Every county in the Hoosier state has fewer lawyers per capita than the national average. Rural communities face an even steeper shortage of lawyers and public servants in the justice system. This leads to courtroom delays, challenges meeting constitutional mandates around representation and increased self-representation, which can be risky for litigants.
According to the American Bar Association’s most recent profile on the legal profession, there are approximately 4 lawyers for every 1,000 residents nationwide. Indiana lags with only 2.3 lawyers for every 1,000 residents, placing it 44th in the nation. Earlier this year, the Indiana Supreme Court established a commission to study the issue and make recommendations to solve this dilemma.
A WRTV investigation revealed how dire the situation is. Self-represented individuals, also known as pro se litigants, are on the rise, which burdens the court to conduct more legal research. County prosecutors and public defenders are short-staffed with high caseloads, leaving the lives of many on hold while they await their day in court.
Judge Bradley Mohler, a McKinney alumnus, said he sees this first-hand in Clinton County every day.
“I see the greatest shortage in the areas of criminal defense, children in need of services and family law, as those are the fields with more time spent in court as opposed to office work,” Mohler said.
“With the shortage, courts are required to ‘share’ attorneys and appoint attorneys from multiple counties. This results in attorneys covering cases in multiple counties, and leads to delays in resolving cases and conflicts in scheduling cases.”
IU law students spend their summers alleviating some of that pressure through the Rural Justice Initiative. Since its inception, 31 counties have received assistance, and 13 hosted students this summer. McKinney student Hallie Stallings clerked with Mohler this summer.
“There is immeasurable educational value in immersing myself in a rural community so that I can better understand the trends, challenges and changes that are currently happening in rural law,” she said. “Combined with my position in the courtroom shadowing Judge Mohler, that means that I get a thousand-foot view of many areas of law, from criminal and family law to estates to contract disputes.”
“We neighbor Monroe County, where the Maurer School is located, and they have sent phenomenal clerks every year,” Hanlon said. “It’s just wonderful to have a person whom you can pose a research question to and get a thoughtful prompt response; that’s the biggest benefit.”
Ben Batchelder clerked with Hanlon this summer, translating theoretical classroom exercises to real cases, including some high-profile ones.
“Maurer gave me the tools to succeed,” he said. “Every one of the trials I worked on took me back to my first year of classes; property, constitutional law, criminal law, they all came to mind.”
Josh Marion, a fellow Maurer student, was placed in Greene County Circuit Court, where he has seen the rise of pro se litigants who aren’t as familiar with the legal process. Lawyers, for example, will submit a brief citing a statute or case law to justify their clients’ claim.
“When someone is pro se, they might send in a full brief with no mention of a statute or case law,” he said. “I’ve also noticed, alarmingly, that some pro se litigants will cite a case law that doesn’t exist; this is partially due to an increase in using artificial intelligence as a legal writing assistant. But AI can hallucinate, creating nonexistent results, so I have to notify the judge that the cited authority doesn’t exist.”
While there is an openness to the advantages of AI in legal writing, including the time saved, lawyers must ensure that justice is never compromised. However, for more and more rural community members, self-representation is not voluntary; they’ve simply run out of options.
“Family law is where I see a lot of litigants that are unrepresented,” Hanlon said. “They desire a lawyer but are unable to obtain one. In those cases, as a judge, you often get a limited amount of information but must make important decisions that have a sizeable impact on the children involved.”
Having law students able to obtain, research and verify information has been invaluable not only to judges but to prosecutors as well. Jerrick Adams, a Huntington County resident and third-year law student at McKinney, has participated in the initiative every summer in his hometown.
“Jeremy Nix, the elected prosecutor, was kind enough to host me in his office this summer,” Huntington said. “I deepened my understanding of the unique challenges facing rural prosecutors and learned more about the nuts and bolts of the prosecution.”
Understaffed offices lead to incomplete or delayed investigations. Some cases may not be prosecuted at all, despite existing staff working overtime. If not course-corrected, that trend would have a negative impact on public safety.
Similar obstacles are mirrored in public defenders’ offices as vacancies persist. Victims and witnesses may not be promptly interviewed, which can lead to evidence not being captured. One of the long-term goals of the initiative is to inspire IU law students to seek a career in public service within a rural county.
While several initiative alums have gone on to work in rural Hoosier counties, there is still a long road ahead to fully course correct. However, Maurer and McKinney are ready and committed to helping the state fill in the gaps.
“We have come a long way since the program began five years ago,” said Joel Schumm, clinical professor of law who oversees the Rural Justice Initiative at McKinney. “New counties are added each year, and we now include placements with prosecutors and public defenders.
“With about 80% of our students from Indiana, we have been able to make and solidify connections around the state. We continue to innovate to find ways to meet the crucial need for attorneys in all parts of the state.”
Anne Newton McFadden, associate dean for student services at Maurer, has been involved with the program since its inception.
“They have an opportunity to see cases from a judge’s perspective and get insight into how a lawyer can be most effective in the courtroom,” she said. “By being placed in a rural county, they also get to see the wide variety of cases that a county seat courthouse handles, informing what type of work they want to pursue upon graduation and hopefully encouraging them to consider practicing in a rural county.”
George Admire, a Maurer law student from Franklin, spent his summer at the Shelby County Superior Court Number 2. He said he is grateful for the experience.
“I walk into the courthouse and there will be people there for anything you can imagine, from criminal to civil law,” he said. “It’s all about real-world experience, because law school does a good job of teaching you how to read the law, but a big part of becoming a lawyer is going out there and experiencing it for yourself.”
