The lack of access to justice in Pennsylvania plaguing low-income and minority residents continues to grow. Over the last 20 years, the Pennsylvania General Assembly led multiple legislative investigations, reports, and actions to combat the adverse effects of residents’ lack of access to the legal system. However, while legal aid programs exist to help those in poverty, most of their needs and those of the middle class are left unaddressed when it comes to legal support due to a lack of lawyers available to assist.
In the interest of advancing equal justice for all, our state must adopt a more merit-based and open approach to licensing attorneys to enable more legal support for residents. Current discriminatory rules of the Pennsylvania Board of Bar Examiners and the PA Supreme Court exacerbate the American Bar Association’s (ABA) long-standing harms against minorities, disabled persons, and low-income residents by unfairly and unconstitutionally limiting attorney licensing eligibility in the state – encouraging a legal system that puts self-interest over the needs of PA residents.
Pennsylvania’s Lack of Attorneys & Corresponding Access to Justice
The Office for Access to Justice within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has emphasized the need to support nationwide legal aid programs, public defender offices, and prosecutorial agencies, particularly in smaller communities and rural areas.[1] While the Pennsylvania Bar Association and State Legislature have initiated grants to fund access to justice programs, their own research indicates these programs are not effectively addressing the widening access to justice gap for residents.[2]
According to Legal Services Corporation (LSC) data, the northeast sector of the U.S., including Pennsylvania, experiences over 387,000 eligible legal problems annually, but at least 72% of those requests remain unmet.[3] Low-income families are often in need of support for serious problems relating to the security of their family, with over 50% of their legal issues relating to housing, domestic relations, or safety concerns.[4]
Without access to justice for these families concerning substantial or life-altering issues, their ability to achieve the American dream is inhibited because of the lack of legal support. In 2016, a bipartisan coalition of the PA legislature found that a longstanding and growing problem exists with residents’ inability to access legal services in our state. The lack of access prevents those affected from exercising their constitutional rights to counsel and legal support, which the legislature classified as a “basic human need” for the residents of PA.[5]
Unfortunately, over 50% of PA residents seeking services from legal aid do not receive help due to funding constraints.[6] The PA Supreme Court’s Interest on Lawyer’s Trust Accounts (IOLTA) board cited an LSC report that found even more people who needed help existed but did not seek it, estimating that only 20% of the actual legal need for support is met by current aid programs.[7]
Pennsylvania Legal System Limits on Access to the Bar and Resulting Discrimination
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court and Bar Examiner’s Rule 102(a) limits the licensing of lawyers to only those who attend law schools accredited by the ABA.[8] According to ABA accreditation standard 105(a)(12)(i), the organization will not fully accredit online programs without particularly cumbersome and ambiguous requirements that have only been permitted for a select number of law schools.[9] Although nearly all law schools had to transition from in-person to online classes during the prolonged COVID-19 restrictions, the ABA still discriminates against fully online law schools, not because of the merit or effectiveness of their programs, but because of the method of instruction used – whether in-person or online.
As described below, these multi-generational ABA restrictions limit access to alternative law school options for minorities, students with disabilities, and low-income families, including state-accredited law schools that offer quality legal education free from the ABA’s discriminatory practices. Minority and disabled students can significantly benefit from online learning in law school, as they do in other higher education programs. These disadvantaged groups may not be able to relocate to attend school and often have additional responsibilities within their family, work, or community that require schedule flexibility, which would otherwise prevent them from participating in higher education opportunities.[10]
Pennsylvania residents have faced a critical void in the need for legal services for decades, which remains inadequately addressed due to the lack of sufficient attorneys in the state. The attorney licensing process mirrors the discrimination against minorities and low-income students promulgated by the ABA, which has resulted in 40% of the nationwide higher education population being diverse and 19% disabled,[11][12] compared to only 23% of the legal profession being minority lawyers of color and 2.4% of them being ones with disabilities as of 2023.[13]
Pennsylvania’s state diversity in the legal profession is not significantly different from what the ABA has created nationally due to the same underlying discrimination issues. In 2014, PA’s Interbranch Commission identified an underrepresentation of minority judges in the state, with none serving on the PA Supreme Court and Commonwealth Court and only one serving on the Superior Court.[14] Otherwise, the commission found that only 9% of the Courts of Common Pleas were made up of minorities.[15]
While race-based entry considerations should be discontinued entirely, Pennsylvania leaders must unchain the attorney licensing system by opening the bar to minorities and those who choose to attend independent schools accredited by states or other verified accrediting institutions. Those students who decided not to attend ABA law schools but can pass the bar or transfer their existing license to Pennsylvania. These actions would enable fairer access to the PA bar and likely increase the number of attorneys in our state, enabling greater access to justice for our residents.
