Indiana is looking at expanding nonlawyer practice and developing nonprofit firms
Attorney shortages are occurring all over the country. In one state, leaders of a commission tasked with addressing the problem say the solution isn’t simply more lawyers but a complete overhaul of how it provides legal services.
“The way we’ve always done it won’t get us out of this,” says Justin Forkner, who served as the co-chair of the Commission on Indiana’s Legal Future and was chief administrative officer of the Indiana Supreme Court until leaving in January to practice with a Northwest Indiana law firm. “We need people to have the forward-thinking mindset that it can’t be business as it’s been for the last 200 years as a lawyer in Indiana. We’ve got to continue to innovate.”
Indiana’s rate of 2.26 lawyers per 1,000 residents was ranked 43rd in the nation in 2024, according to data compiled by the American Bar Association. The national average at the time was around four lawyers for every 1,000 residents.
Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta Rush recognized this “critical shortage of attorneys” when creating the Commission on Indiana’s Legal Future in April 2024. The commission—which explored how to improve the law firm business model and professional regulations by creating alternative pathways to legal practice, incentivizing rural practice and public service work and using technology to fill gaps in legal representation—worked quickly. Its members announced 27 initial recommendations four months later and added 15 additional recommendations in their final report in July. The Indiana Supreme Court issued orders that addressed and took action on each one of those recommendations.
One proposed creating a regulatory sandbox program like the Utah Office of Legal Services Innovation, which can test nontraditional legal services models that might otherwise be considered unauthorized practice of law. The Indiana Supreme Court directed its Innovation Committee to develop the program’s parameters and then approved them in March 2025.
This proposal and others probably wouldn’t have moved forward as quickly without the staunch support of the Indiana Supreme Court, says Indiana Court of Appeals Judge Nancy Vaidik, who served as the other co chair of the Commission on Indiana’s Legal Future.
“The supreme court, along the way, was showing there was progress,” Vaidik says. “And so, when you have the highest court in Indiana behind this, it makes all the difference.”
Model firm
Another proposal from the Commission on Indiana’s Legal Future that is gaining significant traction involves a new type of law firm.
The commission recommended that the Indiana Supreme Court provide startup funding to law firms that use a nonprofit business model to meet the needs of people who make too much money to qualify for legal aid but are unable to pay for full-price legal services. The court directed its Innovation Committee, through the new regulatory sandbox program, to develop parameters for implementing these firms.
As the next step, Bill Henderson, a professor at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law and a member of the commission, is working with undergraduate and law students to build the infrastructure for a pilot nonprofit law firm. As part of this model, nonlawyers qualified to provide limited legal services called “allied legal professionals” will deliver “low-complexity, high-volume legal services” under the supervision of an attorney.
“The Indiana Supreme Court has created a pathway toward a new kind of law firm, and the work we’re doing through our applied research practicum course is building the actual business that fits on these tracks,” Henderson says. “Once people can see the good work it’s doing for Indiana citizens, and that allied legal professionals are doing rewarding work, then all of a sudden I’m going to have a queue of people lined up for it.”
Henderson’s students are working to create manuals and other materials for allied legal professionals and supervising attorneys to use in the pilot nonprofit law firm. He adds it will initially serve a seven-county area surrounding Indiana University that his students studied last year to assess unmet legal needs. It will focus on family law, debt collection and consumer bankruptcy and incorporate technology to improve efficiency.
As the model improves, Henderson intends to help expand it elsewhere in Indiana.
“If we can do it in the seven-county area, then the graduates of the applied research practicum can go to other parts of the state, and they can replicate it,” says Henderson, who notes at least two of his undergraduate students hope to become allied legal professionals. “Or frankly, any lawyer that’s got the access-to-justice bug here can just say they want to do this. You want to do this in Allen County or St. Joseph County? Please take our stuff.”
Allied legal professionals are vital not only to this pilot but to civil legal aid providers and other entities statewide that can help address the attorney shortage, Vaidik and Forkner add. The Indiana Supreme Court’s Innovation Committee outlined parameters for allied legal professionals and will evaluate proposed pilot programs.
“We can talk about more law schools or broadening who can sit for the bar, but that still won’t solve the legal services shortage,” Forkner says, adding that recruiting more lawyers and opening up attorney pipelines won’t help, either. “The allied legal professional program is the backbone of this.”
More than two dozen other states and the District of Columbia have implemented or are considering allied legal professional programs, according to the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System.
Full speed ahead
Many of the Commission on Indiana’s Legal Future’s other recommendations are moving forward.
The Indiana Supreme Court approved proposals for funding initiatives, such as programs to provide startup grants to lawyers who open firms in areas of high need and student loan assistance for law school graduates who practice in legal deserts. The ABA defines a legal desert as any area that has fewer than one attorney per 1,000 residents, and according to the commission, 49 of Indiana’s 92 counties meet that definition.
The court also approved several rule changes, including relaxing the restrictions on the admission of lawyers who are licensed in other states.
In another effort, Vaidik says the Indiana State Bar Association is assisting with a statewide legal incubator program, which the commission recommended to teach new lawyers how to be small-business owners, create a peer support network and connect law students and new lawyers with mentors.
“They are going full speed,” says Vaidik, adding that the bar association is particularly focused on “how to get people interested in rural areas and how to educate people who want to start their practice in rural areas.”
The commission partnered with several other stakeholders—including legal aid providers, state legislators and high school teachers—who are committed to following through on their recommendations, Vaidik and Forkner add.
“That was the commission’s biggest recommendation—don’t let this just sit,” Forkner says. “This isn’t a report that goes on the shelf. It’s really important to the court that it sends all those tasks to people. And people have picked them up and run with them.”
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