Oh, and by the way the ABA was sued by a school (Massachusetts School of Law) and won. The fact is, especially with law, you do need a regulatory body. Medicine needs one to keep away hack doctors, and the law needs one to keep out hack lawyers.
Law is one of those things where almost everyone in undergrad thinks they can do well in and master (you need not look past BLaw 1 where students argue rediculous points with the teacher). The problem is, not everyone can. Nor SHOULD everyone practice law.
In order for lawyers to be beleived there needs to be some sort of prestige to the title, otherwise, everyone will just do it themselves. If everyone who wants to go to law school is allowed, it turns into a little more prestigous than a community college. Not saying anything against CCs, but law schools are at a different level. Can you imagine, Bunker Hill Community College School of Law?
The bar tests MINIMAL skills. Why allow this less fortunate students to pay 10K-15K a year for a hack law school like we see in California that have 10-15% bar passage rates. Even Massachusetts school of law is somewhere in the 30% range according to a former teacher of mine that went there. Is that justified?
These minimums are there for a reason, its not elitists trying to keep people out, rather than to only allow the serious canidates in.