State bar association looks at limited legal licensing for non-attorneys
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The Indiana State Bar Association has been taking a closer look at addressing the state’s attorney shortage, including the possibility of allowing some specially-trained non-attorneys to do some legal work.
At its annual summit last week, one of the bar association’s breakout sessions, ”Exploring Alternative Forms of Licensure,” allowed members to give their own feedback on what they think about having non-attorneys perform certain legal services and what those services might be.
Christine Cordial, ISBA’s director of justice initiatives, said Indiana is near the bottom of the U.S. in terms of attorneys per capita, with 2.3 lawyers per 1,000 residents.
“So there really is a gap for those who aren’t represented that need representation,” Cordial said.
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.
Cordial said the association’s alternative licensure task force met for six months earlier this year and focused on allied legal professionals and looking at possible ways non-attorneys could obtain certifications and provide certain legal services.
A legal alternative licensure path in Indiana, if it occurs, would probably be comparable to a nurse practitioner model in health care, Cordial said.
She said the task force would take feedback from the summit’s breakout sessions, with the ISBA developing a plan of action for 2025.
At Thursday’s breakout session, facilitator Mark McSweeney of Raybourn Group International asked for responses to the question: “In thinking about the full spectrum of legal help and representation, what could be done by a properly trained non-lawyer?”
Abbey Riley, a Stoll Keenon Ogden PLLC attorney from Jeffersonville, said it was a complicated question because there’s so many unknown factors in terms of what training would be required of a non-lawyer and qualifications they would need.
Riley said there were absolutely paralegals today she would trust to prepare a simple deed or wills.
“But they have attorney supervision,” Riley noted.
David Thompson, a deputy prosecutor with the Rush County Prosecutor’s Office, said he thought there were some legal services where there could be a path for non-attorneys, but he added that he wasn’t entirely sure which services those would be.
Thompson also questioned whether a non-attorney could make enough money to make it a viable job, depending on how alternative licensure was structured and what services could be provided.
Cordial noted that the Indiana Supreme Court also is looking at the issue of alternative forms of licensure through its Commission on Indiana’s Legal Future.
She said ISBA’s task force has looked at other states where alternative licensure has been allowed in areas such as family law and tenant/landlord eviction cases.
Cordial said some of those programs are overseen by those state’s supreme courts and laws had to be changed to establish them.