The American Bar Association's Long March

Nothing better exemplifies the Gramscian “long march through the institutions” than the role of the American Bar Association in transforming America’s legal establishment. The ABA, with over 400,000 members, bills itself as “the world’s leading legal association,” and indeed it is the largest voluntary professional organization in the world. Founded in 1878 to represent the interests of elite corporate lawyers, the ABA now also includes judges, law professors, court administrators, paralegals, government lawyers, non-practicing lawyers, and even law students. Once a bastion of conservatism—having opposed many New Deal initiatives supported by President Franklin D. Roosevelt—the ABA is now a liberal organization whose policy positions are often indistinguishable from those of the ACLU and other activist groups.

Critics charge that the ABA is essentially a trade association for America’s 1.3 million lawyers—a cartel. Befitting its role as advocate for this powerful interest group, the ABA claims to have “more than 3,500 entities supported by 900 staff and thousands of volunteers.” As a special interest group, this makes the ABA a behemoth. The ABA’s influence is projected in a variety of ways: lobbying, issue advocacy (through ABA task forces and committees, testimony and statements by ABA officials, and affiliated non-profit initiatives), controversial (and, critics contend, biased) evaluation and rating of judicial nominees, proposed ethical rules for attorneys, filing amicus briefs, policy positions adopted by the quasi-legislative House of Delegates, and honoring partisan figures with awards, as the ABA’s Commission on Women in the Profession did in 1992 when it recognized Anita Hill as a “Woman of Achievement” following her discredited charges against Justice Clarence Thomas at his Senate confirmation hearing.

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