By Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller

Several same-sex couples recently filed lawsuits seeking to strike down Indiana’s traditional marriage definition law. As Indiana attorney general, I have been asked why my office is defending the statute in court when some AGs in other states are not defending their states’ traditional marriage laws from similar lawsuits. I explain that I took an oath to represent and defend Indiana’s state government and its existing statutes. I don’t make the laws – that’s the Legislature’s job – but I have a solemn obligation to defend those laws while there is a good-faith defense, and I cannot shirk my duty nor abdicate that responsibility to others.

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller

This is not personal advocacy on my part or by the lawyers who work in my office. Whenever the State of Indiana is sued, you – the taxpayers and citizens of the state – are really being sued collectively, and you are entitled to counsel. The correct course of action is for the attorney general to provide a good-faith defense – within the resources already available – until and unless the U.S. Supreme Court decides to the contrary. The justice system cannot work if one side is not represented by counsel or if the attorneys presume that they are judge and jury in their own cases and fail to zealously advocate for their clients.

Some have asked if in providing this defense I am on “the wrong side of history.” They note my counterpart, the Kentucky attorney general, recently announced he no longer would defend his state’s traditional marriage definition. But even he defended his state’s marriage law at the federal district court stage, and his decision not to continue representing his state’s position on appeal does not mean the law will go undefended. Instead, the Kentucky governor had to hire outside counsel to defend the statute in court. Was the Kentucky attorney general on the “wrong side of history” when he represented his client, but suddenly on the “right side of history” when outside lawyers were called in at significant cost to Kentucky taxpayers to do so?

Unlike Kentucky, Indiana does not need outside counsel to defend its own duly-enacted laws the Legislature passed. My office can do so readily within our existing budget, approved by the Legislature in advance, using our own salaried attorneys who do not charge billable hours and who would be paid the same whether these lawsuits were filed or not.

It’s worth noting what happened in California where the Proposition 8 constitutional amendment defined marriage in the traditional way. When that definition was challenged in federal court, California’s attorney general declined to mount any legal defense. When the U.S. Supreme Court heard the Proposition 8 case last year, it ruled that because the law was not defended by the State of California, the law’s private defenders lacked legal standing, and there could be no conclusive ruling on Proposition 8’s constitutionality. That left the question of state-level marriage definitions muddled and left our nation in suspense. How exactly is the lack of a legal defense on the “right side of history”?

My office will defend an Indiana statute, as we do every day in numerous cases, as long as a good-faith defense exists – and with the marriage definition law, it still does. Indiana courts previously have upheld Indiana’s marriage law, and the U.S. Supreme Court has previously permitted states to license marriage as between one man and one woman. While there are various challenges of multiple states’ laws now working their way through the federal appeals court pipeline, until and unless the U.S. Supreme Court rules otherwise, the State of Indiana has the right and obligation to enforce its longstanding statute and defend it from plaintiffs’ lawyers.

When plaintiffs challenge statutes, I never complain; federal courts exist to decide such questions. I hope that Hoosiers on all sides of this controversial issue will show civility and respect toward each other while the court does its work.

But when two opposing attorneys represent their clients to the best of their skill and ability, neither lawyer is by virtue of their courtroom role on the “wrong” side of history. Both serve as advocates before the court that makes the rulings that ultimately make the history. When we lawyers take an oath to represent our client, we can’t shirk our duty.

Greg Zoeller is attorney general of Indiana.

 

 

By Paige Clark TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – One speaks for liberals, the other conservatives.

One is a Democrat. One is a Republican.

But both start long, unpredictable days with a cup of coffee.

They are communication directors in the Indiana Statehouse. Only one, though, is in the majority.

Lindsay Jancek sits in her office or “the cave.” Any other day at 1 p.m., she’d be on the Senate floor. But today is Friday and the senators are home. So today, she sits in her cave.

Lindsay Jancek, communications director for the Indiana Senate Republican caucus, is leaving her post at the end of this week to take a Congressional job in Washington D.C. Photo by Lesley Weidenbener, TheStatehouseFile.com

“People think I’m crazy because I moved my office down here,” she joked from her basement headquarters. “I used to have this huge office bigger than this whole room, but I moved to be closer to the press.”

