Indiana Legal Help looks ahead to what’s possible amid transition

After several years under the helm of the Indiana Bar Foundation, Indiana Legal Help is forging a new path.

Indiana Legal Help officially received its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status on Feb. 1.

The organization, which provides free and low-cost legal help to residents across the state, will now operate independently from the foundation, providing opportunities to “be more flexible, be more mobile and innovate even faster than it can when it’s in a larger organization,” said Mark Torma, new executive director of Indiana Legal Help.

After months of sifting through the bureaucratic steps of becoming an independent nonprofit, Indiana Legal Help is now ready to look ahead at how it can reach more people and innovate its offerings to continue bringing reliable, accessible resources to the state, Torma and others said.

The organization announced its transition to an independent nonprofit last March, with an anticipated transition date of July 1. But the change required more time, delaying the official move to Feb. 1.

While similar to Indiana Legal Services, which provides free civil legal services and representation to low-income Hoosiers, Indiana Legal Help serves all Hoosiers by providing 24/7 online access to legal forms and avenues to connect with legal representation around the state.

Securing legal access across the state

Originally established in 2018 as a program under the Indiana Bar Foundation, Indiana Legal Help was designed to offer free and low-cost legal support to Indiana residents with limited access to legal representation.

The organization proved to be a success, and as it found its footing, leaders with the foundation worked to develop innovative ways to reach more Hoosiers while maintaining the nonprofit’s mission.

One of those ideas blossomed in 2022, when the nonprofit’s first self-service kiosk was placed inside the Lawrence Township Small Claims Court in Indianapolis.

Supported by a two-year, $13.1 million grant from the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority, the bar foundation designed the kiosks to serve residents in each of the state’s 92 counties. The machines, which now boast 150 in number, offer residents access to Indiana Legal Help’s online resources at the touch of a screen.

The kiosk project advanced Indiana Legal Help’s growth even more, said Charles Dunlap, president and CEO of the Indiana Bar Foundation.

“It really gave us an opportunity to incubate this program even more and jump-start some of these things we wouldn’t have had the resources to do,” he said.

Indiana Legal Help is available 24/7 thanks to its online catalog of legal resources. Anyone with internet access can simply visit the nonprofit’s website, type in a ZIP code, and find local resources in housing, family law, immigration, expungement issues or other matters.

“There is also the ability to call in for a telephonic consult with a lawyer, one on one, not that we’re taking the case, not that we’re preparing the documents, but to give them advice about how they can move forward,” said Timothy Abeska, chair of the nonprofit’s board of directors and a retired attorney.

Now, the nonprofit has grown beyond what the foundation can support, and grant funding that supported it has dried up. Leaders decided Indiana Legal Help would benefit from a team of its own dedicated to the organization’s specific mission.

Dunlap said the nonprofit wanted to ensure its board was in place before officially making the switch, which included bringing in a new executive director, Torma.

Looking ahead

Torma was named executive director of the nonprofit in November. A graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School, Torma brings more than a decade of experience in expanding legal access to the role.

Upon graduating from law school, Torma pursued a fellowship with the Volunteer Lawyers Network in Minneapolis, where he developed the organization’s bankruptcy assistance program.

He then moved to Indiana, where he served eight years as executive director of the Volunteer Lawyer Network in South Bend. That organization has since expanded to serve several counties in northern Indiana.

Indiana Legal Help currently operates as a three-person team, not including its board of directors, so Torma is still looking to fill a few roles to help distribute tasks across the nonprofit.

The team also recently moved its operations into a new space on Michigan Street in Indianapolis.

The bar foundation will continue to support the nonprofit financially as it gets off the ground; Dunlap said the foundation has committed $1.5 million in Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts revenue to the organization. Torma said the money should fund the nonprofit until 2028 but they are working to develop separate sources of support. Eventually, Indiana Legal Help will apply for grant funding from the bar foundation like any other grantee.

In addition to support from the bar foundation, Torma said the nonprofit also received a $20,000 grant from the Indiana Judicial Branch’s Office of Judicial Administration for an e-filing pilot program.

Indiana Legal Help currently needs between $650,000 and $750,000 annually for its operations. That includes about $75,000 needed to operate the kiosk program. It previously cost about $150,000 per year to operate, but the nonprofit has found ways to reduce the cost to about $75,000 per year, Torma said.

After months of preparing Indiana Legal Help to stand on its own, Torma said he now feels ready to look ahead at how the nonprofit can evolve. The nonprofit plans to develop its own sustainable fundraising efforts within the next couple of years.

“I finally, this month, now have the bandwidth to look not just days and weeks but months ahead and plan for projects that are going to take a little more time,” he said.

One avenue the team is pursuing to serve more clients is building a portal applicants can use to apply for eviction sealing, Torma said. The nonprofit is currently working with a software developer to bring the idea to life.

Leaders are also seeking ways to take on more active legal assistance roles by meeting with court staff to determine how Indiana Legal Help’s services fit directly into the state’s
court system.

The team wants to build off the success of its self-service kiosks, too, using the experience garnered over the past few years to revamp the program to further serve Hoosiers’ needs.

As the state continues to wade through an ongoing attorney shortage, programs like the self-service kiosks are especially important, Abeska said.

“This is not a perfect world, but we’re trying to do our part to help make it better by giving pro bono litigants access to court forms and hopefully what they consider to be relatively uncomplicated research tools to figure out what they need when they are either pursuing a claim or defending against a claim, to give them a somewhat more level playing field and be less intimidated by the court system,” he said.•