The Indiana Lawyer Podcast with Maura Johnson

Some Indiana charter schools are weighing one-year agreements amid uncertainty over funding, transportation and school buildings. Heather Harris, chair of Barnes & Thornburg's Charter School and School Innovation Practice Group, explains the legal work behind school partnerships and the uncertainty facing her clients.

Harris traces her involvement in education policy to negotiations over Indiana's first charter school law, describing the political compromise that helped it pass. A first-generation college student who grew up with few school options, she explains why preserving choices for families has remained central to her work.

With some innovation agreements set to expire June 30, 2027, Harris discusses renewal negotiations with Indianapolis Public Schools and changes involving Enroll Indy. She also outlines the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation's anticipated role in school facilities and transportation, and the challenge of sharing costs across schools with different buildings, enrollment and student needs.

The  conversation also covers the Institute for Quality Education, Harris' shift from opposing vouchers to supporting broader school choice, and scholarship tax credits. She considers when schools might benefit from combining operations, finding a partner or closing a building so more resources can reach classrooms.

For attorneys, Harris points to discounted legal services, pro bono work and school board service as ways to support students and families. She describes what serving on a board taught her about budgets and governance, and why schools need lawyers willing to contribute their time and experience.

Solo law firm survival can depend on cash reserves, getting paid and knowing when to bring in co-counsel. Patrick Olmstead, an attorney who leads the solo law firm Patrick Olmstead Law LLC, explains how he built a practice serving lawyers while learning the business realities of running a firm. He traces his career from Thompson Coburn in St. Louis to Hoover Hull in Indiana, then describes the challenges of opening his own practice: setting up systems, collecting fees, pricing matters and rebuilding his reputation without a larger firm's name behind him. He credits the Indiana State Bar Association's General Practice, Solo & Small Firm Section with connecting him to mentors and experienced lawyers willing to co-counsel on unfamiliar matters. The conversation also covers his board game law practice, including work involving designer Martin Wallace and Eagle-Gryphon Games. His advice for lawyers considering solo or small-firm practice is practical: Keep overhead low, know your weaknesses, use co-counsel when necessary, hire only when revenue is consistent and plan for retirement.

Big law recruiting now has some students committing to two summers at a firm after just one semester of law school. Anne Newton McFadden, dean of students at Indiana University Maurer School of Law in Bloomington, talks with Indiana Lawyer Podcast host Maura Johnson about applications opening in October and offers arriving in January for jobs that may not begin for another year and a half.

McFadden explains how the shift away from on-campus interviews has given firms more control over recruiting and opened doors for students beyond the schools those firms traditionally visited. She also describes the pressure to choose a career before exploring other options, the limits of hiring based on one semester of grades and the potential for mismatches between students and employers.

At Maurer, that pressure has prompted career programming before students arrive on campus, including networking instruction, resume resources and 20-minute resume reviews. About two-thirds of the incoming class used the reviews. Required advising meetings and informational interviews help first-year students assess their interests, values and career options.

The conversation also covers two-summer commitments, recruiting at smaller firms and government offices, and a Bloomberg Law opinion piece proposing state supreme court intervention. McFadden questions how such rules could be enforced and considers whether hiring mismatches could eventually slow the process. She closes with concerns about student mental health and declining participation in journals and moot court.

Opera voice training can help lawyers sound more confident, grounded and persuasive by changing how they breathe, stand and use resonance in a room.

Anne Fuchs, founder of Foxy Opera LLC and senior director of fellowship and statewide civics initiatives at the Mitch Daniels Leadership Foundation, explains how classical vocal technique became a framework for professional communication. She traces her start in a church choir, formal voice lessons at 13 and opera studies before a legal job introduced her to the professional world that would later become an early audience for her coaching.

After four years with the Court of Appeals of Indiana, Fuchs describes the courtroom moment that crystallized the idea: watching an attorney argue while standing on one leg, then hearing the argument strengthen once the speaker planted both feet. From there, the conversation moves through posture, breath support, vocal tract alignment, resonance and the difference between sounding loud and being heard clearly.

She also explains why confidence can be trained as a physical skill, why recorded voices sound unfamiliar because of bone conduction, and how singers learn not to trust what they hear inside their own heads. A live exercise shows how posture, breathing and connected sound can change vocal presence in real time.

The discussion also covers private coaching for attorneys, work with leadership, human resources and sales teams, finding a speaker's natural tessitura, using songs to reshape vocal habits, and planning breaths so complex legal arguments stay clear for judges and juries. Fuchs also discusses presentations through the National Institute for Trial Advocacy and the legal community's early support for Foxy Opera.

Indiana paralegals Monica D. Dabio and Dawn Edmondson explain how litigation work, AI tools and professional networks shape a career built on research, organization and problem-solving.

Dabio, a paralegal at Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP and past president of the Indiana Paralegal Association, and Edmondson, a paralegal at Bose McKinney & Evans LLP and president of the association, trace the different paths that brought them into the profession. They describe the appeal of digging into case facts, learning new industries and using technology to manage increasingly complex litigation.

Their work can include collecting and reviewing documents, tracking deadlines, preparing deposition materials, drafting discovery, organizing exhibits and supporting evidence presentation at trial. They also explain how AI is being used for deposition summaries, audio transcription, research and comparisons of witness and exhibit lists, while stressing the need for human review, security vetting and training.

The conversation also looks at the Indiana Paralegal Association's role in networking, continuing education, student outreach and career development. Dabio and Edmondson discuss internships, legal assistant roles and other ways new paralegals can gain experience, plus how professional relationships can open doors throughout a career.

