Georgia's rural-urban justice gap

I missed this op-ed by Prof. Lauren Sudeall (Georgia State University) when it was published last fall, so I'm highlighting now.  The headline for the Law 360 piece is "We Must Help Fix Justice Gap In Georgia's Legal Deserts."  Here's an excerpt highlighting some findings of rural-urban difference regarding the justice gap: 

In many of the counties with only a handful of attorneys, some of those attorneys may serve as public defender, prosecutor or judge; others may be functionally retired, working for government entities or otherwise not able to provide assistance.

Therefore, there may be even fewer attorneys available to help with everyday legal needs relating to housing, employment, benefits or family law issues.

Narratives about the availability of legal representation — or lack thereof — are often based on the experiences of urban communities, given researchers' and much of the media's focus on larger cities. For example, in the context of eviction, advocates often lament the fact that nearly all landlords have counsel, while nearly all tenants do not — 90% in both cases.

In more rural areas, however, it is most often the case that both tenant and landlord are unrepresented. In our study of eviction court in suburban and rural Georgia, the county with the highest rate of representation had tenants represented in just 1.2% of cases and landlords in only 12.2% of cases. In more rural counties, representation rates were 0.5% or less for tenants and less than 8% for landlords.

The parties may not be unique in this respect; in many magistrate and municipal courts, the judge is also not a lawyer.

The phenomenon of courts without lawyers is not unique to rural areas. Many smaller, lower-level courts might themselves be considered legal deserts, given the infrequency with which those appearing in court are represented by counsel. And this is true not only in the civil context, but in criminal cases as well.