ABA’s History of Purposeful Discrimination to Limit Access to the Legal Profession for Low-Income, Minority, & Disabled Law Students
Attending law school became even more difficult with the ABA’s creation of significant obstacles to prevent the entry of minorities and women. After the ABA initiated these restrictions, the PA Bar Examiners later adopted their practices, which prevented these groups from gaining access to the legal profession.
In line with earlier American Medical Association (AMA) successes in preventing minorities from becoming medical doctors, the ABA began a covert campaign of discrimination in the 1920s that increased education requirements before entering law school and limited access to the state bar to only those graduates of ABA-accredited law schools.[16] These obstacles included the purposeful discrimination against minorities and women through increased costs, covert discrimination tactics, and ongoing discrimination that occurs today. These actions focus law school and bar admissions on factors outside of an individual’s merit, knowledge, and ability to practice.
Continuing beyond the 1950s for many decades, the ABA’s practices increased law school tuition[17] and demanded additional law school entry requirements, such as the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), which served to limit the diversity of law schools in terms of blacks, women, and other minorities.[18] Following the ABA’s footsteps, the PA Bar Examiners changed their rules in 1971 to limit access nationwide to new lawyers desiring to enter the bar to only those graduates of ABA-accredited law schools.[19] When compared to the 2020 Census of blacks overall (12.4%), the percentage of blacks in ABA law schools (7.7%) continues to fail to represent overall society, which comprises ~38% fewer blacks in ABA schools,[20]and ~64% fewer blacks practicing law around the country (4.5%).[21][22]
The negative effects of ABA’s discrimination do not only impact the nation, but as PA judicial leadership has long adopted ABA policies, their actions directly affect law firm diversity within the state. The proof is in the results of the ABA’s near monopoly over legal education in the United States for over the last 100 years, as the ABA’s report notes that California, the state accepting the most non-ABA accredited schools, was cited as having “particularly strong” law firm diversity within five of the top ten metropolitan areas in the country.[23] On the other hand, Pennsylvania, which does not accept any non-ABA accredited schools, is home to the metropolitan area of Pittsburgh, which has the lowest percentage of minority law firm partners in the entire country, at 2%.[24]
Pennsylvania’s Irrational Basis for Limiting the Legal Profession to ABA Schools
Why do we need law students to fund high ABA accreditation costs, spend thousands of dollars (if they can afford it) to learn how to take a separate entrance exam not taught in school, or participate in non-merit-based admissions that focus on race?
PA’s Board of Bar Examiners and Supreme Court adopted the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) Uniform Bar Exam (UBE), a well-researched and peer-reviewed exam that utilizes a scientific approach to test legal knowledge and the ability to practice law based on questions and practical examinations.[25] Unanswered and outstanding questions remain: 1) if the PA Bar Examiners have a proven scientific method for assessing one’s knowledge of the law and one’s ability to practice, why is it necessary to have graduated from an ABA-accredited law school? and 2) what are the PA Bar Examiners looking for beyond the generally accepted legal knowledge and ability that one should possess after graduating that is not included in non-ABA law school programs?
The examiners already have a separate ethics examination that tests the requirements for professional responsibility for lawyers through the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE). As in other states, courts have held that states have a legitimate interest in regulating bar admissions through the bar examination, which tests for professional legal competency.[26] As the bar examination accurately tests for lawyer competency, this additional ABA requirement must logically have been implemented for some different or secondary purpose that falls outside the requirements necessary to protect society or that is rationally connected with the fitness or capacity to practice law.[27]
Therefore, what else could be gained from attending an ABA-accredited law program that is rationally related to the legal profession, unless it is based on some religious belief, indoctrination, or an unknown quality that cannot be measured by the current scientific examination conducted by the NCBE?
Current Claims of ABA’s Discrimination
In recent years, the ABA switched tactics to continue the façade of diversity, equity, and inclusion while maintaining ongoing covert discriminatory policies that impede minority access to the profession. Modern accusations of age and racial discrimination have been discovered within the ABA and throughout their law school admissions, hiring, and judicial clerkship program process.
