Accreditation hub · working tools
The official ABA documents, one click away — plus three working formats for a self-study or site-evaluation prep: an evidence matrix, a narrative review rubric, and a workplan. Built around the question every site evaluator asks: prove it. These tools organize a school's own evidence — they never declare compliance.
Official documents
The current criteria a law school must meet to obtain and retain approval — reflects all changes approved by the Council and concurred in by the House of Delegates through August 2026. (ABA PDF)
Open the PDF →The Section's Standards page: the current edition, the latest-standards updates, guidance memos, and additional accreditation resources.
Open the hub →The Council's page for the revised Standards 204, 301, 302, 314, 315, and 403 — implementation required by the start of the 2027–28 academic year.
Open the updates →The Section's home: accreditation process pages, the Council, committees, events, and the Annual Questionnaire cycle.
Open the Section site →Links verified October 2026; ABA pages restructure over time — if a link breaks, start at americanbar.org/groups/legal_education.
Tool 1
One row per standard element. Fill it from the school's actual documents — never from aspiration.
| Standard / element | What we claim | Evidence we can show | Owner | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| e.g. 302 — learning outcomes | Program and course outcomes are published and adopted by the faculty | Catalog pages; faculty governance minutes adopting outcomes | Assoc. Dean, Academic Affairs | Strong Evidence / Potential Evidence Gap / … |
| e.g. 314 — assessment of student learning | Formative assessment with feedback in all first-third JD courses | Course assessment records; academic-support intake records | Director of Assessment | |
| e.g. 306 — distance education | Credit hours within limits by delivery mode | Registrar accounting; RSI documentation | Registrar |
Verdict vocabulary only: Strong Evidence / Evidence Present but Could Be Strengthened / Potential Evidence Gap / Conflicting Evidence / Needs Verification / No Supporting Evidence Located. Never “compliant.”
Tool 2
Score every draft narrative section on these five dimensions before it goes to the full self-study. Paste a draft into Eli and it will run this review with your own words quoted back.
| Dimension | What “strong” looks like |
|---|---|
| Completeness | Answers the standard element actually asked — not a neighboring one. |
| Evidence | Every claim is backed by something concrete: a document, a dataset, a record. |
| Specificity | Names, dates, processes, numbers — not assertions (“the program provides excellent support” fails this test). |
| Ownership | A named person or office is responsible for the process described. |
| Follow-up | What happens when a problem is found: the improvement chain from data to intervention to reassessment. |
The weak-line test. Read each sentence and ask: could a reviewer ask “show me” and get a document? If not, the sentence is a claim awaiting evidence — rewrite it with the evidence attached, or flag it as a gap to close before the visit.
Tool 3
Every gap becomes an action with an owner, evidence, and a date. Highest-risk gaps first.
| Priority | Gap | Action | Owner | Evidence to produce | Due |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Assessment results not feeding program changes | Stand up annual outcomes-review meeting with minutes | Assoc. Dean | Meeting minutes showing data → decision → intervention | |
| 2 | Distance-ed credit accounting incomplete | Registrar audit of delivery-mode credits | Registrar | Audit report + RSI records |
Our read: reviewers trust implemented processes, not described ones. A policy proves a process is established; minutes, logs, and data prove it runs. When a workplan action is done, the evidence column is what the site team will actually read.
FAQs
Answered plainly, without the jargon. The fastest way to get oriented if you're new to this work. For anything deeper, ask Eli.
The Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar — recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as the accreditor of J.D. programs since 1952. It promulgates the Standards and makes approval decisions. The Council's accreditation work is separate and independent from the general ABA; the ABA House of Delegates only concurs or refers back on Standards revisions.
In most jurisdictions, a J.D. from a Council-approved law school is required to sit for the bar — and with very few exceptions, all bar-admitting jurisdictions recognize it as sufficient to meet minimum education requirements. National accreditation is what makes lawyer mobility possible.
The 2026–2027 Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools — it reflects all changes approved by the Council and concurred in by the House of Delegates through August 2026. Track the updates tracker for revisions; the Council is conducting a Core Principles Review of the Standards on a rolling basis.
Fully approved schools undergo a full site evaluation in the third year after full approval, and then every seven years. Between visits, compliance is monitored through the Annual Questionnaire and interim reporting — and substantive changes need prior Council acquiescence (Standard 105).
The school's institutional self-examination, standard by standard, with evidence — the written record of strengths, weaknesses, and improvement plans before a site evaluation (Standard 204). It is written by the school — typically led by an accreditation director with faculty authors per chapter — and the Council reads it as the school's honest account of itself.
At least 75% of a school's graduates who sat for a bar examination must pass within two years of graduation — the “ultimate” bar-passage measure, not first-time passage. State which one every time, report the cohort and denominator, and bring variance analysis: numbers with no “why” and no improvement actions fail the Standard 315 close-the-loop expectation.
Standards 204, 301, 302, 314, 315, and 403 were revised (House-concurred February 2025; implementation by the start of the 2027–28 academic year). Key shifts: 302 now requires program and course learning outcomes, with required-course outcomes aligned to practice and consistent across sections; 314 requires formative assessment with feedback in all first-third JD courses plus available academic support; 315 requires programmatic outcomes review every five years; 403 adds the 80% rule and every-three-years teaching-effectiveness activities.
The required-disclosures standard: every school must publish consumer information on its website in the Council's prescribed form — admissions data, bar passage, employment outcomes, costs. It is the transparency standard, and it is also what prospective students actually read.
Interpretations are the Council's published, binding readings of specific standards (e.g., Interpretation 501-3). Guidance Memos are issued periodically to assist schools in coming into or remaining in compliance — practical help, not separate requirements.
No — never. Eli scores evidence (Strong Evidence through No Supporting Evidence Located) and describes what a reviewer would likely ask next. Only the ABA Council makes approval determinations.
Our read: the 302/314 disconnect — learning outcomes published but not actually assessed anywhere in the curriculum — and the 315 close-the-loop failure: outcome data collected and never used to change anything. A third: credit-hour documentation (Standard 310) that can't account for out-of-class work in nontraditional formats.
Run the readiness checklist once with your self-study committee and once with a skeptic. The items where the two runs disagree are your real gaps. Then turn the gap list into a workplan with owners and evidence — highest-risk gaps first.
Answers synthesized from the 2026-2027 Standards and Rules of Procedure and published ABA Section materials. Confirm against the current Standards before relying on them in official documents.