The American Bar Association is considering changes to its rules that would require accredited law schools to train their students in areas such as recognizing bias, racism and cross cultural competency as a way of ensuring defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges and other legal professionals more fully grasp the backgrounds of people involved in the judicial system.

The changes also include a provision to recognize the unique experiences of military members and veterans, formally making military status a “non-discriminatory” status among the law schools.  While most law schools already have explicit language barring discrimination based on military status, the rule change would require it for all ABA-accredited law schools.

While bias and racism are well understood concepts, cross cultural competency promotes understanding the backgrounds, perspectives and opinions of people of other races and cultures when applying legal standards to cases. 

The goal of the changes is to prepare law school students to better understand and interpret legal standards as they relate to people of differing backgrounds and experiences so that the meting out of justice under the law can be done in a level forum.

The ABA Standards Committee, which fielded comments on the changes, notes that its goal is to help students more fully understand the duties of being a lawyer and/or an officer of the court so that the application of laws is done equitably.