Warren Circuit Court Judge Hunter Reece often sees residents in his courtroom representing themselves in civil cases, struggling through complex legal issues without the help of an attorney.
It’s not by choice. Not one full-time lawyer or public defender practices in the sparsely populated rural county along the Illinois border.
The hefty price required for an attorney to drive 45 minutes just to attend a short hearing would be unaffordable for many Warren County residents, Reece explained. Instead, they choose to go it alone in the courtroom.
“When they need an attorney to help them out, they can’t just go down the street and meet with one,” Reece said. “It becomes an access-to-justice issue for the community.”
Warren County isn’t alone. More than half of Indiana counties are considered “attorney deserts,” which means they have fewer than one lawyer per 1,000 residents. Nationally, the state ranks in the bottom 10 with only 2.3 attorneys per 1,000 residents, according to the American Bar Association.
Now, after years of watching Indiana’s shortage reach a breaking point in rural and underserved communities, state lawmakers and the Indiana Supreme Court have started taking initial steps to get critical legal services into the parts of the state that need them most.
But critics worry the state isn’t moving fast enough to fund initiatives that could curb the impact of the shortage — a problem they say will only get worse before it gets better.
‘Not a pretty picture’
In July, a special commission released a sweeping 74-page interim report detailing recommendations aimed at bolstering legal services, attracting more attorneys to the state and incentivizing them to practice in underserved areas.
The document is a rough preview to the final plan set to be released in July.
The Indiana Supreme Court made amendments to a number of its rules in response to the report created by the Commission on Indiana's Legal Future, according to Justin Forkner, the court’s chief administrative officer and co-chair of the committee.
The high court now allows business owners to represent themselves in small-claims cases seeking more than $6,000. The rule previously required them to hire an attorney for claims over that amount.
The court also loosened rules to make it easier for lawyers with licenses from other states to practice in Indiana, especially those in surrounding states and near border cities such as Louisville and Cincinnati.
The commission intentionally released its interim recommendations well in advance of this year’s legislative session to allow lawmakers to review it, Forkner noted.
But of the report’s 16 initiatives that required legislative action or new funding to implement, lawmakers during this year’s session sent only two to Gov. Mike Braun for a signature.
Senate Enrolled Act 524 changed a statue that had required a municipal attorney to be a resident in the city’s county, now allowing the attorney to live in any contiguous county.
Legislators also created the framework for a scholarship program providing up to $60,000 to law students who agree to serve as a county deputy prosecuting attorney or public defender for at least five years following graduation.
However, lawmakers didn’t approve any funding to pay for the scholarship following a dismal fiscal forecast that led to substantial cutbacks to the state budget. Forkner said trying to secure that funding was a “pretty big lift” but just getting a statue on the books for the scholarship was a “big win for us.”Members of the commission are now looking at ways to secure private dollars to pay for the scholarships until the legislature moves to fund the program, he noted.
Other priority recommendations from the commission — such as creating a statewide legal incubator program, and providing a subsidy for lawyers who commit to practice in attorney deserts or areas of high legal need — didn’t receive any action or funding from legislators.
That lack of action will only delay solutions that could turn the tide of the state’s crisis-level lawyer shortage, argued Rep. Ed DeLaney, D-Indianapolis, who serves on the commission and has practiced law in Indiana for nearly six decades.
He said the interim report generated important discussions this year at the statehouse, but the push by the Republican supermajority to cut property taxes that reduced state revenues stymied the ability to actually fund new programs.
Now, recommendations requiring tax dollars to combat the shortage will have to wait for the next budget session in two years to be reconsidered.
“We have neither long-term nor short-term solutions that are being funded,” DeLaney said. “This is not a pretty picture. We had a mountain to climb, and it just got a little higher, I’m afraid.”
An independent approach
The Indiana State Bar Association isn’t waiting on lawmakers to implement solutions. In April, the state’s largest legal organization launched its own plan to combat the attorney shortage.
Although the strategy was made parallel with the support of the Commission on Indiana’s Legal Future, it’s an independent undertaking the association will implement on its own, explained Joe Skeel, executive director of the bar.
“There’s nothing in our plan that is tied to requirements or needing lawmakers to do anything,” he said. “We’re going to do this stuff independent of anything that might happen in the legislative body.”
The largest initiative will be launching an entrepreneurial incubator program to educate new lawyers on how to establish successful practices in rural and underserved areas.
The intensive, year-long program will likely accept up to 20 attorneys each year, Skeel explained. Private funding will pay for the initiative. The association already has at least one commitment from a private-sector donor, he noted.
Judge Reece said an incubator program would work well in Warren County to bring attorneys to their lawyer-less area. The local community could also provide incentives like low-cost office space to those looking to start a law practice.
“They should get the same level of support that they would get if they went to a large law firm so they don’t feel that they’re out there alone in the community,” he said.
Other parts of the bar association’s plan include developing on-demand law practice training and building a rural-practice resource hub on its website.
One of the most significant developments being considered by the Indiana Supreme Court is creating a new class of law-service providers called Allied Legal Professionals.
Like nurse practitioners working alongside doctors, these legal professionals would work alongside lawyers to provide certain services, creating more legal access for Hoosiers, explained chief administrative officer Forkner.
Of all the recommendations and ideas aimed at solving the attorney shortage, he argued, implementing the Allied Legal Professional model would mark a “paradigm shift on how we provide legal services to people around the state in the absence of a windfall of lawyers.”
Skeel with the Indiana bar said the new model has split opinions among attorneys.
His association isn’t championing the concept, but if it’s implemented, part of the group’s plan is to work with the court to ensure attorneys’ perspectives are represented in the process. The bar would also request to be the premier training agency for anyone seeking to become one of the new class of legal professionals, he said.
Whatever the best solutions might be to turn the tide on the attorney shortage, Judge Hunter hopes they are implemented soon. Unless rural areas like his see an uptick in lawyers, residents in Warren County will continue to appear alone and unrepresented in court, he explained.
“There’s just going to be a lot of people making decisions that they should be making with an attorney,” he said.