The ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defense
& The National Legal Aid and Defender Association
Congratulate the Winner of the 2025 Harrison Tweed Award!
The Indiana State Bar Association
The Indiana State Bar Association (ISBA) is recognized with the 2025 Harrison Tweed Award for its Pro Bono Committee’s Walk-In Legal Clinic Series. The Clinic Series was conceived in 2022 to address the needs of underserved communities on Indianapolis’s northside that were facing increasing landlord-tenant issues, evictions, and immigration concerns while lacking consistent access to legal aid. Launched in January 2023, The Clinic Series uses a lawyer-staffed and community-driven model to bring free, in-person legal clinics directly into trusted community spaces, leveraging local connections to meet people where they are. Since then, the program has scaled dramatically: Between April 2024 and March 2025, ISBA co-hosted six clinics serving more than 250 clients from across the state in multiple languages. Clinics now average 43 clients per session, with some reaching up to 80 attendees in a single morning, and much of this growth is due to increased partnerships with community and legal organizations. To better meet the community’s needs, the Pro Bono Committee has recently introduced themed one-off clinics held in conjunction with other community organizations. In February 2025, for example, ISBA partnered with the Immigrant Welcome Center to host an immigration-focused clinic, complete with multilingual interpreters and a safe meeting space (to ease rising fears of ICE intervention). Similar efforts are underway with The Burmese American Lawyers Association (to provide support to the large Burmese-speaking population on Indianapolis’s southside), Resolution Mediation (to provide a mediation-specific clinic), and the Marion County Prosecutor and Public Defender offices (to create a one-stop shop for expungements). The Walk-In Legal Clinic Series has been a highly effective effort to expand access to justice, especially for underrepresented communities and Hoosiers facing immigration concerns, family law issues, and barriers to expungement, exemplifying the values embodied in the Harrison Tweed Award.
To view the Indiana State Bar Association nomination, click here.