Pro bono fund raising OK'd

INDIANAPOLIS -- A U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding a practice to raise money for legal services for the poor should help preserve pro bono programs across Indiana, a state Supreme Court official said Wednesday.\n"We're still reviewing the opinion, but it looks very promising for Indiana efforts to give pro bono legal help for the poor," said David Remondini, counsel to the court's chief justice.\nThe ruling released Wednesday came in a challenge of a Washington state program that closely resembles an Indiana project. Indiana's program has generated $2.1 million since October 1999 for pro bono work, Remondini said.\nThe figure includes $400,000 distributed statewide in January through a program run by the state Supreme Court, the Indiana State Bar Association and its charitable arm. The cash is distributed to 14 district programs covering the entire state.\nThe money comes from short-term interest earned on escrow accounts that lawyers set up to handle clients' real estate transactions and other deals.\nLawyers maintain that it's cheaper and easier to combine money into large trust accounts than to set up individual accounts for each client.\nWashington state's program was challenged as an unconstitutional taking in violation of the Fifth Amendment, which says property shall not be taken for public use without fair compensation.\nThe court on Tuesday upheld the program in a 5-4 decision, rejecting a challenge by a conservative public interest law firm, the Washington Legal Foundation. A ruling the other way would have wiped out about $200 million generated each year for lawyers who represent the indigent in civil cases.\nThe decision "will enable all the partners in our pro bono effort to focus our efforts to ensure that the lack of funds is never a bar to the courtrooms of Indiana," said Randall T. Shepard, chief justice of the state Supreme Court.