Indianapolis Office of Corporation Counsel grapples with litigator ‘drought’

The Indianapolis Office of Corporation Counsel is facing a higher-than-usual volume of cases and is scrambling to find litigators to handle them.

The office, which provides legal services at the city and county level, currently lists seven vacancies in its nine-position litigation division and has been paying for outside counsel to help handle the workload.

“We are going through a drought of litigation attorneys,” Corporation Counsel Brandon Beeler told the City-County Council’s Administration and Finance Committee during a recent hearing.

The city is raising salaries and trying to recruit more talent, in part by touting the courtroom experience these positions offer. But it faces strong competition, and Beeler said the office is considering easing an experience requirement and changing how it is structured if staffing doesn’t improve by next year.

“I’ve had conversations with my personal network of attorneys practicing different areas of law, working with them to see if it makes sense to convert the (office) to what I will call a ‘big firm model’ where we convert positions to more dock review-based,” Beeler explained during the hearing. “That way, someone maybe straight out of law school will be able to start shadowing, going to those (court) hearings.”

Defending the city

The Office of Corporation Counsel has three divisions: city prosecutors who handle code violations, counselors who advise government agencies about legal matters and litigators who defend the city in court. The latter can involve cases pertaining to police complaints, personal injury lawsuits or civil rights lawsuits.

The office has increased a portion of its 2027 budget by $38,000 to hire outside counsel to help handle this workload. A chart Beeler presented at the recent hearing listed only one attorney serving under Chief Litigation Counsel Kiely Keesler, with the rest of the positions being vacant.

A litigator position with the office currently requires at least two years of post-law school experience. Beeler explained the requirement was put in place to ensure a lawyer had experience handling Section 1983 cases and any other high-liability case.

Section 1983 is a federal statute that allows citizens to sue government entities and employees for depriving the plaintiff of their constitutional rights, according to the University of Minnesota Law Library.

Lawyers who have two to five years of experience are highly sought after, according to Karley Clayton, assistant dean for professional development at Indiana University’s Robert H. McKinney School of Law.

“Those candidates have many options, so, if you’re competing against firms that maybe have different starting salaries, benefits, it’s going to be harder,” Clayton said.

Searching for solutions

Clayton believes eliminating the two-year experience requirement would help the office fill positions. She noted that law students entering the job market are interested in municipal litigation and want to be connected to these kinds of opportunities.

“As a career services office, we are in contact with all our graduates who are still job seeking, and most of them are targeting Indianapolis. That’s where they want to build their careers,” she explained.

Approximately 44 of IU McKinney’s nearly 200 graduates from the Class of 2025 cited “government” as their source of employment, according to data provided by the law school.

Beeler agreed that Clayton’s idea could be worthwhile but said his office has not gone that far yet. He also noted that candidates with more than two years of experience would be better equipped for more nuanced, high-liability cases the city can face.

Recruiting challenges

Indianapolis’ Office of Corporation Counsel faces some disadvantages in recruiting attorneys. A litigator position comes with lower pay than a corporate position and a hefty caseload.

Beeler told The Indiana Lawyer that, as of Aug. 28, his office was handling about 65 cases, about 10 more than were filed at the same time last year.

Starting pay for litigators has been in the $80,000 range but recently increased to around $92,000, according to Beeler.

Salary increases were part of Beeler’s immediate plan, which he noted was within his department’s budget. He figured offering litigators salaries that are similar to what municipal attorneys in other areas make would attract applicants.

“We knew we had to get the litigation-specific salaries up to something competitive. We were able to update those salaries and got those listed last month,” he told city officials last month. “We’re finally getting bites again.”

Beeler started working with the Office of Corporation Counsel in 2022. He served as deputy chief litigation counsel briefly before becoming chief litigation counsel in December 2022.

He noted that the counsel’s legal team had a similar number of litigator vacancies then, but he said those positions were filled because the department had a large applicant pool to pick from unlike now.

“We never really had a problem getting resumes or getting applicants to the point where we screened through them,” he said. “We’d get like 15 a week.”

Possible new approach

Beeler noted the office has not implemented the “big firm” model yet. It is just in the thought stage.

Once an entry level attorney works their way up to being a litigator, it becomes a very fast-moving position.

“This is a job where day one you could be expected to go do a hearing in federal court, go defend a deposition, be writing a reply brief for a dispositive motion,” he said. “You’re the head of your case as soon as you start. You do everything, and so you get really good experience.”

“That’s why people want to work here. You get really marketable skills after couple years of working here,” Beeler continued.

The office takes a similar approach when using outside counsel. Beeler also noted that outside counsel brought in for litigator duties mentor staff attorneys.

Beeler said his office typically acts as a launchpad for young attorneys, who stay for about two years to get some experience before moving on to a different job.

He noted that at least four of the litigators that recently departed are now employed at law firms.

Building a pipeline

Clayton said the city recently reached out to IU McKinney’s career services office.

“They will be coming to our government and public interest mixer, which usually has about 70 students in attendance,” she said … “I know that this is definitely on their radar. They are definitely exploring how to fill that talent pipeline.”

Clayton hopes the city will at some point offer students paid externships, where they can receive real-world experience while being supervised by a law school faculty member.

“An internship can also be an externship,” she explained. “Right now, at McKinney, students cannot count any experience at a law firm as an externship. It needs to be either with a court, government public interest, like the Marion County Public Defender Agency or the prosecutor’s office. … In-house roles. Those types of things are eligible for externship credit.”

Clayton also recommended that Beeler’s office should get a jump on scouting talent. She said IU McKinney hosts on campus interviews each fall and spring term where potential employers speak with students about job opportunities.

It is especially important for soon-to-be graduates who are looking to secure full-time work.

“They’re (upcoming grads) interviewing for jobs in August, and they won’t start until next August,” she explained. “If you are late to that game, a lot of the talent is already off the market.” •