Year in Review: Fascinating faces of 2018

We at Indiana Lawyer hear lots of great stories about attorneys and folks in the legal community doing remarkable things. We’re honored to share them, whether they come from down the street or the other side of the world. Here are some of the intriguing people we wrote about in 2018.

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You can find attorney Charles Braun most Saturday mornings at the University of Indianapolis’ radio station, WICR 88.7 FM, taking calls live on the air as he’s done for the past 35 years as host of the “Legally Speaking” radio show.

Braun handles a range of questions from callers, never quite knowing what to expect. But longtime listeners and those who know Braun expect sage advice dispensed calmly and politely.

“I’m not acting as your professionally retained attorney,” the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law graduate tells his listeners. “But based on my 41 years of lawyering, I’ll try my best to give you tips, suggestions and ideas for your consideration.”

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Daniel Webster Elementary students La-zavion Horns, left, and Ethen Zook take a break from planting flowers with U.S. assistant attorneys Barry Glickman, top left, and Bob Wood. (Courtesy Indiana Southern District Attorney’s Office)

Southern District of Indiana assistant U.S. attorneys Barry Glickman, Kelly Rota, Bob Wood and others continued the office’s partnership with Daniel Webster Elementary in May, when about 20 fifth- and sixth-grade boys graduated from the Indianapolis school’s Justice League Leadership Academy. Under the mentorship of AUSAs, the program provides students with tools to build positive relationships, problem-solving techniques and conflict-resolution and leadership skills.

This year, the students planted flowers and picked up trash from a church near the school. Southern District Attorney Josh Minkler said he hopes his office can inspire law firms, legal organizations and businesses. “You don’t have to have federal prosecutors do this program,” he said. “Any business, any law office can do this program. There’s no reason others couldn’t do it at other schools.”

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Mentors of a different kind took center stage this year at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, where professors for the first time worked with comedians from Second City in Chicago to bring improv into their students’ legal education. Professors Yvonne Dutton and Margaret Ryznar studied with the storied improv company this summer, then brought a workshop to the law school to help students sharpen their active listening and quick-thinking skills.

Student Klara Zierk was sold. “It translates well to law students,” Zierk said. “We need to be picking up on non-verbal cues when we interview clients or talk to other attorneys.”

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Two women who have been crucial to legal aid organizations marked more than 110 years of serving organizations dedicated to helping those most in need. Jacqueline “Jackie” Leverenz started at Indianapolis Legal Aid Society on Oct. 31, 1958, and Ida Hayes began at Indiana Legal Services on Nov. 22, 1966. Today, the two women serve as office managers, bookkeepers, secretaries, problem-solvers and attorney cheerleaders. To hear them tell it, the reason for their longevity is clear.

“I like helping people,” Hayes said. “This is the best place to be because you actually meet the lowest on the totem pole. (They have) no way to go but up.”

And while Leverenz acknowledged the job can be emotionally draining, it also has its rewards. “It makes you feel so good when you are able to help someone,” she said.

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When stories of immigrant children separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border dominated headlines this year, Indianapolis immigration attorney Sarah Burrow decided she had to help. The Lewis Kappes director flew to the border this summer, where she spent a week in Texas volunteering to assist a detained mother seeking asylum.

“In the grand scheme of things, it’s a fairly new concept,” Burrow said of getting pro bono attorneys to represent families in immigration detention seeking asylum. In a blog post, she wrote about the Honduran woman she represented.

“She’s journeyed 1800 miles and yet, the last two feet are the most arduous, the most anxiety-inducing, the most critical,” Burrow wrote. “We look at her, looking out that window, feeling light years away from freedom.”

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IU McKinney LLM Rindala Zgheib, a Lebanon native, gives a speech during the law school’s international speaker series. (Photo courtesy of IU McKinney School of Law)

An IU McKinney master of laws graduate also mastered a daunting test. Rindala Zgheib is among 34 of roughly 1,000 people who took and passed the Lebanese judicial exam, and she is among an even smaller group who have succeeded on the first try. Candidates interested in becoming a judge in Lebanon must pass the test between the ages of 22 and 35, and many reach the upper limit without succeeding.

The next step for Zgheib: a three-year internship that will complete her judicial studies and enable her to officially ascend to the bench in her home country.

“Usually people do not pass this exam the first time, but I worked so hard on myself and I studied days and nights for eight consecutive months,” Zgheib said. “… It was a big challenge for me especially because I kept hearing things like, ‘you can’t do it,’ ‘it is really hard,’ ‘you have to study more,’ ‘many people studied a lot but failed,’ etc.”

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Nguyen

Indiana law school academics who helped lay the foundation of evolving legal systems in two nations were featured in our pages this year. Indiana University McKinney School of Law Professor Xuan-Thao Nguyen conducted training workshops for Cambodian legal professionals at the end of 2017. The workshop was attended by 36 appellate judges, 30 prosecutors, and officers from the Cambodia Ministry of Justice, the Royal Academy of Judicial Professions, Ministry of Commerce and banks from across the nation. It was the first such training in the nation for judges on secured transactions law.

Albán

In Colombia, Juan Pablo Albán was appointed an amicus curiae while a doctoral student at the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Civil and Human Rights-sponsored J.S.D Program in International Human Rights Law. Albán is trying to help the nation resolve a decades-old civil war by offering his expertise through nonbinding opinions to special tribunals that are adjudicating human rights cases resulting from the conflict.•