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In what amounts to a kind of PolitiFact.com for law, the American Bar Association has launched a website that pushes back against legal misinformation.

The ABA鈥檚 Legal Fact Check primarily aims to reach the news media and the U.S. citizenry, according to ABA President Hillarie Bass.

鈥淭here is so much public discourse out there with statements that do not accurately reflect the law,鈥� she said. 鈥淭his will be a source where members of the media, or members of the public, can go and say, 鈥業s that really true?鈥欌��

What they will find, Bass said, are nonpartisan posts clarifying whether news reports or politicians鈥� statements accurately reflect the law. The initial plan, she said, is to post new material once a week. Posts may sometimes be more frequent in response to high-profile legal misstatements.

鈥淲e鈥檙e going to be responding to statements we hear that we believe to be inaccurate,鈥� she said.

In its first round of posting, the site featured articles on hate speech, presidential pardons, flag burning, affirmative action and perennial calls to break up the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

One of those articles takes Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler to task for declaring in May that hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment.

鈥淭hat analysis is wrong,鈥� the site says, citing the U.S. Supreme Court鈥檚 8-0 ruling in Matal v. Tam, decided June 19.

Wheeler issued the statement after two men were killed in a knife attack after they tried to stop another man from screaming anti-Muslim slurs at women on a light-rail train.

The ABA website is managed by the organization鈥檚 Washington, D.C.-based communications staff and relies on case and statutory law and legal precedent 鈥渢o separate legal fact from fiction,鈥� the website says.

The website is one of several initiatives Bass has undertaken since assuming her new duties in August.

She is also launching a Commission on the Future of Legal Education, which the ABA Board of Governors approved in April when Bass was still president-elect.

That 10-member commission will study issues such as the low bar-passage rate, skill sets needed for future lawyers practicing in 2050, and guidance for young lawyers to assist in bridging the nation鈥檚 鈥渏ustice gap.鈥�

Bass also is directing an ABA study on women leaving the legal profession in their 40s and 50s. 鈥淲e start off as about half of the profession and by the age of 60 women are down to about a quarter of the profession,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hat means a lot of them are leaving.鈥