Though the attorney shortage is happening nationwide, rural areas have been hit particularly hard.
(Clayton Baumgarth - WFIU/WTIU)
An Indiana Supreme Court report says the bar passage rate declined last year to 63 percent, down from 71 percent just two years ago.
The Court also says the state has about two lawyers for every 1,000 residents. That’s below the nationwide average of four lawyers per 1,000 residents, putting Indiana in the bottom 10 nationally.
And as Bernice Corley, executive director of Indiana Public Defender Council puts it, we’re not alone.
“The shortage is national, Indiana is not by itself,” she said. “Fewer people are going to law school, fewer people see a future in law. As to why that is, I don't know.”
Corley was one of the speakers at the Summit for Rural Justice and Public Health Professionals in Wabash this year.
While the attorney shortage is a national problem, its effects are felt most in rural areas where the lack of practicing lawyers is causing legal experts to raise alarms.
The American Bar Association considers any county with less than one lawyer per 1,000 people a legal desert. In Indiana, it’s estimated that 46 to 60 of Indiana’s 90 counties fit that definition. That covers all of the state’s 42 rural counties and then some.
“So what do we do to attract people to come and serve and see the beauty of a rural community and how that can be a very positive lifestyle that’s very nice for families and for single people who just want to try something different,” Corley said.
Via State Justice Institute presentation at Rural Justice Summit 2023.
Not having enough lawyers available to practice causes a few issues for Hoosiers. For one, not having enough public defenders causes waitlists for representation to grow, caseloads for attorneys to increase and overall lowers the efficiency of the criminal justice system.
Second, as older attorneys retire without younger attorneys set up to replace them, decades of expertise and accumulated knowledge is lost, also causing the industry to become less efficient.
A few ideas were shared at the summit about how rural areas can attract new attorneys. One idea Corley mentioned is regionalization, where smaller counties would share a chief public defender and a pool of attorneys.
“I think regionalization just makes sense. It makes sense,” she said. “But it's going to take cooperation and coordination with one another, it's going to take some give and take with all the counties that are participating, but they'll share the expenses together, sheriff's attorneys together, and their dockets will move more smoothly.”
Another is to increase the benefits of working in a small community.
“Often these people are working under a contract or part time,” she said. “Provide them health insurance to encourage or incentivize them to stay. Make sure that these people have working conditions that are conducive to doing their job.”
Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Mary Ellen Diekhoff, who attended and spoke at the summit, echoed Corley’s thoughts on regionalization. She said circuit courts originally got their name because judges and lawyers would do circuits around regions serving multiple counties at a time.
“What are you going to do with some counties who may not have public defenders and may have a lack of lawyers?” she said. “Can we look at the rescheduling of cases or trying to schedule certain types of cases on certain days? Lawyers who represent people in three, four counties, whether they're private or public defenders, we can look at scheduling things so that there's an ability to show up.”
Via State Justice Institute presentation at Rural Justice Summit 2023.
Others say streamlining the education process and making it more appealing to students are keys to solving the shortage.
Joel Schumm, a clinical professor at the McKinney School of Law at IU, said the school has switched how it teaches its students in an effort to make the learning process more convenient for those living outside of urban areas.
“Our evening program used to be five nights a week,” he said. “Students had to drive to law school for classes two hours a night, five nights a week. Now we have a hybrid program, so students only have to be in Indianapolis twice a week.”
Additionally, in 2019, McKinney started the Rural Justice Initiative, a placement program for students.
Those selected after their second year spend 200 hours working in a rural county on a stipend.
Schumm says the program is just as helpful for those communities as it is for the students.
“There's some counties with one judge who has to do everything, and so to be able to have some help from someone who's legally trained has been helpful for the judge,” he said. “But mostly it's been helpful to our students to be able to experience that and hopefully decide whether that's something that they may want to do after they graduate.”
The Rural Justice Summit in Wabash. (Clayton Baumgarth - WFIU/WTIU)
Nathan Lund is one of the students who went through the Rural Justice Initiative this past summer in Dekalb county. He said getting practical experience as part of his degree has been massively beneficial.
“There's nothing like being in the courtroom itself,” he said. “I learned so much from attorneys that were three years out of law school, and then attorneys that were 40 years out of law school.”
Lund witnessed firsthand the issues that arise while working in a small county.
“Without an influx of younger attorneys, especially in the small communities that have a limited number of attorneys already, there aren’t new attorneys to fill the roles that are left by these attorneys when they retire or they pass away,” he said. “You have these attorneys that are in three or four or five different firms, and so you have a lot of conflicts.”
Another student that was selected for the initiative, Hope Rice, said that even as someone who grew up in a rural community, the program helped open her eyes to the benefits of working outside of a large city.
“It wasn't something that I was really thinking about before I ended up doing that externship,” she said. “It also showed me that Indy wasn't the only option for me. It really did kind of totally rewire my brain in what I wanted to do, what I thought I wanted to do, and where I wanted to do it.”
Rice graduates in the spring and has yet to accept a job offer, but Lund will be taking a job in Columbia City in Whitey County, a county with only 0.79 attorneys available per 1,000 residents, after graduating in December.
Whether the solution to the attorney shortage is regionalization, added benefits, or giving students firsthand experience, Corley said that something must change.
“I think we'll always kind of wrestle with an attorney shortage,” she said. “And I really think communities are going to have to learn how to do more with less. And that's going to take cooperation, that's going to take giving up some independence to work together and to get what is needed for all of our systems.”
