Before Buddy Lobermann joined the Inmate Legal Assistance Project, he had never been inside a prison. The project connects law students with inmates to offer legal assistance and research.
Lobermann, a second-year law student, said he was nervous about his first visit to Terre Haute Federal Penitentiary in 2018.
“You get there and realize they’re people too,” Lobermann said. “They’re just someone who needs help and they're not some big scary person.”
The Inmate Legal Assistance Project is a student-run organization founded in 1971 at the Maurer School of Law. The organization has around 185 volunteers. The organization invites nine volunteers to visit Terre Haute Federal Penitentiary around five times per semester and offers two letter writing sessions per semester, the group's student director Tori Peterson said.
She said the letter writing sessions allow law students to respond to letters from inmates regarding legal concerns. She said volunteers respond to around 100 letters per semester.
“Last semester, we had more volunteers than we had letters, so we had to double up and pair people together so that everyone can have a chance to write back to an inmate,” Peterson said.
Writing letters and visiting in-person are important parts of understanding the legal system, Lobermann said.
“The letters permit you to keep some kind of distance from who you’re working with and focus on the legal issues, but meeting is an important step in humanizing the process and realizing that this work that we’re doing is about helping people in underserved legal communities,” Lobermann said.
Peterson said her organization’s top priority is inmates in Terre Haute Federal Penitentiary, but ILAP volunteers receive letters from many other correctional facilities across Indiana and Illinois.
ILAP volunteers visited inmates in Terre Haute Federal Penitentiary around six times last semester, and Peterson said she expects around five visits this semester. ILAP volunteers plan to visit Terre Haute Federal Penitentiary Feb. 8.
Peterson said visits are tailored to address inmates’ questions and concerns.
“We talk about whatever their individual case is and whatever they’re looking for,” Peterson said. “Obviously, we can’t provide legal advice, we can only provide legal research to help them with whatever questions they’re looking for. It ranges — every inmate is different.”
Volunteers cannot provide legal advice to inmates because it violates a lawyer’s professional responsibility, Lobermann said. He said law students are not legally qualified to give legal advice.
More than one year since his first visit to a prison, Lobermann now serves as organization's director of administration.
One common concern inmates have is ineffective assistance of counsel, Lobermann said, which means inmates feel the criminal prosecution against them was unfair because their own defense attorney didn’t perform adequately.
Lobermann said meetings with inmates last around 20 to 30 minutes.
All volunteers are required to undergo a background check before visiting inmates. Upon arrival, volunteers must pass through metal detectors and place their items in lockers, Peterson said. Volunteers are only allowed to bring in a notepad.
Peterson said the inmates appreciate meeting with and writing to ILAP volunteers.
“They love it,” she said. “Whenever I visit, I love how happy they are, just because someone gets to hear them out and meet with them in person.”