She throws a handful of microwaved popcorn into her mouth, chews a few times and looks up to answer the knock on her often open door.

She stops chewing, puts her face in her hands, elbows on her desk, and squints at the large computer monitor separating her from guests. She politely, but sternly yells at one of her six press secretaries that there is a technology problem he needs to deal with.

“I’m tough on them, and I expect a lot out of them,” she says with a warm smile. “But they don’t make a lot of mistakes.”

Jancek is the communications director for the Senate Republicans. At least for now. On Friday she leaves Indianapolis for Washington D.C. where she’ll serve as the press secretary for U.S. Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-2^nd District.

But Jancek waited to announce the job change until the session ended so she did not disrupt the work she and her staff were doing.

“I serve 37 members of a caucus and one of those members is the Senate president. And everyone has a different agenda,” she said. “I’d say I’m very good at juggling.”

The other is in the minority.

John Schorg, communications director for the Indiana House Democratic Caucus, listens during a press conference the day after lawmakers adjourned the 2014 legislative session. Photo by Lesley Weidenbener, TheStatehouseFile.com

John Schorg smells the greasy, half burnt popcorn wafting into his office from the Statehouse’s snack shack. Stacks of papers, posters, and random toys, sure to have some inside story or joke to the members of the office, surround him and his desk.

He walks down the hallway silently. There is no clacking of dress shoes to announce his presence. He strides in jeans and tennis shoes, around the corners of basement cubicles.

“It is a lot different than it used to be,” said Schorg reflecting on his years spent at the Statehouse. “We were the generators of lot of what was going on here, now we’re not as much.”

Schorg is the communications director for the House Democrats, who hold just 31 of the chamber’s 100 seats.

“Some days are slow,” Schorg said fiddling with his I.D. badge. “It’s a little different when you only have a 31 member minority than it was when he had majorities.”

“The roles are a lot different now we’re the opposition,” he said.

***

Both have routines.

One has a dog, the other cats.

“At home there is a definite schedule of what I have to do,” Jancek said. “So I get up at about 6, and I read news clips from all the national outlets. And then I let my dogs out. Once I get here there is no routine.”

“Today, has been –, “she knocks on wood, “Not too bad.” She nervously laughs, saying Fridays are usually her busiest days.

On the other side of the Statehouse basement, Schorg details his mornings.

“I feed my cat, I take a shower, and I get ready and I drive in,” he says, laughing as he speaks. “I bitch about the traffic.”

He cracks several jokes, making eye contact for approval. He laughs for a minute or two and slowly slides back into a serious tone.

***

Both had other dreams.

“This is not what I wanted to do,” started Jancek.

“When I was little, I wanted to be an artist” and my mom and dad said, ‘We’re not paying for you to go to school,’” Jancek said with a small smile. “But I got into art school – Chicago Art Institute, it was $100,000 tuition.”

Her parents quickly said no to Jancek’s art dreams.

“Then I wanted to be a vascular surgeon because I really liked science,” said Jancek as she rocked casually back and forth in her chair. She enrolled at Butler University in the honorary science and pre-med program.

“You have to take a writing class”, she said. “So I was in (Butler’s) new journalism building. And I thought, ‘this is kind of cool. I kind of like writing.’”

After that, Jancek visited friends at Indiana University and visited the school’s journalism department. She ran into a professor wandering around the halls.

“He showed me the news room, and it looked like a real news room,” Jancek said with a bit of enthusiasm rising in her voice. “That was it. I transferred the next year.”

“I thought I was going to be a reporter,” she said.

Jancek covered the Indiana General Assembly at the Statehouse in 2005 for the Indiana Daily Student, reporting on Mitch Daniel’s first year as governor.

After graduation, she had a job lined up in Washington D.C., but her dad unexpectedly died, causing her to hang back in Indiana.

At the funeral, Jancek ran into her former government teacher, also her state representative. He asked her to intern for him at the Statehouse.

“I don’t wanna work on that side, it was annoying. They wouldn’t return my calls,” she recounted her conversation with her former teacher. But, he insisted.

“So I did,” she said. “And I haven’t left.”

Schorg thought he was going to be a sports reporter.

“I hated politics,” he laughed ironically.

Schorg stops. He slightly bites his lip, and begins looking up towards the ceiling. He closes his eyes for a moment, searching for a date.

