INDIANAPOLIS – In an interim report released Thursday, the bipartisan commission charged with assuaging the state’s attorney shortage recommended funding legal practice startups and a regulatory “sandbox” agency, among other budgetary and legislative suggestions.
It comes ahead of the Legislature’s brainstorm-filled interim committee meetings and its January budget-writing session.
More than half the state’s 92 counties are considered “legal deserts,” defined as under one lawyer per 1,000 residents, according to the American Bar Association.
“This puts at risk access to justice for Hoosiers everywhere,” Appeals Court Judge Nancy Vaidik and Indiana Supreme Court Chief Administrative Officer Justin Forkner wrote of the shortage.
The duo, which chaired the Attorney Shortage Commission on Indiana’s Legal Future, called the crisis “a challenge entirely of our profession’s own making. Therefore, it is one we are fully capable of correcting so long as we rise to the occasion together,” they wrote. “Stemming the tide will require bold and thoughtful innovation.”
The Indiana Supreme Court created the commission in April and gave it an August deadline for suggestions involving financial asks or legal changes. That’s because lawmakers are preparing to enter the biennial budget session.
Read the entire Leslie Bonilla Muñiz story for the Indiana Capital Chronicle, here.
