• How can we help you?
• Site map

• Prospective Students
• Our Community
• Outreach
• Alumni

Elder Law Clinic

Attorneys who represent elderly clients face unique challenges and require a special set of skills learned primarily through experience. In this clinic, students provide legal assistance to clients age 60 and older on a wide range of civil legal problems in areas such as housing, public benefits, consumer law, tax, advance directives, and family law.

What is the Elder Law Clinic?

Students work with senior citizens in Bloomington and surrounding communities to gain a better understanding of the major issues facing the elderly population. The clinic provides an opportunity to explore a variety of substantive areas of the law under a specific focus. The clinic is housed at Indiana Legal Services, Inc. in downtown Bloomington and is supervised by Jamie Andree, ILS Managing Attorney.

As the elderly population expands over the next decade, the needs of this group will move to the forefront of the legal profession. The Elder Law Clinic fills a vital need for education in this field as well as providing much needed services to the elderly community.

What will I learn?

Work on individual cases varies, but responsibilities may include outreach and intake (interviewing prospective clients); legal research and fact investigation; reviewing and preparing documents, pleadings, and discovery; selection of cases; advice and direct representation of clients; negotiating and appearing in administrative or judicial hearings; and planning and conducting community education programs.

Students also select a community presentation topic, assist in the scheduling and advertising of the presentation, and deliver the presentation to audiences such as grandparent-support groups, senior meal sites, or adult community centers.

What will my time commitment be?

At the beginning of the semester, students will once for a five-hour introductory class. Thereafter, the clinic has one, two-hour class meeting per week in the ILS office. Students will spend, on average, 10 to12 hours per week, in addition to class time, in the ILS office to work on existing cases, other matters, and decisions whether to accept prospective clients' cases for representation.

Students also meet with their supervising attorneys a minimum of once per week to discuss their activities. Although it is hoped that students will be able to work on three or four cases a semester, ILS handles a wide range of cases that vary tremendously in the amount of work required to resolve them.

Clinical Faculty:

Jamie Andree, Clinic Instructor and Indiana Legal Services Managing Attorney

Julia Lamber, Associate Dean for Clinical Education and Professor of Law

I want to be a part of this...

Here's what you need to know to participate in the Elder Law Clinic (B583):

• This clinic comprises 3 hours of course credit.

• Enrollment is limited to five second- and third-year students per year.

• Permission from Jamie Andree, clinic instructor, is required for enrollment.