Bar Crawl – 10/23/13

Bar Crawl highlights bar association news around the state. Indiana Lawyer strives to include bar association news and trends in its regular stories, and we would like to include more news from specialty and county bars. If you’d like to submit an update about your bar association or a photo from an event your bar association has hosted, or if you have questions about having your bar association news included in the newspaper, please send it to Marilyn Odendahl at [email protected], along with contact information for any follow-up questions at least two weeks prior to the issue date.

St. Joe Bar Foundation helps mock trial team go to New York

The St. Joseph County Bar Foundation Inc. is helping a South Bend mock trial team compete in an international event.

The board approved making a $5,000 contribution to the John Adams High School Mock Trial Team to underwrite half the cost of the team’s trip to New York to compete in the 2013 Empire VII Mock Trial Invitational. The Hoosier students will be matched against teams from Australia, Canada, Ireland, South Korea and the United States.

ILAS and IBF open house shows off bright, new offices

The Indianapolis Legal Aid Society has completed its move into a larger office space which will help the organization service its growing roster of clients.

The non-profit legal assistance agency has stayed in the English Foundation Building, 615 N. Alabama St., but relocated to the north wing. The space, refurbished specifically to meet the needs of ILAS, has a larger waiting room, conference room and room for additional attorneys.

Grants from The United Way of Central Indiana Capital Fund and the Central Indiana Community Foundation made the new offices possible.

Along with the comfortable new space, ILAS also acquired a roommate. The Indiana Bar Foundation has relocated from its former offices on Ohio Street and is now leasing a portion of the new ILAS office space.

The two legal organizations will co-host a reception and open house from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Oct. 24 at the offices in Suite 122. A short program will be held beginning at 6 p.m.

Attorneys do variety of work during ISBA’s Day of Service

About 65 volunteers from bar associations performed a variety of tasks during the Indiana State Bar Association’s 2013 Day of Service on Sept. 21. Around the state attorneys cleaned yards, spruced up a nursing home and YMCA, and helped food banks harvest and stock food.

The idea of setting aside one day for lawyers to volunteer for non-legal work developed in the inaugural class of ISBA’s Leadership Development Academy. Members of the service committee said the goal was to encourage attorneys to get their hands dirty and help their communities.

 “The organizations with which we worked were extremely grateful for the help, time and effort that the volunteers put into their service,” said Jaime Oss, ISBA Service Committee chair.

Organizers hope to increase participation for the 2014 Day of Service which is scheduled for Sept. 20.•