Researchers find urban communities have about 150% greater access to legal services than rural residents

Farm Progress map, from Data Axle, 2022

In urban and metro American cities, lawyers and legal help are relatively easy to find, but for rural communities, legal representation is becoming so sparse some counties don't have access to legal advice. "Rural communities often lack the necessary infrastructure to provide essential legal support. This gap can leave individuals without the means to address crucial legal issues, ranging from family matters to property disputes," report K. Aleks Schaefer and Andrew J. Van Leuven for Farm Progress. "A 'rural legal desert' refers to areas where residents face significant challenges in accessing legal services and representation."

Researchers Schaefer and Van Leuven "collected firm-level data from 2014-2021 from more than 350,000 law offices together with socio-demographic data for 3,108 counties in the continental U.S. to statistically quantify the scope of the rural legal desert problem and shed light on potential solutions," they write. "We found that— when evaluated on the basis of legal employees per capita — urban communities have approximately 150% greater access to legal services than those in rural areas."

Legal resources vary among rural communities, and those with greater per capita incomes provide better legal access, Schaefer and Van Leuven explain.

With knowledge of the stark differences in legal access and protections for rural residents, Schaefer and Van Leuven advise advocating for policy changes and creative solutions. They write, "Our findings highlight the need for targeted policy interventions and innovative solutions to address the rural lawyer shortage. One policy intervention that appears to have been successful is Project Rural Practice established by the South Dakota Legislature in 2013. The PRP program provides incentive payments to attorneys who commit to serving five continuous years of practice in an eligible rural county."