INDIANA – Indiana’s legal community is raising alarms about a statewide shortage of attorneys that has already led to barren courtrooms leaving hundreds of Hoosiers unrepresented.
The concerns were discussed during an interim study committee meeting on Wednesday at the Statehouse.
Justin Forkner, chief administrative officer for the Indiana Supreme Court, told members of the corrections panel that Indiana has about 2.3 attorneys per 1,000 residents — below the nationwide average of four lawyers. That puts the state in the bottom 10 nationally for available counsel.
Indiana has some 19,000 active lawyers on the rolls, he continued, although that includes many that don’t currently practice. Forkner said the state probably has 15,000 to 16,000 lawyers that practice.
A 2020 report by the American Bar Association found that 40 of the state’s 92 counties had fewer than one lawyer per 1,000 residents.
The average Indiana attorney in a metropolitan county has been admitted to the bar and practicing law for 24 years. That increases to 25.7 years of experience in rural counties.
Indiana Supreme Court data further shows the vast majority of lawyers clustered within central Indiana’s urban counties. About 8,000 are in Marion County and the surrounding doughnuts, alone.
Areas of the state with fewer lawyers — typically rural communities — tend to have older lawyers practicing. Younger lawyers, on the other hand, are largely located in the Indianapolis metro region.
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