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The Indiana Supreme Court on Thursday approved a new grant program for lawyers willing to commit to practice in areas of high legal need and embraced several other recommendations from a commission the court appointed to help find solutions to the state’s attorney shortage.
The court order sets into motion a suggestion by the Commission on Indiana’s Legal future to provide grants to help lawyers cover overhead costs such as rent, utilities and insurance in addition to startup costs for management and billing software, Westlaw, Lexis and Zoom.
In exchange, the lawyers would have to set up shop in a rural area or legal desert. More than half the state’s 92 counties are considered legal deserts, defined by the American Bar Association as having less than one lawyer per 1,000 residents.
The court order signed by Chief Justice Loretta Rush and agreed to by four other justices directs the Office of Judicial Administration to administer the program by using funds from the court’s Attorney Services Fund. It does not specify how much money should be set aside for the program.
The legal future commission’s Rural Practice Group will work with judicial administration to develop the parameters for the program, with the goal of launching it by Jan. 1
The court also approved a “regulatory sandbox” program that would provide ways to test pilot programs that could deliver some legal services through someone other than an attorney. One approach the commission discussed was the possibility of allowing limited licenses for paralegals and other professionals to provide certain legal services without the oversight of a barred attorney.
The court’s Innovation Committee has been directed to develop parameters for the “regulatory sandbox” program and submit them to the court for consideration by March 1.
Many other recommendations from legal future commission also were embraced by the court, from a student loan debt assistance program aimed at legal deserts to scholarship fund aimed at helping law students who want to become public defenders or prosecutors to several tweaks in state law to accommodate some of the changes.
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