A recent survey of nearly 1,100 young lawyers found that many new attorneys are making major financial, personal and career sacrifices as a result of their student loans. That includes decisions ranging from marriage and children to making big purchases or taking vacations. The survey hits home for many young Indiana lawyers.
Although there are more than 1.3 million attorneys in the United States, “legal deserts” can be found across vast expanses of the country and all over Indiana, according to a recent report from the American Bar Association.
In an order issued by the Kentucky Supreme Court on Friday, the commonwealth has joined the growing list of states adopting the Uniform Bar Exam, putting Indiana in an even smaller group of non-UBE jurisdictions.
People with federal student loans don’t have to make another federal payment in 2020. Now is the time, though, to decide what to do before your bill arrives in January 2021.
A new jobs report from National Association for Law Placement says law school graduates in 2019 enjoyed some of the best of times while nodding to fears that the 2020 graduates may experience the worst of times.
After a series of software failures, increasing anxiety and a quick pivot to another format, Indiana administered the state’s first remote bar exam Tuesday without an apparent glitch.
Notre Dame Law School’s new Religious Liberty Clinic is designed to train lawyers in all practice areas to grapple with issues of religious freedom. “It’s critical that if we fight for freedom of religion, it’s for freedom of all religious faiths or no faith at all,” Dean G. Marcus Cole said.
Although the testing software was supposed to allow individuals to take the July 2020 Indiana Bar Exam while remaining safely in their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, the technology malfunctioned so badly that the Indiana Supreme Court will be forced to administer the test by relying on email and the applicants’ integrity.
The Indiana Supreme Court issued an order Wednesday again revamping the July 2020 bar exam, opting to send test questions by email and allowing applicants to refer to notes and course materials during the test. The test is still scheduled to be administered remotely Tuesday under the new format.
Despite the upheaval and uncertainty the pandemic has created for legal education, law school admissions officers are confident the first-year class entering in the fall of 2020 will be the same size, if not bigger, than the class that started in the fall of 2019.
Two business days from the July 2020 bar exam, some Indiana applicants are reporting problems with the software and adding more anxiety that they will not even be able to log on to take the test Tuesday.
A late change in the way the Indiana bar exam will be administered has raised sufficient fears of some applicants about the potential for wide-spread cheating that they are asking the test to be open-book. But the Indiana Supreme Court rejected a petition from dozens of law school graduates who will take the bar exam remotely next week.
A second round of Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law students have been dispatched across the state this summer to assist rural county judges through a judicial clerkship program, despite setbacks caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Before the signs were taken down and the remnants of the past 140 years were put into an archive, Nadia Wardrip took her 2-year-old daughter to Valparaiso Law School at the end of May to snap a couple of photos. The Lake County deputy prosecutor had spent 12 hours a day, six days a week at the law school so she could become a prosecutor, as she had dreamed of doing since high school. Going back one last time helped her explain to her little girl how she became who she is.
In a final twist of cruelty, the final graduating class of Valparaiso Law School and the alumni did not get to gather one final time to commemorate their alma mater. The COVID-19 pandemic prevented faculty, alumni and friends from saying goodbye together. So the institution closed quietly after the class of 2020 concluded their studies in May, ending a tenure in legal education that began in 1879.
During the current health crisis, the Indianapolis Bar Association remains committed to its responsibility to support and equip law students with practical skills and knowledge to thrive as a young lawyer in Indianapolis. It is for that reason we’ve modified and adapted our IndyBar Review prep course, the most comprehensive bar prep course in the region, keeping in mind the same goal to prepare students for the July 2020 Indiana Bar Examination.
When I recently saw the video of George Floyd’s extrajudicial killing by law enforcement, a familiar sense of anguish, fury, hopelessness, and malaise swept over me. So did a sense of helplessness. We had seen this video before, over the long and many years. We had read this story. And yet, I had never before witnessed such a starkly calm extinguishment of a human life — a Black human life.
Eyes and ears of those gathered on the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law lawn Friday were trained on members of the Indianapolis legal community calling for action to push for racial equality.
As demonstrations and calls for criminal justice reform continue nationwide, a group of Indianapolis lawyers have organized a “Call to Action” to highlight the role lawyers can play in the push for racial equality. The new organization Indy Lawyers for Black Lives will host a Juneteenth event Friday at IU McKinney School of Law.
The world has changed around us, but the Indianapolis Bar Association is still committed to helping diverse students find employment and start their legal careers in the booming Indianapolis legal community. It is for that reason we’ve decided to move forward with hosting the 2020 IndyBar Diversity Job Fair in a modified virtual format, and we hope we can count on support from you, the legal community.