Disclaimer: This isn’t legal scholarship, it’s George Carlin with a diploma and a Molotov. If you want careful nuance, go read a law review. If you want the truth served hot and blunt, keep your ears open.

Here’s the scam in plain English: the people who run Florida want to gut the national standards that make a law degree mean something across state lines. Why? Because national standards can’t be easily weaponized into culture-war theater. So they’re ripping the rug out from under the ABA, then waving their hands and calling it “reform.”

What that really produces is a Bronze Age economy of credentials. The rich keep their shiny, ABA-stamped degrees—send little Timmy off to Duke, Yale, or some coastal factory for lawyers. Timmy comes back with a résumé and a parking spot at a law firm that bills by the minute. Everyone pats themselves on the back and calls it meritocracy.

Meanwhile, poor kids in the same zip code? Congrats. You get the Florida Bar special: same tuition, half the resources, and a diploma that reads “Recognized in Florida” with a little asterisk that says, good luck finding work outside this county. You’re trapped in-state, trapped in a system designed to make your mobility impossible and your earning potential laughable. Congratulations, America—now with more vodka!

This isn’t a policy tweak. It’s a trapdoor. It’s the educational equivalent of “separate but equal” with better PR. Strip away the national accreditation that levels the playing field and you create two legal labor markets: one for the rich, one for everyone else. One passport to practice nationally, the other a postcard that says please remain in your place.

And don’t give me the “we’re defending standards” bullshit. The stated pretext is “against DEI mandates” or “protecting academic freedom.” Translation: we don’t want diversity, we don’t want equity, and we sure as hell don’t want anyone teaching inconvenient facts about power or history. Instead of preparing students to advocate, they’re preparing them to obey.

Think about what this does to actual justice. Public defenders, legal aid attorneys, school-system lawyers—these are the jobs that keep communities functioning. They don’t pay six figures. They rely on a pipeline of committed people who maybe can’t afford out-of-state tuition. Make those careers less portable and you hollow out legal representation for the vulnerable. You don’t “protect children” by narrowing who can defend them in court. You strip them of advocates and call it “reform.”

And the cynical calculus is beautiful in its cruelty: tell the poor you’re expanding opportunity by loosening rules, then watch as the institutional walls close. The wealthy dodge the trap by buying access. The rest get funneled into a lower caste of license that the market treats as second-class. Mobility? Gone. Equity? A punchline.

This isn’t about qualifications. It’s about power. They want to remake not just textbooks and classrooms but the very profession that enforces rules. Make your own judges, your own lawyers, your own set of rules—then watch how conveniently the law bends toward those who wrote it.

If you’re cheering this on because you hate “elites,” ask yourself: which elite wins when the standards crumble? Hint: it’s the ones with money to send their kids anywhere. The rest of you get the Florida Vodka Bar degree—cheers, now go balance the budget while your rights expire.

Mic drop: they aren’t “reforming” the bar exam. They’re bartering away the American promise that a degree means something beyond your zip code. And that, folks, is how you turn a profession into a club—and politely tell everyone else to go join the queue.