Bust the American Bar Association Monoploy,

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Bust the American Bar Association Monopoly, Says Lawsuit CNSNews.com August 30, 2001 CNSNews.com -- The American Bar Association is violating anti-trust laws, alleges a lawsuit filed by a Florida public interest law firm, and it should be broken up. "The ABA has been [handing down] discriminatory accreditation decisions to law schools for a long time," said Matthew Staver, president and general counsel of the Liberty Counsel.

"I think [the lawsuit] will be a catalyst to change the ABA's system and break the stranglehold of the ABA," said Staver.

Staver decided to bring legal action when his wife's law school, Barry University School of Law in Orlando, Fla., was denied accreditation by the ABA, despite a glowing recommendation from the ABA's own review committee.

The Liberty Counsel is representing students and graduates of the private Catholic school but not the school itself.

Without ABA's stamp of approval, law school graduates cannot practice law in Florida and many other states.

The lawsuit claims the ABA violated its own rules by not giving deference to its own accreditation committee and "engaged in anti-competitive activity in an attempt to shut down competition among law schools, to increase the cost of law school tuition and thus to increase the salaries of faculty at existing law schools."

The ABA has historically been viewed as the gatekeeper for many functions involving the legal community. That status, however, was diminished earlier this year when the newly installed Bush administration decided to end the 50-year-old practice of vetting potential judicial nominees through the ABA before submitting candidates to the Senate for approval.

The administration's decision was widely perceived as a reaction to the group's alleged liberal bias in reviewing conservative judicial nominees.

In the case of Barry University, the school was told, in part, that it was denied accreditation because it lacked a "reliable" plan for its operations and because a state-funded law school would be opening in Orlando.

"They didn't give specifics," said school spokesman Eric DuBois. "They just said our plan wasn't reliable."

"They also said that they questioned the rigor of our academic program," said DuBois. "They questioned our admissions numbers, that we had admitted some students that had, in their opinion, predictors that ... we should not have admitted into the school."

For example, said DuBois, some students were admitted who had standardized test scores on the LSAT of below

140. "We had several students that had below 140, but they were minorities," DuBois explained. "Some of them had graduate degrees from other major institutions in the country."

"Minorities have not historically scored as high on the LSAT," said DuBois. "The admissions committee reviewed all the files and took that into consideration."

Staver also believes the ABA's decision-making process leads to discrimination against minorities. 30 percent of Barry University's law students are minorities.

"They've been the biggest discriminator against African-Americans and minorities, bar none, in the legal profession through the accreditation process," said Staver.

"They just turned down one [minority school] about a year ago: John Marshall had 41 percent minority population," said Staver. "And they're now giving trouble to Thurgood Marshall, which is an historically black law school out in Texas.

"It's the system, not necessarily the people," said Staver. "The system they've established has a racist impact and also is used politically. It's just been a good 'ole boy kind of network. That's why they're under a federal court order as we speak, by the U.S. Department of Justice, to change the process."

The ABA has responded to the court challenge by saying it "regrets that several present and former students of Barry University School of Law have chosen to pursue litigation against the ABA concerning Barry's application for provisional approval."

"The ABA has agreed to continue considering Barry's pending application on an expedited basis during the fall of this year," said Darryl DePriest, ABA general counsel. "The ABA believes that the lawsuit is premature and that the legal claims are without merit."

Barry University has appealed the ABA's denial of accreditation, with a decision expected in February

2002. Another ABA review committee is scheduled to visit the school in two weeks.

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