Zoom court: Problems and solutions

A meeting celebrating Wikipedia's 20th birthday, conducted on Zoom due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Today you can do almost anything remotely. Want to tie the knot with that special someone in your life? You can do it through Zoom. Want to earn your degree? You can do that remotely now, even a law degree. Have you met your ultimate demise, and your relatives are saying goodbye one last time? Zoom has got you covered there, too.

Despite how much of our world has moved to myriad uses of optic fibers running underground, it seems like the legal system has been particularly resistant to opportunities associated with this new reality, with the new possibilities it represents. This especially impacts rural communities, which often find themselves unable to hire and keep enough public defenders and prosecutors willing to live nearby to keep the criminal justice system running.

Background

Before getting to how the legal profession can step with both feet into the digital age, let’s zoom out a bit. Before the days of Zoom—and even before the days of the now defunct Skype—courts around the country toyed with the idea of remote assistance by counsel. Some efforts date to the 1990s. Back then, the technology was clearly nowhere near where it needed to be for it to be a reasonable alternative to in person attorney appearances. Most efforts were thus limited and they ended in the early 2000s.

Despite improvements in technology in the 2000s and 2010s, it was not until the 2020s that the idea of remote appearances by counsel made a comeback. When that happened, it wasn’t just a product of technological innovation, it was also a product of necessity. In early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic shook the entire world, and our criminal justice system along with it. States around the country scrambled to find ways in which essential processes of life that required close quarters contact between people could be performed at a time in which we thought such contact could prove lethal.

And so, the legal system went remote in the way that prisons, schools, funeral homes, churches and most other institutions of American life did so. That is to say, hastily and inadequately. In her 2025 article, We Need to Talk: Modernizing Attorney-Client Jail Communications, Texas A&M School of Law Professor Cynthia Alkon reports the results of a nationwide survey of lawyers she conducted shortly after the start of the pandemic. Many of the respondents were criminal defense attorneys.

A bus somewhere in Bodega Bay, a village in Sonoma County, CA. Reaching Sonoma County's Superior Court from this starting point would probably take multiple buses and hours of time.

Some problems

The overwhelming majority of the attorneys responding to Alkon's survey reported concerns about the confidentiality of their remote meetings with their clients. This was not an abstract, unsubstantiated fear. Some of the article respondents reported incidents of guards and prosecutors listening in on their remote communications, of inmates not being in private rooms during their remote communications with their attorneys, and of deputies recording the calls and forwarding them to the police and to prosecutors.

Confidentiality, however, was not the only issue. Respondents of Professor Alkon’s survey also noted the difficulty of building rapport with clients when discussing private and sensitive subjects when they were not face to face. It was not only lawyers and clients who were having trouble connecting due to remote interactions, but also defendants and judges. In its 2020 report, The Impact of Video Proceedings on Fairness and Access to Justice in Court, the Brennan Center cites a 2010 study which found that defendants whose hearings were conducted over video had substantially higher bond amounts set than those who appeared in person (with the increases ranging from 50% to 90%).

Having all parties physically present in the courtroom also reinforces the gravity and seriousness of the proceedings. In the years since the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been multiple reports of criminal defendants being punished for not understanding the seriousness of their situation. For example, a St. Joseph County, Michigan, man found himself in trouble with Judge Jeffrey Middleton when he logged into virtual court with a colossally inappropriate username. The man was called "an idiot" by the judge, and was placed in a Zoom breakout room as a punishment). In another tragic episode of Zoom court, a man from Washtenaw County, Michigan, found himself in hot water with Judge Cedric J. Simpson when he logged into virtual court from behind the wheel of a moving vehicle to answer to charges of driving with a suspended license (in an astonishing turn of events, the judge realized the man had never had a license, an ordered him to walk himself to the county jail). In perhaps the most extreme case, a Sacramento, California, surgeon logged into virtual court while operating on a patient. These are but a few examples of how the informality of remote platforms caused defendants to behave in ways that did not rise to the seriousness of their situation. Skeptics of remote court appearances and client counseling could certainly argue that defendants may not assist their attorneys with their own defense as effectively when the attorney is just a small picture in a computer.