Within the ABA, the organization discriminates against older lawyers, not as a charitable organization, but as a partial-lobbying group that charges elderly lawyers an increased annual membership rate simply because they were admitted to the bar five, ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago or more.[28]
The organization has modernly reentered the campaign of overt and express policies promoting racial discrimination against whites. Twenty-one state Attorneys General filed suit in June 2024 to prevent the ABA’s alleged racial discrimination in law school admissions and faculty hiring practices nationwide, accusing the organization of violating the Constitution and Title VII of federal law.[29] Pennsylvania and other states should shun these harmful overt acts as equally as their covert policies that continue to discriminate against minorities.
Along with discrimination in entry to law school and faculty positions, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) filed a civil rights complaint with the Department of Education in May 2024, accusing the ABA and three of its universities of discriminating against white students and graduates seeking judicial clerkships.[30] The arguments against the organization presented claims of the ABA’s continuing violation of the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, through alleged violations of federal law in their Title VI complaint.[31]
For how many decades more must the ABA create discriminating obstacles before Pennsylvania, other states, and the federal government decide to free the legal profession from this chronic abuse and discrimination?
Restoring Pennsylvania’s Attorney Licensing Independence and Access to Justice
Pennsylvania has an obvious need to support access to justice so that the most disadvantaged groups in the state and other middle-class residents can resolve their pressing legal issues. One of the best ways PA’s Supreme Court and Board of Bar Examiners can move forward is to become independent from the ABA’s detrimental policies and practices, which have demonstrated decades of substantially harmful discrimination against minorities, women, and disabled persons, with ongoing partisan strategies that are damaging to the entire legal profession.
Just this month, in March 2025, ABA President William R. Bay spoke out against the termination of DOJ lawyers who were “being punished for simply doing their job.”[32] ABA President Bay continues, arguing that their constitutional rights of due process were violated but seems to have been absent for the past four years when the DOJ was weaponized against political rivals and used against the American people, violating many more Constitutional Rights than Due Process alone.[33] Unfortunately, the ABA has been plagued with ongoing bias and discrimination, politicizing its actions instead of being loyal to the equal and unalienable rights we’ve been endowed with by our Creator. While state bar associations may have a political slant because of the composition of their particular membership, access to the legal profession through boards of examiners authorized by state supreme courts should not be based on discriminatory or partisan practices.
If the PA Bar Examiners maintain that the “modern bar examination is designed to ensure that the standards accurately reflect the level of minimum competency necessary to practice law,”[34] there should be no other irrational, religious, or non-scientific method used to limit access to the profession, like requiring ABA law school attendance before bar admission.
The ABA’s abusive history and harmful limitations on the legal profession have been exposed for decades. How long will PA judicial system leaders continue to limit access to attorney licensing through discriminatory and arbitrary means that are not rationally based on the practice of law? How long will PA and similar states prevent their residents from gaining freedom from perpetual hardship because of their limited access to justice? One can only hope that state leaders take immediate and decisive action to stop this discrimination through an independent and apolitical bar admissions process in support of their residents and the law, which should be blind to race, gender, disability, and financial status.
[1] Access to Justice Prize, U.S. Dep’t of Just., Off. for Access to Just. (Feb. 18, 2025), https://www.justice.gov/atj/access-justice-prize.
[2] What We Do, Pa. Bar Found., https://www.pabar.org/site/Foundation/What-We-Do (last visited Mar. 12, 2025).
[3] The Justice Gap: Section 6: Reports from the Field, LSC, https://justicegap.lsc.gov/resource/section-6-reports-from-the-field/ (last visited Mar. 16, 2025).
[4] Id.
[5] Report on the Use of the AJA: The Commonwealth’s Access to Justice Act, Pa. Gen. Assembly, Legis. Budget and Fin. Comm., 12 (Oct. 2016) https://palegalaid.net/sites/default/files/attachments/2018-04/Report-on-Use-of-AJA-October-2016%5B1%5D.pdf.
[6] Id. at S-2.
[7] 2017 Justice Gap Report, LSC, 1-2 (June 2017), http://www.lsc.gov/mediacenter/publications/2017-justice-gap-report.
[8] Rule 102: Definitions, Pa. Bd. of Law Exam’r (Jan. 4, 2022), https://www.pabarexam.org/bar_admission_rules/102.htm.
[9] Distance Education, A.B.A., (Dec. 19, 2024) https://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_education/resources/distance_education/.
