Please sign our petition asking the Indiana Supreme Court to give equal opportunity to qualified foreign Lawyers to sit for the Indiana Bar Examination. 

To give you a little information about what is going on:
Indiana Admission and Discipline Rule 13, establishes the minimal educational prerequisites for the effective assistance of counsel in civil or criminal matters and cases in the State of Indiana, which minimal educational prerequisites shall be held by all persons admitted to the bar of this Court by written examination after the effective date of this rule.

Under Indiana Admission and Discipline Rule 13 (4), to sit for the Indiana Bar Examination, an applicant must prove to the Indiana Board of Law Examiners, that they:
a. Graduated from an American Bar Association (ABA) accredited Institution,
b. Have a letter from the Dean certifying that they completed the course required for graduation, and
c. Took at least 2 credit hours of Professional Responsibility at an approved institution.

For American applicants, that typically requires them to fulfill a first degree in law (a JD or LL.B degree), including at least 2 credit hours of Professional Responsibility, at an ABA accredited institution, in order to sit for the Indiana Bar.

The ABA, specifically the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar of the American Bar Association, is authorized by the Department of Education to accredit Law Schools, only in the US. ABA accredited law schools are often times, upon approval by the ABA, able to offer other degree programs, that are not officially accredited by the ABA. These degree programs can be “non-JD degrees”, meant for non-lawyers seeking some legal knowledge, without a full legal education. Other degree programs are “post-JD degrees”, meant to further a lawyer’s education after receiving a first degree in law beforehand. “Post-JD degrees” include Masters of Law, or LL.M degrees, and Doctor of Science of Law, or SJD / JSD degrees.

Not all ABA accredited institutions offer "post-JD degrees”, but most ABA accredited institutions that do offer “post-JD degrees” require lawyer applicants to have a minimum level of legal education to be admitted into those programs. Specifically, most “post-JD” programs require applicants to have already received either a JD (or LL.B.) from an ABA accredited institution, or a “foreign equivalent”, in order to be admitted. This requirement, an ABA JD or foreign equivalent, ensures that ABA institutions do not discriminate on the basis of national origin.

Many of the lawyers who pursue Post-JD degrees in American Bar Association accredited law schools come from diverse backgrounds; however, basic legal concepts are taught throughout the world. Many foreign lawyers who come to ABA accredited schools for “post-JD degrees” come from English speaking, constitutional, common law countries. This means they have received a primary legal education that is substantially equivalent to an ABA accredited JD. The problem for foreign born and educated lawyers is that the ABA is only authorized by the US government to accredited law schools in the US. So foreign applicants, who received their first law degree from the countries where they were born, cannot have a first law degree from an ABA accredited institution, because there are no foreign ABA accredited law schools. 

Foreign lawyers frequently attend ABA accredited institutions to further their legal education, after receiving their first law degree, a JD equivalent, from their home countries. When they do this they are often taught in classes with American JD students, and are offered many of the same classes as their American JD classmates, including Professional Responsibility. Therefore it is possible for foreign lawyers to graduate with a post-JD degree, from an ABA accredited institution, having taken Professional Responsibility at the approved law school, meeting the written requirements of IN Admission and Discipline Rule 13 (4).

Swati Pradeep is an Indian Lawyer, who received a B.A. LL.B (Hons) from O.P. Jindal Global University Law School, the top private law school of India. She then attended IU Robert H. McKinney School of Law, an ABA accredited Law School, as an LL.M student, and during her two years, she completed 3 credit hours of Professional Responsibility. Swati fell in love with one of her American JD classmates, and they got married in 2017. Her husband graduated in May 2017, and applied to sit for the July 2017 Indiana bar examination. Given that he graduated from IU McKinney, submitted a letter from Dean Andy Klien certifying that he completed the course required for graduation, and completed 3 credit hours of professional responsibility, he was permitted to sit for the bar. He passed the bar and became a licensed attorney in Indiana in October of 2017.

Swati graduated from her LL.M program in May of 2018, and decided she wanted to stay here in the United States, specifically in Indiana, with her family. Swati became a legal permanent resident, authorized to work in the United States, now has 7 years of legal education, and two law degrees, a first law degree from her home country, and a post-JD degree from IU McKinney. In early 2018, Swati applied to sit for the Indiana Bar given she graduated from IU McKinney, submitted a letter from Dean Andy Klien certifying that she completed the course required for graduation, and completed 3 credit hours of professional responsibility. Given that she had the exact same qualifying factors under Rule 13 (4) as her husband, she was shocked when she received different treatment. 

The Indiana Board of Law examiners (the Board), and subsequently, the Indiana Supreme Court have denied her application to sit for the bar saying she has not met the requirement of Rule 13 (4)(a), being a graduate of an ABA accredited institution. When Swati pointed out that she had graduated with an LL.M degree from an ABA accredited institution, the Board changed the rule, in their interpretation, in order to require graduation from an “ABA accredited program”, which generally only includes JD programs. The only non-JD program that the ABA accredits is an LL.M. of Military Law at the army JAG law school.

Even though Swati, a foreign lawyer, has already passed the “ABA accredited JD” level of education requirement, in order to be admitted to a “post-JD”, LL.M program at IU McKinney, an ABA accredited institution, she is being denied equal opportunity to sit for the Indiana bar exam on the basis that she has not established the same level of education necessary to sit for the bar.

Indiana decided in 1893, in a case called In Re Leach, that interpreting the rules to exclude women from the practice of law, when the written rule did not prohibit them from practicing, solely because that is how we had always done it, was discriminatory and illegal. Sadly, in 2019, it was a woman Chief Justice, Lorretta Rush, who signed the order, effectively overturning that decision, making it ok to interpret the rules for who is permitted to take the bar exam, in a way that discriminates against qualified lawyers on the basis of their nation of origin.

We are not asking for Swati or other foreign lawyers to be given special treatment. We do not expect her to be admitted to practice law just because she is a lawyer in India; however, we do want her to be given equal opportunity to take the same test all other lawyers must take to practice law in Indiana. To get into her LL.M. program Swati needed to demonstrate minimal education by either an ABA accredited JD, or a foreign equivalent. We only ask that Indiana not change the rule of who can sit for the bar examination, and allow Swati, and other qualified foreign applicants, who have shown the minimal level of education by either an ABA accredited JD, or a foreign equivalent, and meeting the requirements of the written rule, to have equal opportunity.
 
Thank you for taking the time to read our story, and we hope you will sign our petition asking Indiana to give foreign lawyers equal opportunity to sit for the Indiana Bar Examination.