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New Indiana Trial Lawyers Association President Fred Schultz is looking at a challenging year ahead but seeing opportunities. The group’s most recent challenge was organizing a gathering for a key annual event last month in light of social distancing due to COVID-19.
“It was ITLA’s Lifetime Achievement Seminar, one of our bigger events every year,” said Schultz, a Bloomington attorney and name partner in Greene & Schultz. “The real challenge for this event was converting it from a live event to an online event in less than two weeks. In that short time span, our ITLA staff had to work through the contracts, organize 40-plus speakers, create an opportunity for the 30-plus exhibitors and sponsors that they thought were of value, market the online seminar to our members, and recognize two award winners.”
But ITLA found a way, conducting a virtual seminar in which hundreds of people joined and participated remotely.
Schultz said those connections are ITLA’s strength, whether it’s lawyer-to-lawyer or being recognized as a leading nonpartisan advocate for consumers at the Statehouse.
“Even if you do a little bit of plaintiffs personal injury work, the thing you get from the Indiana Trial Lawyers Association you wouldn’t get anywhere else is the ability to pick up the phone and talk to 10 lawyers about what they would do in this situation, what they would do in that situation, all of whom would gladly share whatever information they have,” he said. “… That’s distinctly different from any other association.”
After growing up in Huntington and graduating from Butler University, Schultz went to Bloomington to attend Indiana University Maurer School of Law. “I just fell in love with the town,” he said.
While in law school, he also fell in love with a classmate who became Jennifer Schultz, an Arkansas native who also is a licensed attorney.
Schultz recently shared his thoughts on the year ahead during his term as ITLA president.
Q. What are your goals during your year as ITLA president?
A. My main goal this year is to focus on membership. I want lawyers from all walks of life, backgrounds, age, race, gender and orientation to know that if you represent people against corporations, there is a place for you with the Indiana Trial Lawyers Association. ITLA can help you become the lawyer you want to be.
What are some big concerns you hear from ITLA members amid the COVID-19 public health emergency?
COVID-19 has caused many concerns for everyone, including ITLA members. We are all focused on being as safe as possible. In this climate, it is impossible to conduct business as usual. One perfect example is that our annual spring seminar took place in early May. We weren’t sure if people would be willing to attend, but well over 200 members signed up. Overall, we had a good experience. It was not perfect, and certainly not preferable to having the seminar in person, but it worked.
How would you say the actual work of trial lawyers has most been affected by COVID-19?
The biggest impact of COVID-19 on our work has been the uncertainty of how and when civil jury trials will take place. We have a committee of ITLA members monitoring various proposals for how trial judges can best conduct jury trials in this environment. We are coordinating with other professional legal associations and have offered our input to the judicial committees who are ultimately responsible for implementing any changes. Ultimately, we are working to keep the wheels of justice moving, but keeping everyone involved safe along the way.
What’s something you get from your association with ITLA that you can get nowhere else?
An unbelievable amount of free advice from a bunch of excellent lawyers. It doesn’t matter whether I have a question about an upcoming trial, a deposition, a summary judgment motion or an expert, there is a culture of sharing information with our fellow members that simply does not exist in any other organization. Being a member of the Indiana Trial Lawyers Association is like being a member of a law firm with 900 other lawyers.
What’s been the proudest moment in your career?
Without a doubt, becoming president of ITLA is right there at the top. It’s humbling to hear my name mentioned with so many great lawyers who have come before me. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve in this position for a year and do my best to help keep pushing forward on the mission of our organization.
What’s the most important part of ITLA’s work, in your opinion?
I believe ITLA is the most important voice protecting Indiana consumers, both at the Statehouse and in our courthouses. We are naturally associated with personal injury law, which is the majority of what our membership does. However, our members don’t just represent people involved in car wrecks, premises liability or medical malpractice cases. They also practice in all manner of insurance litigation, product liability, wage-and-hour litigation, employment law, consumer protection law, civil rights, workplace safety, class actions and even anti-trust litigation. I’m extremely proud of our ITLA staff and their ability to talk with our state lawmakers and convey the importance of seemingly small nuances in proposed legislation. Indiana consumers are safer because of the sustained, hard work of ITLA and its members. We fight to make the law fair for the people of Indiana, and then we fight to enforce those laws every day.
If you could change one Indiana law, what would that be?
I think it is time to raise the wrongful death cap on damages for adults without dependents. It has been limited to $300,000 for roughly 20 years. It’s arbitrarily low, so much so that we may be looking at a constitutional challenge if it is not increased. Why should legislation passed 20 years ago still tell us all what the very lives of our friends and family members are worth when they are killed due to the fault of someone else?
The term “adult without dependents” includes someone’s brother, father, mother, sister, son or daughter. Why are our loved ones worth such an arbitrarily low number just because they no longer require financial support? A father and mother cannot imagine the loss of their child, regardless of whether they are 16 or 26. The traumatic taking of a parent should not be limited because the parent is 65 years old. The stories our clients share with us about their loved ones are the same. The photos and videos tell the same story, regardless of the financial dependency. The pain and loss are the same. We add insult to injury when we limit the loss like we do in Indiana.
If you weren’t an attorney, what do you imagine you’d be doing?
When I was in high school I loved to play the drums. I even marched one summer for a drum & bugle corps out of Chicago. I considered studying music instead of going into law. Maybe I’d be a drummer in a rock band?•
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