When Marcus Edward Ellison filed paperwork to run for an at-large seat on the South Bend Community School Board, the Indiana Supreme Court had already suspended his law license. His license had been suspended for six years. Ellison won the seat on November 5, 2024, with 13,448 votes, taking the second of two at-large seats in a six-candidate field. His license is still suspended today.
That fact appears nowhere on the website his campaign committee paid for. Ellison’s website told voters that he graduated from John Adams High School in 1994, that he is committed to “collaborating with board members to encourage positive change,” and that he was running because of his passion for education.
It did not disclose that on December 20, 2017, the Indiana Supreme Court issued a per curiam opinion finding that Ellison had committed attorney misconduct by neglecting a client’s appeal and “thereafter engaging in a pattern of dishonesty in an effort to cover up his neglect.” His website did not share that on August 8, 2018, the same Court found him in contempt for practicing law during that suspension, fined him $750, and extended the suspension to a minimum of one year without automatic reinstatement.
The Indiana Roll of Attorneys lists his current status under attorney number 22950-71 as “Suspended.”
Here is the record the Supreme Court detailed about how Ellison conducted himself when he had a client depending on him:
In 2015, a woman who had once been convicted of a felony and had since had that conviction reduced to a Class A misdemeanor came to a pro bono expungement clinic at Ivy Tech Community College. Ellison was the Program Chair for Paralegal Studies and supervised the clinic, which was called the Second Chance Justice Clinic. Non-lawyers in the program helped her file a pro se petition. An Elkhart County trial court denied that petition in August 2015 as premature. The judge said from the bench that an appellate court might read the statute differently.
Ellison agreed to handle the appeal for a $200 contribution to the Second Chance program. Ellison had never handled an appeal before.
He filed a notice of appeal in September 2015. The appellant’s brief was due that December. Ellison did not file it.
When the client emailed him in January 2016 asking for a status update, Ellison wrote back that he was “just waiting for the attorney generals office to respond to the petition and brief.” There was no brief. When she emailed again later that month asking for a copy, he told her he would send it “over the weekend.” He did not.
In March 2016, she found the entry on the Court of Appeals website noting that her case was being transmitted for dismissal because no brief had been filed. Ellison mailed a motion to the Court asking permission to file the brief late, telling the Court he had prepared a brief that “was to be appended to transcript and notice of appeal but was apparently not attached.” The motion was defective for multiple reasons and was never accepted for filing. The Court of Appeals dismissed her case with prejudice on March 31, 2016.
She did not learn that from her lawyer. The Court’s opinion stated it plainly: “Respondent did not inform Client of the dismissal or take any steps to have the appeal reinstated.”
She filed a grievance with the Disciplinary Commission. During its investigation, Ellison gave the Commission multiple, conflicting explanations for why he had failed to file the brief. The Court found that at least two of those explanations were knowingly false. The opinion concluded that Ellison had violated seven Indiana Professional Conduct Rules, including knowingly making false statements to a tribunal and engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.
The suspension took effect on January 31, 2018. By April, the Disciplinary Commission was telling the Court that Ellison was practicing anyway. Three clients were named in that motion. There were more.
Tim Corbett, a private investigator, interviewed the former client whose grievance had triggered Ellison’s first suspension. The interview was recorded with her permission in April of 2026. Corbett told her that based on his research, Ellison had numerous open cases at the time of his suspension. The former client confirmed she never received a withdrawal letter from Ellison.
The Court’s discipline was the formal consequence. Ellison’s former client described what the case had meant in her own life.
The client could not get a job from 2008 until 2016. Eight years. The conviction Ellison had been paid to help clear remained on her record the entire time.
“I just literally would come home so depressed that up until 2016, March of 2016 had I not got a job I was ready to kill myself,” she told Corbett, “because I just couldn’t take the pressure anymore of not being able to contribute to my family.”
She used the words “kill myself.” She said the only thing that kept her from acting on it was the job that came through in March 2016.
Corbett asked her whether she thought Marcus Ellison should be sitting on the South Bend Community School Board.
“No,” she said.
“Do they not do background checks?” she asked. “Do they not look at his record?”
The board approves contracts. It accepts conflict of interest disclosures. It hires and fires the superintendent. It signs off on the district’s response to the State Board of Accounts audit that found $767,585 in questioned costs.
A man whose neglect helped push a client to the edge of taking her own life now decides those things for the children of South Bend.
In February 2025, three months after his swearing-in, the Mayor of South Bend appointed Ellison as the school board’s designee to the South Bend Redevelopment Commission. The campaign website that does not mention the Supreme Court’s opinions is still online. On August 8, 2025, Ellison contributed $200 from his own pocket to the Committee to Elect Marcus Ellison, and his committee paid $200 the same day to Daley Professional Web for “Website Maint.” That is the entirety of the committee’s 2025 activity. He is paying to keep the site up.
Holding a school board seat in Indiana does not require a law license. The statutes governing eligibility set residency, age, and electoral requirements. They do not require honesty or morality. They also do not bar the other school board members from asking Ellison to step down, or the Mayor from withdrawing Ellison’s appointment to South Bend’s Redevelopment Commission. Ellison’s four-year term expires in 2028.
Marcus Ellison’s law license is still suspended.
Logan Foster
Logan Foster is the founder and editor of Redress South Bend, an independent news outlet covering local government, courts, and public institutions in South Bend and St. Joseph County, Indiana. He reports from primary documents: public records requests, court filings, state audit reports, and campaign finance disclosures. His reporting has examined city and school district payments made without competitive bidding, school board spending, and the records of candidates in county races. Redress South Bend obtained the South Bend Police Department's ShotSpotter coverage map after the department initially denied public access. The outlet is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Online News Association. Reach him at info@redresssouthbend.com
