An attorney who made significant contributions in pro bono service will receive a posthumous honor on Oct. 21.

On April 20, the Columbus Applebee’s restaurant will donate 15 percent of sales to Legal Aid District Eleven, which serves Bartholomew, Brown, Decatur, Jackson, and Jennings counties.

With almost half of the pro bono districts losing plan administrators since mid-2009, it is not going to be an easy job to replace the institutional knowledge of the outgoing plan administrators. Districts 2, 3, 6, 9, 11, and most recently 7 have been forced to tackle that task.

While low interest rates can be a good thing for those looking to take out loans to buy a home, a car, or to refinance, they mean nothing but headaches and heartaches for organizations that depend on the dollars generated, such as legal aid organizations that rely on funds from Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts.

Bar associations and pro bono districts are working together to encourage attorneys to sign up to participate in the annual statewide Talk to a Lawyer Today event taking place Jan. 17, 2011. Free CLE, which is offered in December and January to lawyers who volunteer their time with TTALT but is not required to participate in the event, is a video replay of a CLE that originally took place in Indianapolis in October.

All that is known about funding for Indiana’s 14 pro bono districts is that no one yet knows exactly how much the districts will receive in October for their 2011 budgets.

Major fires disrupted and displaced attorneys last year in two different cities in southern Indiana. While neither of the original structures are near completion, life is more or less back to normal in Madison and Columbus.

The statewide Talk to a Lawyer Today event that annually takes place on Martin Luther King Jr. Day has been hailed as the best yet by organizers. All 14 pro bono districts had at least one walk-in and/or call-in site for lawyers to answer questions from members of their communities for free.

The Indiana Supreme Court will give a total of $750,000 to 11 civil legal aid groups in January 2010.