ABA to provide meaningful statistics regarding the employment prospects and salary information of graduates of ABA accredited institutions. In 2011 and 2012, the ABA updated its accreditation process to include penalties and possible loss of accreditation for schools that misrepresented their graduates' employment data, as well as, greatly expanded the information required from accredited laws schools regarding student bar-passage rates and post-graduate employment. Despite the ongoing controversy surrounding law school accreditation standards and inability of law school graduates to effectively service their educational debt, the ABA continued to approve new law schools.
Since 2014, the ABA has required law schools to disclose more information about their applicants and graduates. Required information now includes such information as admissions data, tuition and fees, living costs, conditional scholarships, enrollment data, numbers of full-time and part-time faculty, class sizes for first-year and upper-class courses, employment outcomes and bar passage data. The 205 ABA-approved law schools reported that, 10 months after graduation, 28,029 graduates of the class of 2015, or 70 percent, were employed in long-term, full-time positions where bar passage is required or a J.D. is preferred.
In May 2019, the ABA Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar changed the requirement for graduate bar passage rates. Previously, to remain accredited, schools had to have a 75% bar passage rate for students within 5 years of graduation, with various ways to meet this standard and no law schools having ever been found in violation of the rule. The new rule requires the 75% bar passage rate be achieved within 2 years with no exceptions. The change was passed by the Section despite failing a vote in the ABA House of Delegates twice. Proponents of the change say the increased standard will ensure students are better prepared for passing the bar and for legal practice in general with less students acquiring large student debt without reasonable job opportunities. Opponents claim this will adversely affect diversity in law schools, which will be forced to increase their admissions standards and required LSAT scores, which in turn will disproportionately affect minority applicants. Under the new plan, 14 schools will be at risk of losing their accreditation if their bar-passage rates do not improve within two years. At the time of the rule change, three law schools were currently in the process of closing, and another school was under probation. In June 2019, the ABA voted to revoke the accreditation of Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, California.