The Need for a Right-Wing Capture of American Bar Associations

By George

Political power comes in two forms: force and legitimacy. When a police officer shows up at your house, he brings a badge and a gun. A badge tells you that his authority is legitimate, while a gun tells you what consequence you will face if you do not respect his legitimacy.

Legitimacy is the means by which rulers exercise power without force. It is the reason most people pay their taxes on time and in full, even if begrudgingly. It’s the reason medieval kings would go to war over some obscure title of nobility. In those days, it was maintained through divine right. Today, it is sustained through the social contract.

Bar associations are institutions of legitimacy, which is why it is crucial for the true Right to capture these institutions.

What do bar associations do?

At America’s founding, lawyers had no licensing requirement. Most professional lawyers, like Thomas Jefferson, studied through apprenticeships, competing with lawyers with no formal training. Bar associations existed, but merely as networking and social clubs with no power or authority.

In 1878, 75 attorneys came together to form the American Bar Association. Still without any real authority, the Association sought to set ethical guidelines and professionalism standards, much like the medical community had already been doing at the time. Over time, however, an upward spiral began. The Association fashioned itself as an institution of legitimacy, and states began to recognize their authority. In 1908, states began to adopt the Association’s “Canon of Professional Ethics.” Into the 20th century, state supreme courts began to mandate membership in their bar associations to enforce discipline and promote professionalism. The important change came in 1952, when the Department of Education recognized the ABA Council on Legal Education as the official licensing body for JD programs. This led state supreme courts to rapidly recognize the ABA as the exclusive educational body for its lawyers, and attending an ABA-accredited school effectively became a prerequisite for those desiring a legal career. 

Modern-day bar associations function now as they did then, as institutions of legitimacy. Bar associations have no power of force; they can recommend suspension of a license, but these actions are reviewable by the state supreme court. They can recognize certain schools as legitimate, but ultimately, the state has the final say on which schools can accredit lawyers. But this does not matter because legitimacy is an enormously powerful political tool. Disciplinary action by a state bar can be a professional death sentence, even if the penalty is light. While it is possible to graduate from a non-accredited law school, a student has no shot at securing a position at a serious firm or in government without attending an accredited school. 

Bar associations as a political weapon.

The bar associations in the United States are deeply infiltrated by the left wing. Until very recently, the ABA enforced Standard 206, which mandated that ABA-accredited law schools take “concrete action” (not hiring white men). In 2022, the ABA launched a standard 206 investigation into Hofstra University School of Law. By 2023, Hofstra demonstrated compliance with the standard. The University of Oregon School of Law went through an identical process around the same time. The effect was that any serious law school would heavily push DEI standards, despite the ABA being a private membership organization.

After the 2020 election, state bars went to work swiftly to punish Trump’s legal team, as well as other lawyers pursuing election integrity claims. John Eastman was a prominent California lawyer who argued on behalf of Trump in Texas v. Pennsylvania. He suggested that the Vice President had the authority to reject or delay the vote count on January 6. The California State Bar took action against him, publicly announcing an investigation in 2022 that included charges of moral turpitude and failure to support the Constitution and its laws. After a lengthy disciplinary trial, a review panel recommended disbarment, which was granted in April 2026. The California State Bar dragged his name through the mud and subjected him to expensive legal proceedings, ultimately preventing him from ever practicing law again. Eastman’s case was not unique either, even in red states like Texas, bar organizations went after Trump’s election allies. The point was to create a chilling effect: every lawyer now knows that it is political suicide to challenge “official” election results.

This politicization has been brazen and outrageous, creating its own fair share of problems for bar organizations. Just recently, on July 23, Texas Representative Brandon Gill held a committee blasting incoming president Michelle Behnke on the ABA’s political nature. Heritage Foundation counsel Zack Smith suggested that the Department of Education should recognize other accreditation institutions and end the ABA’s monopoly on JD recognition. In January 2026, the Supreme Court of Texas moved away from exclusively recognizing ABA-accredited schools. And now Florida has also recently moved away from exclusive ABA recognition.

The fact of the matter is that these organizations are not independent boards that appear political, but political institutions masquerading as independent boards. Like a predator in the jungle, they lie in wait until something happens: a lawyer challenges the election, a school doesn’t hire enough non-whites, at which point they pounce and sink their teeth in.

Although the administration is finally holding organizations like the ABA accountable, do not be fooled into thinking the bars are going away anytime soon. Indeed, the only reason the ABA has survived is that it has adapted to the current administration; it will surely adapt to the next. Although these institutions are facing problems, they remain and will be the guardians of legitimate legal practice. 

Why then should the right not use this power to advance our own interests? A right-wing ABA could have its own version of Standard 206. It could condition accreditation on limiting legacy scholarships, which disproportionately benefit Jewish students, or limit the number of foreign students the school accepts. Rather than going after “election deniers”, the state bars could target attorneys like Judge Elenor Ross, who had an extramarital affair with the Atlanta Chief of Police, lied about it to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and attended a Democrat celebration party during her tenure as a judge. Most bars’ professional standards address moral integrity and statements of truth and falsehood. Instead of considering the 2020 election fair as a matter of law, a right-wing bar could hold that there are two genders as a matter of law, and consider arguments otherwise false and frivolous. If all state bars considered adultery and drug use unprofessional rather than election denial, half of the ACS would be disbarred tomorrow. 

Why the Right should capture these institutions.

The true Right is in a knife fight for political power: running congressional campaigns, gubernatorial races, and creating alternative media spaces where people can hear dissident ideas and speak the truth. 

However, each of these areas brings its own set of problems. In any democratic race, a candidate is expected to make his or her position public and known. As soon as a dissident expresses his views, every powerful American institution will now be set against him or her (just look at Thomas Massie). In the media, journalists face constant pressure from censorship and the temptation to accept institutional and corporate money to conceal the truth. Very few have the wherewithal to survive in these environments. 

By contrast, bar organizations are not expressly political. In fact, in Keller v. State Bar of California, the Supreme Court ruled that mandatory bar associations must be “germaine”, so as not to force members to participate in political speech they don’t support. Bar organizations also hold quiet power, rarely in the news but holding sway over matters of professional integrity and school accreditation. Many Federalist Society members hold prominent positions in the ABA and their state bar. For this reason, it is a perfect fit for the young, politically interested lawyer who keeps his politics mostly to himself.

If you are a right-wing law student or lawyer, you should start making yourself useful in these organizations, make connections, and exercise patience above all else. When the men and women running these organizations retire, we can hope that patriots are ready to take the baton.