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Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Ind. Law - Gary Legal Services group providing free legal services in Jasper County

Dave Ake of The Rensselaer Republican reports:

Jasper County residents in need of a legal clarification or unable to afford the advice they may need to represent themselves, now have an alternative.

Attorneys Gale Carmona and Sean Newberry of Indiana Legal Services, a pro se clinic based in Gary, are currently providing free legal services once a month to Jasper County.

“There is an initiative from the Indiana Supreme Court to provide 50 hours of pro bono service a year,” Carmona said.
One must understand, in the sometimes cloudy world of legal terms, there is what is referred to as ‘pro se’ and ‘pro bono’. Pro se is when a defendant appeals to their right for self representation. Pro bono is when a lawyer takes a case free of charge.

On Thursday, Newberry and Carmona met with several people to answer questions they may have had regarding legal issues such as the plethora of forms a person may be required to fill out in the judicial system. In some other cases, a person may choose to go pro se and the Legal Clinic can also help them through that process.

“I need clarification on a child support order. I read about the free legal services in the paper. Karen Craig encouraged me to come up and see about it. Last time I spent over $4,000 and lost. That money is gone and it did no good,” a client stated last week.
The attorneys were there to help answer simple, but not always easy, questions that may have otherwise cost a citizen hundreds of dollars in legal fees. It should also be noted that the legal team does speak Spanish.

“Sometimes the biggest thing they need on there [downloaded legal forms] is just a cause number,” Newberry said. * * *

The program started when Carmona asked Jasper County Superior Court Judge Philip McGraw for his approval on the program. Having known each other for a long time, McGraw gave Carmona his approval and the Legal Clinic was born.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 4, 2007 01:43 PM
Posted to Indiana Law