1988. Or 1989. Ball State was fighting to go to the California Raisin Bowl – the last sporting event Schorg covered.

Right after college, Schorg became the editor of a weekly newspaper in Kokomo.

“I had dabbled in editorial sides. I was a typical snot-nosed kid from college who had opinions on everything,” Schorg said. “People were dropping subscriptions because I had a big mouth and I wasn’t shy about it.”

Schorg said he was forced to cover government. Then the legislature. Then more. Then he said people noticed.

“I thought I would do it and it’d help me understand to become a better reporter,” Schorg said.

But he acknowledged that government reporting is not for everyone.

“If everything you see sickens you to the point that you don’t want to do it, that’s fine. I don’t begrudge anyone who comes here who is nauseated by the experience or sickened by it. Or find the way that things get done here makes you want to…,” he said, making a gagging motion.

“Hell, I never thought I’d put that to good use,” Schorg smiled. “Now, I can’t imagine ever going back.”

Not every reporter can see themselves on the other side though. Chelsea Schneider, the Statehouse reporter for The Courier & Press in Evansville, sits in her corner office drinking a large polar pop from a straw. She looks up through her black, square-framed glasses and waves at other reporters that walk by.

“I don’t think I’m chipper enough to be a PR person. And I don’t dress well enough,” Schneider laughed. “But hey, the hours and the pay, I can see why journalists do it. I just probably never will.”

***

Both talk to the media and don’t hate reporters – contrary to popular belief.

“I serve a lot of different people,” said Jancek, ticking off her members, the Senate president, the legislative assistants. “And then I have this whole other group of people in the basement called the press.”

“It’s the media’s interests versus my members’ interests. And usually they’re doing this –,” Jancek makes both of her hands fists and slams them together making a solid, clapping sound.

But Schneider said Jancek manages the balance well.

“I think the reason she’s good at her job is because she has a background in journalism,” Schneider said as she reached for her drink. “She understands what reporters need and know what makes a good story. I also think she’s more truthful.”

Schorg laced his fingers over his chest and smiled. He said he likes his job because he likes people.

“I like working with reporters. I like working with people in our caucus,” said Schorg confidently. “It’s nice working with people who say thank you, and more people than you think say thank you.” Schorg embraced a reporter as he said this.

“And it’s not just the reporters,” he chuckled.

“There are too many jobs where people just don’t say thanks. I’m not old enough that I don’t appreciated being thanked for the work I do,” he said as he leaned back in the half-broken folding chair pinned against the wall. “They appreciated the time you put in; they appreciate the work you do.”

Both Schorg and Jancek‘s offices are in the basement. That’s a key to their success, said Statehouse reporter Niki Kelly, who has a glorified cubicle that’s an office in the basement.

Kelly has covered 15 legislate sessions for The Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne. Her eyes left her computer screen and her school bus story to focus on the conversation.

“You can also just chat with them. Sometimes it’s just like ‘Hey, how’s your life going? How’s your mom? How’s your cat?” Kelly said with a laugh. “They’re both pretty open people so it helps.”

***

Both use social media. A lot.

“I have a lot of flexibility and freedom to try new creative tools – branching out the new website, maybe changing up how we got staff positions arranged,” Jancek said. “I don’t like redundancy and I don’t like people doing the same thing for more than once.”

Jancek says she and her staff look at new technology, social media, and other outlets to get their messages across.

“I’m a big believer in using strategy to get your message out,” Jancek said proudly. “Sky’s the limit. Yeah, I like that.”

“We’ve got radio feeds; we help them with Facebook, Twitter – those types of things,” Schorg said. But in the minority now, “We have to pick and choose what we want to do.”

“We try and do what we can to get other points of views across,” he said. That’s helped by a leader – Rep. Scott Pelath, D-Michigan – who is “really good at media.”

“He is not shy about doing it,” Schorg said. “He does it well when he does do it. And it’s a big help.”

***

Both are friends with the legislators.

“You spend a lot of time with them and you work with them, day in and day out,” Jancek said. “You see them everywhere. They’re at the table next to you at dinner. They’re grabbing coffee. It’s going to happen when you’re in the same building with them.”

“Do we spend all our time together? No,” Schorg joked.