Another issue that may affect outcomes for criminal defendants who are assisted by an attorney who is working remotely is that of the subtle communications that happened between client and attorney during court appearances. In an episode of the Center for Justice Innovation’s podcast In Practice, the hosts noted that public defenders who joined one of their virtual panels expressed concern about their ability to communicate with their clients through video conferencing. The panelists noted that public defenders often exchange quick whispers and other communications with defendants. The inability to do so can severely undermine outcomes for defendants.

Alpine County's Courthouse in Markleeville, CA.
As of late 2024, all proceedings were being conducted via Zoom.
© Lisa R. Pruitt 2024

Some solutions

The issue of confidentiality, while the most serious, may also be the most straightforward to solve—at least theoretically. In her article, Professor Alkon suggests that:

prosecutors’ offices should clearly, as a matter of policy, prohibit anyone in their offices from using information gathered through recordings of privileged attorney-client conversations.

In practice, these prohibitions must be enforced. How might that be achieved? They should be enforced exactly as they are enforced when there are intrusions upon face-to-face private communications between attorneys and criminal defendants. Potential remedies include suppressing evidence dervied from such intrusions, disqualification of the involved attorneys, sanctions, suspensions, or even disbarment. Perhaps this seemed difficult to implement while the world was scrambling in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is no reason why it should be an insurmountable challenge today.

The challenge of establishing rapport between lawyers and clients is a serious one, and it is one that might not have a simple solution. Perhaps video conferencing technology will eventually improve to the point where it is able to fully capture human presence and feelings, enabling lawyers to build affinity with clients across the state as if they were mere feet from each other. Until then, we might find solace in the fact that uncongenial assistance of counsel is a lot better than no assistance at all. Similarly, I think lawyers and courts can take extra efforts to impress the need on defendants to assist in their own defense.

As for the issue of the small interactions between client and attorney that are crucial to the process, this might be an area where courts can accommodate the needs of an evolving society. This would not be the first time the courts have had to be innovative and accommodating. For example, no one will argue that the need for interpreters in court does not slow down the process, or that it does not require some extra effort from judges and juries. Yet, it is clearly a cost worth bearing. With that in mind, I do not think that having a court appearance that takes a few more minutes due to the need to quickly go into a private breakout room is too high a price. Courts can experiment and find ways to make the process more agile, while always prioritizing the ability of defense lawyers to assist their clients.

Finally, it is perhaps best that defendants appear remotely as little as possible, to eliminate the potential prejudice that is hinted at by the more negative outcomes they face when they do so. At the same time, judges should receive training on the inherent biases that humans have when they hear and see a person through a screen as compared to face-to-face. Technology has progressed quite quickly in the last few decades, and it is normal for people's instincts and intuitions to lag behind such fast-paced development. This is no reason to discard the idea. Perhaps judges and juries today deliver more negative outcomes when parts of the process are conducted remotely. This need not be the case in the future. Part of the solution, as with many other things, may be education.

Conclusion

The potential issues examined in this article are not the only ones that may arise from the practice of remote criminal defense. A further examination may reveal others. However, what I hope this post can impress upon readers is that there is absolutely no reason to give up in the face of these challenges. These are, mostly, technical challenges. America has put a dozen men on the surface of the moon; it must be capable of putting two people in a confidential Zoom breakout room.

CalMatters does deep dive into flat-fee contracts for indigent defense

Anat Rubin reports today for CalMatters, the non-profit news service, under the headline, "The Walmart of Public Defense:  How Justice Gets Sold to the Lowest Bidder in Rural California."  Here's an excerpt: 

For three years, the fate of poor people accused of crimes in San Benito County lay in the hands of attorneys who barely spoke with their clients and seldom filed legal motions on their behalf.

