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Law School Briefs; March 16, 2011

Rebecca Berfanger , IL Staff
March 16, 2011
Keywords
Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, Law Schools, Law students
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Law School Briefs

Law School Briefs is Indiana Lawyer’s section highlighting news from law schools in Indiana. While IL has always covered law school news and continues to keep up with law school websites and press releases for updates, we gladly accept submissions for this section from law students, professors, alumni, and others who want to share law school-related news. If you’d like to submit news or a photo from an event, please send it to Kelly Lucas at klucas@ibj.com, along with contact information for any follow-up questions at least two weeks in advance of the issue date.

Dinner raises loan repayment funds

The third annual Equal Justice Works dinner at Indiana University School of Law – Indianapolis will take place April 9 at 6 p.m. The event will begin with a cocktail reception at 5:30 p.m. in the law school’s atrium, 530 W. New York St., Indianapolis. Proceeds from the event support the Loan Repayment Assistance Program, which helps to pay loans of law school graduates who decide to work in public interest law.

Tickets are $75 per person, or $675 for a 10-person table. Checks should be made payable to the “IU Foundation,” with “IU Law – Indpls. EJW Dinner” in the memo line. Checks and RSVPs can be mailed to: Office of Development; IU School of Law – Indianapolis; 530 West New York Street, 227C; Indianapolis, IN 46202.

The keynote speaker will be former Justice Theodore R. Boehm. Honorees at this year’s event are ACLU-Indiana Executive Director Gil Holmes, Baker & Daniels Diversity and Pro Bono Coordinator Brita Horvath, and Marion Superior Judge David Shaheed.

Last year, Equal Justice Works hosted more than 180 guests. The first dinner in 2009 helped the endowment reach $100,000. Thanks to proceeds from the 2009 and 2010 events, the first round of forgivable loans was awarded during the 2010-11 school year.

Those who would like to support LRAP but are unable to attend the dinner should contact the law school’s Office of Development at (317) 278-7541.

– IL Staff

Prof’s findings in March ABA Journal

Research by the Indiana University Maurer School of Law’s Center on the Global Legal Profession was featured in a cover story titled “What Lawyers Earn” in the March 2011 issue of the ABA Journal.

Professor William Henderson compiled information from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to track where the legal jobs are and how much lawyers get paid around the country, county by county. Other county-specific information including the number of lawyers employed, the overall population, and the number of Fortune 1000 companies is also reported in the online version’s interactive table of wage data for every county in the United States.

The top 35 legal markets, along with 10 smaller markets that pay wages as high as their large-city counterparts, are also identified in the article.

The article is available online at http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/what_americas_lawyers_earn.

– Rebecca Berfanger

Students organize legal aid services

In what will be a win-win for law students and the communities they live in, students at Indiana University School of Law – Indianapolis, along with students from other schools in central Indiana, have started a program to provide free legal services to residents of Indianapolis through the Indiana University Student Outreach Clinic Legal Services, or IU-SOC.

The clinic includes volunteer students from the law school, the Indiana University School of Medicine, Butler College of Pharmacy, and Indiana University School of Social Work.

IU-SOC Legal Services was officially launched this spring. The organization is currently seeking volunteers, including supervising attorneys, and the students are reaching out to alumni and friends in the legal community. For more information, e-mail iulawsoc@iupui.edu.

“I have never been more proud of our university than I am when watching medical students and law students working side by side to serve our neighbors who struggle for access to health and justice. The fact that this is a student-initiated and student-led program just makes it all the more special,” said faculty advisor and law professor, Fran Quigley, in a statement.

The group’s mission statement sums up why students want to serve their community through the clinic: “Law is about more than statutes or rules. Law is about people, our daily life, and our society. Law serves no one but us. The reason why we decided to pursue a career in the legal profession and to come to law school varies from one to another. However, the common stake we all have in one another is our calling in life: a sincere wish to dedicate ourselves to people and society. We realize that practicing law is more than just a job, but a privilege which provides us the capacity to make a difference in another’s life, an opportunity to help people who need help, and a prospect to make someone’s life better.”

Law students Todd Hassee, Kim Opsahl, Laramie Paras, Jay Parks, Yen-Chia Chen, Eric T. Hom and Jennifer M. Rosser formed a steering committee for IU-SOC Legal Services in the fall of 2010 and prepared to launch the project under Quigley’s supervision.

