ISBA Annual Summit to focus on attorney shortage

The Indiana State Bar Association is gearing up for its annual summit next month with a focus on the state’s attorney shortage.

“The annual summit really is the format and the platform in which members will have the opportunity to come together and talk collaboratively and explore, we hope, innovative solutions to the attorney shortage,” Joe Skeel, executive director of the ISBA, said.

The ISBA has been looking at three key topics to address the shortage.

First, the ISBA created a task force to look at alternative licensure models.

“This might include things like allied legal professionals, expansion of paralegal ability to provide some limited representation, so essentially allowing other folks to provide representation,” Skeel said.

Second, the bar association has been looking at broader pathways for admission to the state bar.

Skeel said that could include apprenticeship models.

Lastly, ISBA has looked at ways to incentivize the practice in rural legal deserts.

“You have this gap in many counties, the shrinking number of attorneys, aging attorneys that even if it’s not an issue now, in five or 10 years, it’s going to be in these rural communities,” Skeel said.

He added that change is coming, so this year’s summit is an opportunity for members to participate in shaping Indiana’s legal future.

“The number of attorneys is shrinking. And so this is the opportunity for the legal professionals to come together and problem-solve. That’s really what we’re going to be doing,” Skeel said.

After the annual summit in October, the ISBA plans to work with an Indiana Supreme Court commission on addressing the issue.

Skeel said they wanted to work parallel to each other at first so they could look at a practitioner’s perspective only.

There isn’t a registration fee this year for the annual summit, so those registered will receive free meals and three hours of continuing legal education.

A national issue

Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Professor Deborah Jones Merritt will be one of the many national experts speaking at the ISBA summit.

“It’s becoming quite visible right now,” Merritt said of the attorney shortage.

Her focus is on alternative ways to licensure. She mentioned a new program in Oregon in which one practices with a provisional license under supervision and builds up a portfolio that gets submitted to the board of law examiners.

“It’s not just that you’re working under supervision. You actually have to show that your work is minimally competent, and people will be licensed on that basis,” Merritt said.

She added that law school classes have declined nationally in the last decade.

According to LawHub, first-year law student enrollment was at 52,404 in 2010. In 2024, it sits at 37,800.

State recommendations

Indiana Supreme Court Commission on Indiana’s Legal Future is co-chaired by Indiana Court of Appeals Judge Nancy Vaidik and Chief Administrative Officer Justin Forkner.

The commission recently released its interim report in which it made several recommendations on ways to address the attorney shortage ranging from technology to legislative changes.

Vaidik said she likes the recommendation of launching a regulatory sandbox program which would promote the use of alternative business and practice models.

The report looks at the Utah Office of Legal Services Innovation, which allows entities to offer innovative forms of legal services in a controlled manner outside the bounds of the typical rules governing the legal profession.

Vaidik added that she also likes the recommendation of establishing a statewide legal incubator program that would provide support for start-ups until they can function on their own.

Forkner said he also likes the incubator program idea.

“I love the idea to be able to bring in a business interest and make it part of the economic development of a rural community, having a legal business, a legal professional in your town, sort of refer to it as a civic health or community health issue, certainly an economic driver to have that sort of business interest,” Forkner said.

He added that he also likes the nonprofit model startup with a sliding scale fee  structure.

The commission looked at what lawyers in Oregon have done to address the gap between low-income applicants who qualify for legal aid and the higher income needed to afford full-price legal services.

“We talk a lot about access to justice for folks of low income, but the sad truth is that the legal representation is out-pricing a lot of folks that wouldn’t qualify for legal aid up into the middle class. It’s just expensive, and this is really an opportunity to kind of address that gap as well,” Forkner said.

Vaidik mentioned how she talked with new law firm associates who said they wouldn’t be able to afford representation in a divorce.

One of the things the commission is doing, that the ISBA is not, is looking at ways technology could address the shortage.

There are recommendations on funding for state and local technology and there is also a recommendation to allow for artificial intelligence in court interpretation.

“The idea of using AI for interpretation has accelerated just over the last six or seven months that we’ve been looking at it, to where it went from ‘that’s an absurd, pie-in-the-sky thought’ to now it sounds like Star Trek, but this is coming,” Forkner said. “This is available, and it’s a way to solve a workforce issue.”

One of the ideas that came up early on was to add a law school to the Indiana University Northwest campus in Gary.

A key question for that idea is how much funding the Indiana General Assembly would have to approve to make the addition of a new law school a reality.

“Having all those folks sitting there together to inform the recommendations has just been a tremendously helpful process,” Forkner said.

The commission is accepting comments on the report until Sept. 13.

Vaidik said so far, the comments they have received have been positive and helpful.

The commission began meeting in April and will release a final report next year.

“I don’t get the sense from any of the folks involved that their willingness to help is going to end on July 1. Everybody wants to see this through,” Forkner said.•