“You have a certain relationship where you enjoy talking to them. And as you get to know them, you get to know them beyond just being merely a state representative,” Schorg said sincerely. “They’re nice people. They have a lot of burdens that I’m not sure a lot of us would like to have, but they do the best they can.

***

Both have opinions. But sometimes they’re not expressed.

“I think at the end of the day, you work for the senator, so you need to keep your opinions at home.” Jancek said, more serious now. “So it’s whatever he or she wants.”

But Jancek said she’s also blessed to have a boss in Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne, who “lets me speak my mind. He wants me to speak up, sometimes he goes along with what I have to say and sometimes he doesn’t – at least he hears me out.”

Schorg paused. He looked down at the Pacers lanyard hanging around his neck.

“There are certain social issues that some people in our caucus have a point of view of that’s different view than mine,” he paused again and apologized for being vague.

“I have written press releases, speeches, and public opinion columns that I do not agree with. But I cannot think of a single instance where the request for help wasn’t made from the genuine sense of ‘I need your help.’”

“I won’t say it’s ever easy,” Schorg said. “You get used to it. It’s part of the job.”

***

Both get paid, and don’t complain too much.

Jancek lets out a long, care-free laugh. “Can I say no comment?” she jokes.

“I’m blessed with my salary. I’m always humbled when I have discussions with my salary with my bosses,” she said. “Sometimes I don’t think I’m always worth it. I am my biggest critic, I always have been, and I always will be. I live to work.”

“I didn’t like that salary question,” she said later. “But, it was a good question.”

Schorg doesn’t hesitate like Jancek. He said he thinks his salary matches his work.

“Especially, compared to –,” he paused and pointed at a reporter.

***

Both go home after a long, long day.

“I’ve already maxed out on overtime,” Jancek said earlier this month, when she still had two weeks left in session. “In the last week of session, 14 to 15 hours is not unheard of.”

“When I go home, I don’t talk. Because all I do all day is talk. It’s a good day if I go home and don’t have to talk,” she said, speaking more with a hushed tone now.

It’s not uncommon to see Schorg leave the Statehouse past 10 p.m.

“It’s different,” he said. “We used to stay in session until midnight. We got through it though. I don’t know what kind of condition we were in, but we got through it.”

“Whatever’s necessary we go from there,” Schorg paused and chuckled a little. “Then we go home and drink.”

Paige Clark is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

Marilyn Odendahl for www.theindianalawyer.com 

University of Notre Dame Law School Dean Nell Jessup Newton admits she has mixed feelings about the annual law school rankings compiled and published by U.S. News & World Report.
On the one hand, the rankings provide some good consumer information to students thinking about getting a legal education.   But on the other hand, Newton said, the rankings have too much influence on the choices made by students, hiring practices of law firms and even the behavior of law schools in general.
Since the different groups do pay attention and blogs spotlight even the slightest movements on the list, law school deans cannot ignore the rankings no matter how much they may disparage them. Commonly, deans complain the comparison by U.S. News focuses on things that have little impact on the quality of education and do not measure the elements that schools  value.
Austen Parrish, still in his first semester as dean of Indiana University Maurer School of Law, holds a tempered view of the survey. They are what they are, he said, and smart deans do not run their law schools based on the U.S. News evaluation.
Still, Parrish acknowledges deans are not immune to the excitement or disappointment caused by a high or low ranking.
“I think as much as deans rail against it,” he said, “if they move up in the ranking, they celebrate pretty                hard.”

