I write about rural access to justice quite a bit on this blog, so I've decided to start a new series on "Rural ATJ" because I have two posts in mind right now, and I expect more are surely in the pipeline. In this post, I want to highlight a major "rural" feature that appeared in Law 360 this week. Jack Karp writes of the rural lawyer shortage with a focus on the "greying" of the rural bar and the reluctance by the current generation of law graduates to embrace rural practice. Karp leads with a profile of Phil Garland, who is perhaps the "grand-daddy" of rural lawyers who have for some time sought to draw attention to the phenomenon that is the rural lawyer shortage. Garland has also been working for several years to solve the problem, starting in 2012 with a program of the Iowa Bar that made summer placements of law students (University of Iowa, Drake, and Creighton) with rural practitioners. Turns out, Garland has finally secured a young lawyer, Carrie Rodriguez, to succeed him. A key to doing so has been eliminating a requirement that his successor buy him out. In other words, Garland is altruistically giving Rodriguez the training and introductions she needs in order to succeed in Garner, Iowa, population 3129. She is not having to purchase his "book of business."
There's so much of interest in this long feature, not least many quotes from yours truly. It also mentions the efforts afoot in many different states, including South Dakota, Maine, Nebraska and Wisconsin, to ameliorate the rural lawyer shortage.
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