Watchdog warns legal powerhouse has made far-left advocacy their 'dominant focus' over the last decade

A conservative watchdog group is adding fodder to the debate over whether the American Bar Association has become a politicized institution favoring the left.

Meanwhile, in all six cases the ABA has filed amicus briefs involving Trump, the ABA went against the president or his allies.

According to AFL's audit, which scanned briefs filed between April 2016 and February 2026, there were a total of 87 filed. Seventy of them "favored a liberal or progressive outcome," AFL argues, while none it came across were "conservative-aligned," the group added. The remaining covered what AFL described as neutral issues, such as a patent law case.

"The ABA does not categorize its amicus briefs as conservative or liberal but base them on the law. The ABA files amicus briefs that take positions that reflect official ABA policy that has been debated and adopted by the House of Delegates," the ABA told Fox News Digital.

"The House is the ABA's policy-making body comprising hundreds of delegates from state bars across the country and a wide range of ABA subject-matter entities and adopts policy only after engaging in a deliberative and representative process. Throughout it all, defending the rule of law is our North Star. "

The audit also found in cases where Trump, or a Trump official, was named, and the ABA filed an amicus brief, they argued every time in the direction contrary to the Trump official or Trump himself.

"The ABA presents its amicus program as advancing the interests of the legal profession and the rule of law," said Gene Hamilton, president of America First Legal.

"The data tells a different story," Hamilton continued. "More than four in five briefs push a progressive agenda, immigration advocacy has become the program's dominant focus and the organization has not once - in ten years and across two Trump administrations - filed a brief that could be characterized as supportive of a conservative legal position. The ABA is not a neutral arbiter and should be treated no differently than any other liberal advocacy group."

In President Trump's second term, the Trump administration has taken several steps to push back against what it says is bias at the ABA. In February 2025, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson announced a new policy prohibiting FTC political appointees from holding leadership roles in the American Bar Association (ABA), participating in ABA events or renewing their ABA memberships. 

That early action was also followed by several others, such as a May letter to the ABA's president from Attorney General Pam Bondi indicating the Department of Justice would no longer be engaging in its traditional partnership related to vetting judicial nominees, citing "refusal to fix the bias in its ratings process, despite criticism."

In April, Trump signed an executive order that singled out the ABA and other powerful accrediting groups, warning that anyone engaging in unlawful discrimination would be refused federal recognition.