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Some promising A2J news from the Hoosier state.

Folks, this update requires a bit of context.

As regular LE readers know, back in 2022, the content of Legal Evolution began to shift as I wrote a series of essays seeking out the root causes of our present-day social, political, and economic strife. See Posts 312 (original Gilded Age lawyers), 319 (US policies leading to wealth inequality and the “End of History” illusion), 321 (empirically based theories of national decline). As a law professor who teaches the ABA-required legal ethics course, I found this subject matter impossible to avoid. Cf. ABA Preamble ¶ 6 (“[A] lawyer should cultivate knowledge of the law beyond its use for clients [and use it to] … further the public’s understanding of and confidence in the rule of law … because legal institutions in a constitutional democracy depend on popular participation and support to maintain their authority.”).Continue Reading Update on A2J in Indiana, including work being done at IU Maurer Law (357)

Legal deserts are a surprisingly common problem. Yet, more surprising is the relatively modest cost of a solution.

In its annual Profile of the Legal Profession for 2020, the American Bar Association defined a legal desert as a county with fewer than one lawyer per 1000 people, which is 75% lower than the national average of four lawyers per 1000.  In chapter 1 of the Profile, ABA researchers painstakingly presented the data, state by state and county by county, noting that of the 3,100 counties or county-equivalents, nearly 1,300  (41%) fit the legal desert criteria.  See id (hereafter ABA Legal Desert Report).

To place the term “legal desert” into a broader context, approximately 15 years ago, food deserts became a popular term of art used to classify low-income communities without reasonable proximity to a local grocery store.  During the 2000s, as interest in obesity and diabetes rose across the nation, US Department of Agriculture, the White House, and public health advocates became focused on the social value and importance of eliminating food deserts.

In effect, the  ABA’s legal desert term extends the “desert” concept to justice and lawyer availability within a set geographic area (in this case counties). 
Continue Reading The minimum number of lawyers needed to eliminate legal deserts in the United States (345)