This Week in Legal Education News
April 30, 2025
By AALS
- Legal Education News Digest
Over the last decade, AALS has kept law school leadership, faculty, and staff informed with its weekly Legal Education News Digest and Blogs Digest. Sign up to receive these digests by email.
To keep law school faculty and staff up to date with the latest legal education news, we collect articles on new programs, collaborations with other schools, faculty accomplishments, awards, clinical activities, and special events. You can share news and updates with the editors of the weekly digest here. With the launch of our online platform LENS, we will be sharing a weekly roundup of legal education news, highlighting the most important stories.
AALS Legal Education News Digest – Week Ending April 25, 2025 AALS
AALS Legal Education Blogs Digest – Week Ending April 25, 2025
Here are a few articles of note from the past week:
- AALS signed on to a joint letter from higher education leaders condemning federal overreach. In the letter organized by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, the signatories express their concerns about recent White House executive orders targeting universities, freezing federal funds, and threatening private university endowments. (Forbes)
- A recent White House executive order asks federal agencies to consider revoking the ABA’s status as a recognized accreditor of law schools. Experts in legal education including AALS ED and CEO Kellye Testy have expressed concerns that removing national accreditation will harm access to justice and the quality of legal education. (Reuters)
- A recent report from the ABA finds that 2024 law graduates have record-high employment rates with more than 82 percent of graduates securing jobs that require bar admission. Despite the good news, experts predict that the job market for 2025 law graduates could be less stable as changes to federal hiring and reduced law firm recruitment could impact available positions. (HR World)
- The California State Bar continues to face scrutiny from the challenging rollout of a new bar exam in February 2025. The California Supreme Court is investigating how exam questions were developed with the use of artificial intelligence. The California State Bar has also announced that they will be lowering the pass score for February examinees in acknowledgement of issues with the exam. (The Los Angeles Times) (Reuters)
Law School Dean Moves and Hires
Law School Programs and Clinics
Higher Education
- The president recently signed executive orders targeting accrediting agencies, including the ABA, and placing higher scrutiny on foreign gifts to schools. Trump also signed an executive order to create an initiative focused on supporting and improving HBCUs. (Inside Higher Ed)
- Harvard University has recently announced that they will not comply with a list of demands from the federal government. In response, the White House has frozen $2.2 billion in federal grants and $60 million in contracts. The federal government has also threatened to revoke the university’s tax-exempt status and remove their ability to host international students. (Inside Higher Ed)
- The White House has announced that they will resume collections on defaulted student loans for the first time in five years. More than 5 million borrowers are currently in default and could have funds taken from tax refunds, social security benefits, or wages as the Department of Education resumes collections. (NPR)
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