Indiana Legal Services, Inc.
Equal Access to Justice
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
For people facing civil legal challenges, such as unlawful evictions, foreclosure, domestic abuse, or wrongful denial of government assistance, navigating the justice system without a lawyer can be impossible. However, unlike the Sixth Amendment right to counsel in criminal proceedings, courts have not recognized a right to a lawyer in the vast majority of civil cases. This puts justice out of reach for low-income people, and undermines a fundamental principle of our nation, that: the amount of money a person has should not determine the quality of justice they receive. For many, civil legal aid is the difference between keeping their homes or being forced out onto the street. Civil legal aid reduces domestic violence by helping victims achieve independence and escape violent situations. Early legal interventions prevent more serious problems down the road. It’s like preventative health care. When legal aid is able to address problems early, it prevents problems from escalating.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic
Low Income Taxpayer Clinic (LITC) goal is to represent, educate, and advocate on behalf of Hoosier taxpayers to ensure that all Indiana residents are able to know, understand, and exercise theirfundamental rightsas taxpayers.
Our Tax Clinic serves the community by providing FREE legal assistance to Indiana taxpayers involved in disputes with IRS, including:
Audits/ Exams
Appeals
Collection Issues
Innocent spouse relief
Tax-related identity theft
Worker misclassification
Earned Income Tax Credit
Filing status disputes, and more.
Immigrants' and Language Rights Center (ILRC)
Immigrants and Language Rights Center (ILRC) to reach vulnerable and underserved immigrant and limited English proficient populations within Indiana. These populations have particular difficulties accessing legal services because of their language and cultural barriers. They may also have legal issues that are different than other legal service clients. ILRC works to reduce these barriers to services by employing different means to reach these groups and provide them with quality legal services.
Military Assistance Project (MAP)
Military Assistance Project (MAP) assists income-eligible veteran and need legal advice or representation, the Military Assistance Project (MAP) can help. Free of charge, we offer assistance for: Adult guardianship; advance directive/simple wills; access/correct military records; child support, custody, visitation modification; divorces limited circumstances; drivers license restoration; veteran eviction avoidance; criminal record expungement; military discharge upgrades; public benefits, food stamps, SSI, unemployment, poor relief, TANF; VA overpayments; and incarcerated veteran re-entry.
Legal Assistance for Victimized Adults (LAVA) Project
Legal Assistance for Victimized Adults (LAVA) Project - LAVA provides legal representation to Indiana seniors and endangered adults who have suffered abuse, neglect or exploitation, including criminal financial exploitation. Our purpose is to ease or eliminate the negative effects of these crimes by providing free civil legal services. Additionally, LAVA provides law-related education and proactive programs designed to empower seniors and endangered adults.
LGBT Project
LGBT Project The LGBT Project provides free legal advice, information and representation to LGBT individuals throughout Indiana. Common issues we help with:
Name and Gender Marker Changes
Insurance coverage of gender-affirming treatment and services
Divorce and family recognition
Bullying, education, and youth issues
Discrimination
Workers Rights and Protection Project (WRAPP)
Workers Rights and Protection Project (WRAPP) WRAPP is a statewide program that provides know-your-rights education to vulnerable communities, including immigrants and migrant farmworkers, and provides advice, brief services and/or direct representation to clients on matters related to their employment or exploitation.
Senior Law Project (SLP)
Senior Law Project (SLP) SLP provides legal representation to persons 60 and over in Central Indiana and any residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Legal services provided by the project include estate planning, public benefits, housing, consumer, and family law.
Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLP)
Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLP) ILSs MLPs provide civil legal services to the patients of health care providers and focus on legal issues related to social and environmental factors known to have a negative effect on health outcomes. The MLPs use legal remedies to eliminate or reduce the negative impact of these factors.
Where we work
External reviews
Videos
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Reports and documents
Download strategic planLearn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Legal aid programs work to ensure fairness in the justice system. Almost 47 million people, and more than one in five children, live in or near poverty in the United States. Legal aid providers work protect the rights of millions of Americans with low-income each year in areas such as housing, consumer, family, education and employment, and defend access to services for people of all backgrounds, including children, veterans, victims of domestic violence, the elderly, and those living with disabilities.