They also preview IPA's annual silent auction benefiting Outside the Box Inc., and explain how members and prospective members can connect through monthly meetings, the association's job bank and volunteer committees.

Flora Legal Group grew 250% in two years while keeping its original mission: protecting immigrants' rights and helping clients build more prosperous lives.

Attorney Jason Flora opened the firm in 2009 in a tiny office on the west side of Indianapolis, near Hispanic-run car lots, Honduran restaurants and Guatemalan grocery stores. Fluent in Spanish, he spent the early years as a solo practitioner, working 60 hours or more each week and regularly driving between his office and immigration court in Chicago.

The practice has since expanded to 23 attorneys and nearly 140 full-time employees handling thousands of cases each year. In May, it ranked No. 3 on IBJ's list of the region's fastest-growing companies, based on two-year growth of 250%.

Flora explains how limited interest from recruiters at established law firms helped push him toward a street-level practice. He also describes the shift that came with growth, realizing he could create more value by building the organization than by spending every hour practicing law himself.

The conversation between IBJ Podcast host Mason King and Flora traces the firm's evolution from a one-man operation to a large legal team while showing how its central purpose has remained consistent. Its work focuses on protecting immigrant clients and providing legal services, particularly in immigration matters, that can improve their lives and economic prospects.

Purdue Fort Wayne prelaw advising is building a stronger attorney pipeline through personal guidance, internships and ties to rural Indiana firms.

Georgia Wralstad Ulmschneider, associate professor and campus prelaw adviser at Purdue Fort Wayne, explains how she built a program designed to stay with students from their first campus conversations through law school and early career decisions. Her approach includes course planning across multiple disciplines, LSAT preparation, personal statements, law school selection, experiential learning and connections with alumni mentors.

The conversation focuses on the attorney shortage affecting Fort Wayne, smaller towns and rural communities across northeast Indiana. Ulmschneider describes how undergraduate internships can substitute for the local clinical opportunities that law schools provide in other parts of the state, while also giving firms an early chance to recruit students who may want to return home. She discusses Purdue Fort Wayne's partnership with the Allen County Bar Association and Allen County Bar Foundation, efforts to create a more accessible internship network, and plans to connect students with rural and small-town practices.

Ulmschneider also makes the case for broad undergraduate study rather than a narrow prelaw major, arguing that future lawyers benefit from history, finance, communication, logic and analytical training. She explains why smaller communities need both versatile general practitioners and attorneys who understand business law, and why mentorship, shadowing and even a single coffee meeting can strengthen Indiana's legal profession.

Host Maura Johnson also asks how attorneys can support students, build recruitment relationships and help young people see a future in the communities they know.

Jim Bopp Jr. has argued 14 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, sued 45 states, and built one of the most unconventional legal careers in American conservative jurisprudence, all from Terre Haute. In this conversation with host Maura Johnson, Bopp traces his path from organizing high school students for Barry Goldwater in 1964 to becoming general counsel for the National Right to Life Committee, a role he has held since 1978.

Bopp discusses how his high school and collegiate debate experience shaped his approach to advocacy, why he believes understanding both sides of an argument is essential to sound legal reasoning, and how he structured his firm to prioritize pro bono work over billable hours. He also reflects on two cases that defined his career: a jury trial loss early on that taught him never to accept a client unwilling to fully commit to their own defense, and his 5-4 victory in Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, the first U.S. Supreme Court case to apply the First Amendment to judicial campaign ethics canons.

The conversation closes with Bopp's definition of the rule of law, framed as the foundational distinction between governance by pre-established statute and governance by the unchecked will of whoever holds power.

Jim Bopp Jr. is a constitutional and election law attorney based in Terre Haute and founder of Bopp Law Firm.

Ken Falk has spent decades defending constitutional rights for clients ranging from the KKK to Planned Parenthood, and he makes no apologies for it. As legal director of the ACLU of Indiana, Falk argues that the identity of the client is never the point. The constitutional question is.Falk traces his path from a senior center in Washington Heights to legal services offices in Muncie and Indianapolis, explaining how those early years handling divorces, evictions, and welfare cases taught him things law school never could. He reflects on a career built around class action litigation, First Amendment battles, and cases involving conditions inside Indiana correctional facilities, including a recent $1.2 million settlement on behalf of prisoners held in cells without functioning lights and with broken windows, and sewage flooding the unit.He also addresses the state of the legal profession directly, warning that the rule of law depends entirely on public respect for the judicial process. Lawyers who undermine that respect, win or lose, do damage that extends far beyond any single case. His advice to young attorneys is blunt: have humility, appreciate your clients, and understand that strengthening the system is the most important thing any lawyer can do, regardless of practice area.Falk argues before the Seventh Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court with the same matter-of-fact approach he brings to this conversation. Whether the topic is transgender health care litigation, drug testing of student athletes, or a Klan march in Goshen, his framework stays consistent. The constitutional right either holds for everyone or it holds for no one.

Vicky Nunn spent 23 years practicing personal injury law alongside her father before stepping into the role of leading one of Indiana's most recognized firms. Now she is carrying forward a legacy built over nearly six decades, with a fourth generation already on the way.Nunn, an attorney at Ken Nunn Law Office in Bloomington, discusses how growing up around her father's cases shaped her approach to client representation, why she changed careers at 36 to attend law school, and what it means to lead a firm of roughly 90 employees, many of whom have been there for decades. She also addresses the challenges of stepping into a role built by a larger-than-life figure, how she is modernizing firm operations, and why she believes Indiana's legal community stands out for its collegiality.Ken Nunn Law Office has tried more personal injury cases in Indiana over the past 26 years than any other firm, and Nunn says the willingness to go to trial is often what secures the best outcome.