For the 2015 U.S. News Law School Rankings, Notre Dame placed at No. 26 and Indiana University Maurer School of Law shared the No. 29 slot with the University of Georgia. Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law tied for No. 87 with six other schools including Michigan State University and the University of Louisville.
Valparaiso University Law School retained its listing as “rank not published” because its placement fell below  the cutoff line. The Indiana Tech Law School was not part of the rankings because it has not been accredited by the American   Bar Association.
How it works
Each year the news magazine issues its best graduate schools lists, ranking law schools, medical schools, engineering schools,  business schools, and undergraduate programs, among others. For law schools, the annual list has a great impact because U.S. News is about the only organization that reviews the accredited law schools in the country. The legal blog, Above the  Law, created its own Top 50 law schools list last year based on different criteria, mostly employment outcomes.
According to U.S. News, the methodology behind its rankings measures 12 separate elements and then applies a weighted  average so all the elements do not have an equal impact on the overall score. The 12 factors include assessments by law school deans as well as lawyers and judges, median LSAT score and median undergraduate GPA of the incoming class, expenditure per  student, and bar passage rates, along with employment rate for graduates nine months after completing law school.
Bob Morse, director of data research for U.S. News & World Report, explained the rankings include budget, job placement and prestige because the focus is from a student perspective. The survey does not measure faculty achievement or scholarly activity but instead concentrates on the factors that students can understand and use.
“Our intent isn’t to be a powerful force with the rankings,” Morse said. “U.S. News did not start doing the rankings with the goal of becoming an influential force in law school policy.”
However, Morse pointed out that of all the academic disciplines ranked by the magazine whether medicine, library science or any of the others, the strongest reaction to the listing comes from the law schools. One reason is because the other schools  are critiqued by a couple of different organizations, but among law schools, U.S. News holds almost a monopoly on the survey.
At Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, Dean Roger Huang agreed the rankings from U.S. News do not hold  as much sway with business schools.
Yet, he said if his college would drop in the rankings, he would reassure the alumni that the decline was not the result of something the college did or did not do. In addition, Huang would emphasize the institution was sticking to its mission of educating the hearts and minds  of the students to be ethical and use business in the proper way.
“We do not run our program to conform to the rankings,” Huang said.
Newton, Parrish and Andrew Klein, dean of the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, echoed Huang. In addition,  they all maintained the U.S. News survey does not give a complete picture of their schools, and they questioned the  magazine’s methodology.    As an example, Klein pointed out that a small two-point move in a school’s median LSAT can cause a dramatic swing in the rankings but have zero impact on the quality of education.
Parrish attributed IU Maurer’s slip in the rankings to a drop in the school’s job placement. The Bloomington law school declined four places in the 2015 listing to No. 29 because, he explained, personnel problems in the school’s  placement office lowered the employment rate for students in the class of 2012. Since then, the law school has hired a new assistant dean of career and professional development, and the employment rate for the class of 2013 is 11 percent higher than for 2012.
“A one-year blip isn’t any concern to me at all,” Parrish said.
At Notre Dame, Newton has counseled students who enroll in programs solely based on the rankings. She has seen students forgo scholarships from law schools located in the area of the country they want to practice and instead pay full tuition and go someplace they don’t intend to stay just to attend an institution that is one or two slots higher in the rankings.
Despite her concerns about the influence the rankings have and the lack of transparency behind the calculations, Newton has never contacted U.S. News to discuss the situation. The rankings are a website, she said, that does not draw on the expertise of journalists, statisticians or social scientists.
“I don’t respect them enough to engage with them,” she said. “I don’t think they are going to listen to me.”
Morse said U.S. News does not tailor the rankings in response to law schools’ complaints and criticisms. Consequently, the rankings have credibility, he said, because the magazine is an independent judge.
He then noted what he called the hypocrisy of the law schools. For all the griping law schools do, 66 percent of the deans respond when U.S. News requests information.
Law schools do have the option of not providing data and assessments to the news magazine, but Newton compared that option  to the prisoner’s dilemma. Unless all the schools refuse to participate, those that do not return the forms will be punished with a lower ranking.
As such, Newton said she would not stop participating because she does not want Notre Dame to fall in the rankings. She does not want to hurt the students and alumni by having the school’s reputation downgraded.
Former IU McKinney dean Gary Roberts did not respond to U.S. News data requests for several years. When Klein became dean, the law school resumed submitting the data.
In fact, when Klein was interviewed for the dean position, he was asked about the rankings. He replied although the school was forced to pay attention to them, he would be ethical in reporting the data and not fudge it. He also asserted he would not make any changes that he thinks would diminish the program for the students just to do better in the rankings.
Klein agrees with Roberts that the rankings do not present an accurate portrayal of the quality of education offered at IU  McKinney, but there is the need to be pragmatic because people pay attention.
“There are many flaws in the rankings,” Klein said. “I don’t think that U.S. News does a very good job of measuring the quality of an institution’s education. But, unfortunately, some people pay attention to the rankings. We were doing a disservice to our law school by not participating.”•