– IL Staff
 


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  1. G. Michael Witte letter states he's suspended for three years. The case that got him suspended is identical to my estate case, including havin the Late Judge Deiter recuse himself because Newman had a conflict of interest with the judge. His Modus Operandi is nearly identical.

  2. SIGNED BY G. MICHAEL WITTE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY INDIANA SUPREME COURT DISCIPLINARY COMMISSION DATED MAY 17, 2012.

    Your 6th complaint against Lawrence T. Newman filed on 4/12/2012. On 1/31/12, the Indiana Supreme Court entered an order suspending Lawrence T. Newman’s law license for a period of three years. More important, even after three years, Lawrence Todd Newman will not get his license back unless and until he goes through a separate proceeding to prove that he is fit to practice law. This is not an easy process, and the burden is upon Lawrence T. Newman to prove by clear and convincing evidence that he is fit to return to practice.
    Because of the length of Lawrence T. Newman’s license suspension and the fact he may never succeed in getting his law license reinstated, we are not opening an investigation file at this time.
    Should Lawrence T. Newman seek reinstatement in the future, we will open your file and ask Lawrence T. Newman to address your grievance as part of his burden of proving fitness. We have attempted to notify Lawrence T. Newman that this will be required of him.
    It may disappoint you to hear that we will be doing nothing on your grievance at this time. However, the most our office can ever accomplish is to take away a lawyer’s license to practice law. We have already done that, albeit as a result of misconduct in cases other than your own. It makes better sense for our office to focus its limited resources on cases where the lawyers are still actively practicing law.

  3. Is there any justice in the Marion County Superior Court Civil Division? I am the unfortunate victim of a retaliatory lawsuit brought by Lawrence Todd Newman, the attorney from an estate case on which I worked as a unsupervised personal representative in 2006. The contract agreement for that case stated that the estate would be responsible for all attorney fees, but Newman refused to close the nearly insolvent estate when my duties were complete and his fees were paid. Instead, he tried to extort additional attorney fees from me by keeping the case open to address a wrongful death claim, despite the estate’s heir’s lack of interest in pursuing it and an expert doctor’s opinion that it would not be worth doing so. He also knowingly deceived me into believing that a “closing statement” was needed to close the estate, even though this requirement had actually been waived by the estate’s heir. The heir’s attorney filed a motion to have Newman removed from the case. After the court closed the probate case with prejudice (barred from further litigation) Newman illegally re-opened the case in another courtroom.
    As a result of complaints filed against him for these and similar actions, Newman has been suspended from practicing law for 18 months by the Indiana Disciplinary Commission. In retaliation, he has filed suit against me demanding additional attorney fees for the 2006 estate case, despite the fact that I made no agreement stating that I would pay any fees from my own assets on behalf of the estate. This lawsuit violates the rules of ethics, due process of law, and equal protection of law. Newman has been allowed to file ridiculous pleadings at an alarming rate and has been supported by a biased court system. Judge Carroll refuses to recuse himself from the case despite the fact that, by his own admission, he intends to grant Newman sanctions regardless of the evidence. When my former counsel discovered that the previous judge on the case, Judge Sosin, was a long-time close friend of Newman’s family, Judge Carroll commented for the record during a hearing that Judge Sosin in so many words “he finds the door “was weak for recusing himself from the case as a result of this obvious conflict of interest.
    This case is a public policy issue. Statutes put in place to protect unsupervised personal representatives in probate matters are being ignored. This case will affect thousands of individuals involved in probating and the personal representation of estates. Justice cannot possibly be served as long as a biased judge is allowed to defend a “vexatious litigant,” as Newman has been described by Judge Logan in Bradenton, Florida court. If there is any justice in the Marion County Superior Court Civil Division, this case against me will be dismissed with prejudice.

  4. Every affront to decency and every style adopted by criminals is not per se a constituttional violation. Only fools believe or espouse that.

  5. This was an unnecessary change in law, a needless fiddling with a tax that impacted very very few hoosiers, but one that erodes a tax base benefitting very many hoosiers. Just because some people wanted to chalk up a "tax cut" on their legislative brag-list, and didnt give a fig about replacing the revenue any other way. Really stupid. I am a republican my whole life and this just shames me like hell. I have to use a fake name over this because I know my fellow republicans are all brain washed over tax cutting too.

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