The American Bar Association (ABA) is to consider proposals to accredit foreign law schools in what would be a closely-watched development in the international legal education market, writes The National Law Journal.

The recommendation has come from a committee of law professors, lawyers, judges and law deans set up in June to examine whether foreign law schools should be allowed to seek ABA accreditation.

The ABA's Council of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar is scheduled for December to consider the committee's recommendation – that overseas schools that follow a comparable model to the US should be able to receive ABA accreditation.

The ABA, the US's umbrella Bar association, is already responsible for accrediting US law schools.

The committee cited an earlier ABA report's conclusion that state supreme courts and Bar associations are under more pressure than ever to make decisions about admitting foreign lawyers as the legal profession becomes increasingly globalised.

"Such an expansion would provide additional guidance for state supreme courts when lawyers trained outside the US seek to be allowed to sit for a US Bar examination," the committee said in its report. "Since that is a key function of the accreditation process generally, the expansion would be consistent with the historic role of the section in aiding state supreme courts in the Bar admissions area."

The committee cited figures from the National Conference of Bar Examiners that between 4,000 and 5,000 foreign-trained law graduates each year take the Bar exam in the US. Most of them sit for the exams in New York or California.

If the ABA decides not to expand accreditation, and states are forced to make their own decisions about foreign-trained lawyers, some lawyers with "less reliable training" than graduates of US law schools will be admitted to the Bar, the committee said. Additionally, there will be a lack of consistency among states as to how foreign-trained lawyers are admitted, it said.

"If we believe that the American legal education model is the 'gold standard' for legal education worldwide and that well-trained lawyers are critical to the global economy, then a willingness to expand accreditation to schools embracing the American model is an appropriate way to improve the training of lawyers globally and contribute to the modern economy and the international legal profession," the panel said.

However, the committee did cite potential downsides to accrediting international law schools, including the expansion of practice opportunities for foreign-trained lawyers with no reciprocal benefit for US law school graduates. The committee said that the cost of the overseas accreditation would be born by the foreign law schools rather than the ABA.

ABA spokeswoman Nancy Slonim said that the committee's nine-page report has been sent to state supreme court justices, the leadership of the ABA, deans of ABA-approved law schools and other interested parties. Relevant parties have until 15 October to submit comments, she said.

The committee included University of California Hastings College of the Law professor Mary Kay Kane, Virginia Senior Justice Elizabeth Lacy, University of Miami School of Law Dean Dennis Lynch, Indiana Chief Justice Randall Shepard, and K&L Gates partner David Tang.

There will be much interest in the UK regarding the stance of leading law schools such as the College of Law and BPP, which have made little secret of their interest in building up their international links.

The National Law Journal is a US affiliate title of Legal Week.