Indiana’s Bar Needs a Mission With Moral Courage

Pay your Dues and Shut up!

Opinion | For the Hoosier Enquirer

The Indiana State Bar Association’s mission statement reads like an administrative assignment:

“To improve the administration of justice and promote public understanding of the legal system.” (inbar.org)

Those are worthy objectives. But where is the explicit commitment to defend constitutional rights, confront corruption, protect the vulnerable, and hold powerful people accountable?

A legal profession should aspire to more than helping citizens understand the system. It should ensure that the system deserves their confidence.

An institution can administer injustice efficiently. The public can understand an unfair process perfectly well. Neither accomplishment fulfills the moral purpose of law.

Indiana never leaded the lessons of the puritanical witch hunts of Massachusetts. That fact needs to be considered when looking at the past recently history of Indianas attorney disciplinary actions, which require reviewing.

America’s early religious thinkers offered a more demanding conception of responsibility.

In A Christian at His Calling (1701), Cotton Mather wrote: “Indeed a man cannot live without the help of other men.” He argued that a person’s occupation should make that person useful to others. Applied to lawyers, that principle makes professional standing an obligation to serve, rather than merely a credential to possess. (constitution.org)

The men who founded Harvard’s law school were guided by their earlier Divinty Schools. Yale included. Learn the history, Does Indiana University have a similar history of having offered a dignity school education before it started teaching law in this state? No. And so here we have a most simple mission statement that has failed the concept of American justice. History doesn’t repeat where there is actual knowledge, rather than a first female otherwise completely unqualified and a DEI incompetent in charge of the legal profession. This stuff matters.

John Winthrop’s A Model of Christian Charity (1630) described human beings as sharing the “same flesh and image of God” and called for “brotherly affection.” His argument placed duties toward others at the center of community life. (history.hanover.edu)

A female dominated legal profession has lost most all “brotherly love” sadly.

These were important colonial writings, not the Constitution, but they shaped society and the American system of jurisprudence—and they are patron the current lot of thieves using power to travel, see the World, and sherk the true responsibility that their privilege has entrusted them with.

The entrusted have been replaced by the entitled.

The authors’ world was or equalization, it was clearly hierarchical, and their ideas should not be mistaken for a complete account of America’s founding. But their insistence that people owe one another practical help offers a demanding standard for any profession claiming to serve the public.

Does the INBAR help anyone facing bias, rigged, or the heavy hand of Attorney Disciplinary show trials? No,

For a constitutional republic, that obligation must extend to everyone: every faith, every background, every income, and every political viewpoint.

The Indiana bar’s mission should make that duty unmistakable.

Fairness requires acknowledging that the association’s broader statements go beyond its short mission. Its vision invokes the public interest, and its diversity statement supports access to legal services and removing barriers to the profession. Those commitments deserve recognition. They also demonstrate that the association knows how to state substantive values when it chooses. (inbar.org)

Why leave constitutional rights, integrity, and accountability implicit in its only central mission? Then do nothing when lawyers are given less right than criminals and forced to plead guilty after sign plea bargains or being forced into purjury traps by unethical prosecutions by the G. Michael Wiite, AaronJohnson and others, who Tush failed to manage being a mental midget herself. She is a petulant child who poorly ran a juvenile court and admits she’d never be a justice in any other state. For God sake get rid of her. Yes the Bar needs to do that!

The distinction between the bar association and the judiciary also matters. ISBA is a voluntary association; it does not license or discipline attorneys. Maybe it should again. Or at least provide for client attorney mediation before a client can take any lawyers law license with a fake RFI. This has happened here.

It was said even in Salem that it would be best have 10 witches go free than have one innocent woman burned at the stake. That same principle is not applied by Rush during her long reign of terror here.

Those responsibilities belong to the Indiana Supreme Court, which unfortunately is not responsible, responsibility, or consistent under CJ Rush,

But an independent professional association can advocate, investigate policy failures, demand explanations, and press for reform. Its lack of disciplinary power does not prevent it from exercising moral leadership. (inbar.org) it can even file Wrts or ask the Governor to do so,

Chief Justice Loretta Rush deserves scrutiny on the same substantive terms. She has served as chief justice since 2014 and supervises Indiana’s judicial branch. That responsibility makes questions about access, institutional accountability, and public confidence legitimate measures of her leadership. (in.gov)

There is a documented problem demanding answers. In her 2026 State of the Judiciary address, Rush reported that Indiana ranked 43rd in lawyers per capita and that some counties had as few as five attorneys. She also described reform efforts, including new legal-service models and incentives for rural practice. (secure.in.gov)

Those efforts mean that “complete complacency” would overstate the record. The sharper criticism is that leadership must be judged by results. Can ordinary Hoosiers obtain affordable representation? Are delays reduced? Are credible misconduct allegations handled fairly and promptly? Can the public assess whether reforms work?

A commission, a speech, or another professional gathering cannot answer those questions by itself.

Nor should allegations of corruption be treated as established facts. Credible allegations warrant independent examination, protection against retaliation, and public explanations consistent with due process. Both reflexive institutional defensiveness and unsupported accusations undermine justice.

ISBA should adopt a stronger mission:

“To defend the United States and Indiana Constitutions; uphold equal justice, due process, and the rule of law; confront corruption and professional misconduct; expand affordable access to legal help; and hold the legal profession accountable through integrity, transparency, and service to every Hoosier.”

And it should act help its members who find themselves targets of court abuse.

Then it should publish annual goals and results: expanded representation, reduced barriers, specific accountability reforms, and an honest assessment of what remains broken.

Indiana’s legal profession risks becoming a gas-station-sushi punchline as its assurances exceed the public’s experience. Kids, smart kids especially, don’t want to study law. Most lawyers encourage their children to steer clear of the profession. There are better ways to make a living, especially in Indiana.

Trust cannot be demanded as a courtesy to lawyers or judges. It must be earned through conduct. Likewise it has been lost by conduct. Good lawyers suspended; bad ones protected. The shared experiences and knowledge is well known.

Mather’s challenge remains useful: “What good does your calling do for others?”

Indiana’s bar and Loretta Rush should that answer with a mission that is reform and refocusing on obligations—and address thei record that proves that now they mean it, but only after the significant injustices under their nose’s are fixed.