[10] J.P. Pressley, Online Learning Can Help Minimize Racism and Ableism In and Out of the Classroom, EdTech: Focus on Higher Education, (May 25, 2022), https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2022/05/online-learning-can-help-minimize-racism-and-ableism-and-out-classroom.
[11] Jane Nam, Diversity in Higher Education: Facts and Statistics, BestColleges (Apr. 29, 2024),
https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/diversity-in-higher-education-facts-statistics/ (citing the National Center for Education Statistics).
[12] Lyss Welding, Students With Disabilities in Higher Education: Facts and Statistics, BestColleges (Mar. 29, 2023) https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/students-with-disabilities-higher-education-statistics/ (citing the National Center for Education Statistics).
[13] Profile of the Legal Profession 2024: Demographics, A.B.A., https://www.americanbar.org/news/profile-legal-profession/demographics/ (last visited Mar. 16, 2025) (citing the National Association for Law Placement 2023 Report on Diversity in U.S. Law Firms).
[14] Creating A Diverse Bench in Pennsylvania, PA Interbranch Comm’n, 7 (Jan. 2014), https://pa-interbranchcommission.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Creating-A-Diverse-Bench-Final.pdf.
[15] Id.
[16] George B. Shepherd, No African-American Lawyers Allowed: The Inefficient Racism of
the ABA’s Accreditation of Law Schools, 53 J. LEGAL EDUC. 103, 112-113 (2003).
[17] Id. at 131.
[18] Deseriee A. Kennedy, Access Law Schools & Diversifying the Profession, 92 Temple L. Rev. 800, 802 (2020).
[19] Modern Bar Examination, Pa. Bd. of Law Exam’r (June 24, 2023), https://www.pabarexam.org/board_information/history/modern.htm.
[20]Profile of the Legal Profession: Legal Education, A.B.A. (July 2022), https://www.abalegalprofile.com/legal-education.php.
[21] Profile of the Legal Profession: Demographics, A.B.A. (July 2022), https://www.abalegalprofile.com/demographics.php.
[22] Nicholas Jones, Rachel Marks, Roberto Ramirez, & Merarys Rios-Vargas, 2020 Census Illuminates Racial and Ethnic Composition of the Country, U.S. Census Bureau (Aug. 12, 2021), https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/improved-race-ethnicity-measures-reveal-united-states-population-much-more-multiracial.html.
[23] A.B.A, Demographics 2024, supra.
[24] Id.
[25] Bar Exam Fundamentals for Legal Educators, NCBE, 4-8 (July 15, 2024), https://thebarexaminer.ncbex.org/wp-content/uploads/NCBE_Bar_Exam_Fundamentals_071524_Online.pdf.
[26] Scariano v. Justs. of Supreme Ct. of State of Ind., 38 F.3d 920, 925 (7th Cir. 1994).
[27] Schware v. Bd. of Bar Exam’r of State of N.M., 353 U.S. 232, 238–39, 77 S. Ct. 752, 756 (1957).
[28] ABA Membership Dues & Eligibility, A.B.A., https://www.americanbar.org/membership/dues_eligibility/ (last visited Mar. 16, 2025).
[29] Attorney General Marshall and 21-State Coalition Demand American Bar Association Stop Requiring Racial Discrimination in Law School Admissions and Hiring, Off. of the Att’y Gen. (June 6, 2024), https://www.alabamaag.gov/attorney-general-marshall-and-21-state-coalition-demand-american-bar-association-stop-requiring-racial-discrimination-in-law-school-admissions-and-hiring/.
[30] WILL Files Formal Civil Rights Complaint Against the American Bar Association and Institutions of Higher Education Across America for Discriminatory Practices, WILL (May 21, 2024), https://will-law.org/will-files-formal-civil-rights-complaint-against-the-american-bar-association-and-institutions-of-higher-education-across-america-for-discriminatory-practices/.
[31] Id.
[32] A. Martinez, Milton Guevara, & Ally Schweitzer, American Bar Association president speaks out against attacks on judges and lawyers, National Public Radio (Mar. 11, 2025), https://www.npr.org/2025/03/11/nx-s1-5317656/american-bar-association-trump-administration-attacks-judges-lawyers.
[33] Id.
[34] Modern Bar Examination, Pa. Bd. of Law Exam’r (Mar. 3, 2025), https://www.pabarexam.org/board_information/history/modern.htm.