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In 2026, the city of Indianapolis will welcome a new charter school out of Chicago that offers a unique perspective on secondary education.
The Legal Prep Charter Academy plans to open its doors in Indianapolis for the 2026-27 school year. The original campus, the first of its kind in Chicago, serves both students interested in pursuing law as a career and those who aren’t, or perhaps don’t know yet.
“We really kind of use the law as a hook for learning and focus on lawyerly skills like critical thinking, analytical reasoning, persuasive writing and oral advocacy, things that will help kids regardless of what they want to do,” said Sam Finkelstein, CEO and co-founder of Legal Prep.
Law-based curriculum
Unlike its Windy City counterpart, which teaches grades nine through 12, Indianapolis’s campus will serve students in sixth through 12th grades.
And while it sounds as though the school’s curriculum heavily prioritizes law-focused classes, Finkelstein said the experience can be compared to many other middle and high schools.
In sixth grade, for example, students’ law education focuses on civic education, not unlike the current requirement for the rest of students across the state, he said.
As students advance in school, the legal-based classes become more focused and challenging.
In ninth grade, students take what Finkelstein calls a law survey class, which takes a broad look at several areas of the legal profession. By sophomore year, the students engage in a law and literature class, reading novels with justice-driven themes and participating in Socratic seminars.
And during their junior and senior years, students’ classes will integrate the “hard skills” of the law.
“They’re getting sort of dual credit for both high school and college, and those are classes like constitutional law, criminal procedure, [and] criminology,” Finkelstein said.
Along with classroom work, students in Chicago receive one-on-one experiences with legal professionals in the city. Attorneys at Faegre Drinker’s Chicago office, for example, run a negotiations program once a month for ninth-graders, concluding with a negotiations competition at the end of the school year.
The school also brings students downtown once a month to meet with attorney volunteers and other professionals tied to the field.
Not every student comes in wanting to go to law school, and not all of them leave with the same goal. But leaders believe that many of the skills students learn through law-based classes are applicable for all types of career paths.
“When you’re talking about lawyerly skills, that ability to think critically and really take that information that can be given to you but then apply it to a different set of facts,” Finkelstein said. “That type of thinking really prepares our students well for whatever they may come upon.”
“This is getting them involved with different activities that causes them to think, causes them to grow their critical thinking skills and analytical skills that will really translate to life after high school, life after college, in whatever field that they choose to go through,” said Joseph Williams, Founding Principal of Legal Prep Chicago.
Why Indianapolis?
When it came to selecting an expansion city, Legal Prep leaders decided early on that Indianapolis would be an ideal community to plant roots.
“We wanted a robust legal community that was going to support the idea, because we do have a lot of programs that do rely on volunteers,” Finkelstein said. “And when we started to talk to people in Indianapolis in particular, there was a ton of excitement about it.”
Though a location for the school has not yet been selected, leaders are hoping to establish themselves in the downtown area, close to some of the state’s largest firms and courts.
As they’ve done in Chicago, leaders have already started building connections with several law firms in the Indianapolis area, such as Faegre Drinker and Ice Miller.
“I think that we’re going to need more and more institutions that are dedicated to ensuring that the children in the city have a place to learn that will help set them up for the next phase of their lives, whether that be at college or in the workforce,” said Drew Magee, an associate at Faegre Drinker who also serves on Legal Prep Indy’s organization board.
“And I think that Legal Prep Indy bolsters what’s already available in the city, but with a really unique mission and purpose,” Magee added.
Being in Indianapolis also would give the school an opportunity to interact with the Robert H. McKinney School of Law.
Finkelstein also sees Indy as a perfect “big, small town,” where several leaders run in similar circles, especially in the education and legal fields. He wanted a city that was robust enough for the school’s goals and close enough to Chicago so leaders there can be close by to launch the new campus.
“We do want to make sure we do the first one right and get it launched the right way. But there are definitely some other cities that I think would be really a good fit for what we do,” Finkelstein said.
To help get Indy’s campus off the ground, Williams will be moving to Indianapolis to serve as the school’s principal. He’s looking forward to making the move to continue supporting Legal Prep’s mission.
“I felt like there were people out there [in Indianapolis] who were already doing the work, and I can just be an addition to what’s already been done,” he said. “And so I’m just always, like, excited to be around people who are passionate about serving the youth, and I think that’s already something that’s in Indianapolis.” •
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