Legal assistance is often the only lifeline available to people facing life-altering consequences, such as losing their home, employment, or custody of their children. Legal aid lawyers advocate for clients in a variety of matters outside of court, litigate on their behalf in court, and often lead complex legal actions seeking systemic changes that affect large numbers of people facing similar circumstances.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Indiana Legal Services, Inc. operates under a strategic plan. The plan helps to make sure the organization achieves its vision and goals. ILS vision is to provide dignity, fairness, and equality for all people under the law.
Our work will be guided and informed by our beliefs and commitments to:
Courage in our legal work and advocacy positions
Compassion for clients and colleagues
Dignity and respect for our clients, colleagues, and all people we
encounter
Inclusiveness and diversity in all aspects of our organization and work
Collegiality in working with one another
Partnerships with the communities we serve
Adaptability in responding to changes in the legal landscape
Strategy in addressing problems facing our client community
There are four specific goals in the 2022-2025 Strategic Plan:
Goal 1: Ensure all aspects of our work are grounded in racial equity.
Goal 2: Uniformly deliver excellent representation to our clients.
Goal 3: Advocate for clients and client communities, especially marginalized
populations, to ensure just outcomes.
Goal 4: Attract and retain superior talent throughout the organization.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Indiana Legal Services and other legal aid providers lead the legal profession when it comes to innovations and new technology, making it easier for all Americans to access information and know their rights. Creative programs, from easy-to-understand forms to legal self-help centers, are benefiting the civil justice system by making legal proceedings more accessible and efficient for all.
ILS works to form broad and creative partnerships with service providers such as the courts, local, state, and federal government, community-based organizations, and others to share resources and coordinate service delivery to leverage scarce resources. We have lawyers dedicated to improving their communities and providing access to the legal system. We also leverage limited resources by partnering with pro bono attorneys and other volunteers who donate their time.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
In 2022, we served more than 15,000 clients statewide, the most ever. We continued to represent many clients in family law matters (32% of 2022 case closings), but for the first time we closed almost as many housing cases (31% of case closings). Our lawyers continued to represent individuals and families in evictions across the state, drawing on federal funds provided through the Indiana Bar Foundation and Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority. We staffed eviction-day clinics in courthouses across the state, assisting people faced with loss of their rental housing and helping to avoid eviction in more than 700 cases. We also began to use a new state law to seal certain eviction case records from public access, which will assist our clients in getting future housing.
We strive to increase the number of clients we are able to serve, while ensuring that the quality of our services maintain the highest standards. We will continue advocating for our clients in the courts, educating the community and further developing strategic partnerships to extend our services and limited resources.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We share the feedback we received with the people we serve, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback, We ask the people who gave us feedback how well they think we responded
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Indiana Legal Services, Inc.
Board of directorsas of 01/30/2024
LaDonna Sims
Shirley Adams
Kristina Carlson
Phyllis Carr
Geraldine Carter-White
Kimberly Duell
Samantha Edwards
Jerome Ezell
Karen Gabbard
David Guerrettaz
Kristen Harmon
Harry Johnson
Karen Moses
Aviva Orenstein
Kathy Osborn
Steven Palmquist
Randy Rompola
Fred Schultz
Carol-Ann Seaton
Nellie Simbol
LaDonna Sims
Cynthia Phillips Smith
Judy Stanton
Kristin Steckbeck
Sylvia Tapp
Mildred Williams
LaShung Willis
Scott Wylie
Kayla Britton
Ryan Gardner
Adedoyin (Doyin) Gomih
Lisa Garcia Reger
Ernesto (Chico) Reyes
Dana Rifai
Jessica Szabo
Tabitha Villarrubia
Kayla Welch
Rosetta White
Amber Ying
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
No data
Gender identity
No data
Transgender Identity
No data
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data