“Scholarly Restraints? ABA Accreditation and Legal Education”, 1998-07 (; similar):
This Article provides an economic and legal analysis of the American Bar Association’s system for accrediting law schools.
For decades, the ABA has administered the system as, in economic effect, a cartel of law school faculty members. The ABA has exerted monopoly power not only over the market for legal training, but also over 3 related markets: the market for the hiring of law faculty, the market for legal services, and each university’s internal market for funding.
Despite the selfless service of many in the system, the system has created large harms, but few benefits. Existing law faculty have gained at the expense of their students, of their universities, and of other potential faculty members. By suppressing new schools that would offer cheaper, more-efficient legal education, the system has excluded many from the legal profession, particularly the poor and minorities. The system has both raised the cost of legal services and denied legal services to whole segments of our society.
The system is illegal under the antitrust laws.
The Article enlarges the literature in 5 specific ways. It shows that many law schools are organized, in effect, as partnerships of professors. It explores the system’s impacts on 4 related markets, rather than just one. It appraises the ABA system’s main harms and possible benefits. It shows extensively the antitrust violation. And it suggests important policy choices, including abolishing the accreditation controls and markedly changing the role of the bar examination.
See Also:
“When Matching Markets Unravel? Theory and Evidence from Federal Judicial Clerkships”
“The Dark Side of Private Ordering: An Institutional and Empirical Analysis of Organized Crime”
“Roadblock to Innovation: The Role of Patent Litigation in Corporate R&D”
“Why do academics oppose the market? A test of Nozick’s hypothesis”