While defendants asked them to contest the prosecution’s evidence, to interview witnesses, to do anything, really, to challenge law enforcement’s narrative of the crime, they ushered almost all of them to plea deals instead, averaging just one jury trial for every 1,500 cases.

The attorneys worked for Fitzgerald, Alvarez and Ciummo, the firm that San Benito paid to provide public defense. According to a 2024 state evaluation, they were not doing a good job. Two of the attorneys had inappropriate relationships with clients, another struggled with addiction.

The situation had deteriorated so dramatically that the San Benito district attorney, Joel Buckingham, found himself worrying about the people his office was trying to send to prison. Their attorneys didn’t contest the evidence Buckingham’s prosecutors presented, no matter how it was obtained. Each year, they filed an average of just 10 motions to suppress evidence based on violations of constitutional rights — including unjustified stops and searches, illegal interrogations, and arrests without probable cause.

“Police officers must make mistakes sometimes,” Buckingham told a researcher conducting the evaluation.

The sheriff, Eric Taylor, was also alarmed. If his deputies were never challenged in court, how would they know when they had crossed a line? What would stop them from doing it again?

In Taylor’s previous job, in Santa Cruz County, the courthouse was often packed with law enforcement officers who had been called to defend their actions.

“If we’re doing our job correctly, then we prevail on those motions,” he told San Benito county supervisors last year. “And if we’ve made a mistake, and we’re doing our job incorrectly, we’re held accountable for that.”

Nearly half of California counties pay private lawyers and firms to represent poor people in criminal cases, and most of them, like San Benito, do it through what’s known as a “flat-fee” contract, meaning they pay a fixed amount, regardless of how many cases the attorneys handle or how much time they spend on each case.

It’s a far cheaper alternative — at least in the short run — to operating a public defender office with government lawyers, and it’s created a second-tier justice system in rural stretches of the state: Seven of the eight counties with the state’s highest jail and prison incarceration rates have flat-fee contracts.

You can read the rest of this deeply reported story here.  Read my own scholarship about rural indigent defense delivery here (Yale Law Journal Forum, about how these issues play out in Washington State) and here (Arizona Law Review, about Arizona).  

New book: Global Reflections on Positionality in Rural Access to Justice

Global Reflections on Positionality in Rural Access to Justice Research is published today by Bloomsbury.  The co-editors of this anthology are Michele Statz and Daniel Newman.  A synopsis follows: 

This book offers a unique look at rural access to justice through a series of personal and professional reflections by leading scholars in the field.

Engaging a “position sensibility”, it explores how our identities, class backgrounds, and professional privileges shape research and writing in rural places-and how those rural places in turn shape us.

This is an important collection, for while rural justice gaps are well-documented, considerably less has been written about the distinct opportunities that rural communities present for collaborative research, innovation, and policy development. The book offers us an honest, reflexive accounting of what has been done, why, and what's next to dismantle academic barriers and promote meaningful work on rural access to justice.

As a call to still deeper engagement with rurality, this book will inspire readers to consider rural place in their studies of law-and to consider their own place in scholarship on access to justice.

Here's the Table of Contents; as you will see, it includes many notable scholars of rural legal scholarship: 

1. Introduction, Rebecca Sandefur (Arizona State University, American Bar Foundation , USA) 

2. Claiming the South, Elizabeth Chambliss (University of South Carolina, USA)

3. From the Valleys to the Academy, Daniel Newman (Cardiff University UK)
4. Improving Access...Delivering Justice? Insights from Empirical Legal Research on (Rural) Access to Justice, Leslie S Ferraz (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
5. Indigenous Communities and Reparative Reflexivity in Socio-legal Studies, Brieanna Watters (University of Minnesota, USA)
6. Considerations of Access to Justice in the Context of Disaster, Kyle Mulrooney (University of New England, Australia), Marg Camilleri (Federation University Australia), Joseph F Donnermeyer (Ohio State University, USA) and Alistair Harkness (University of New England, Australia)
7. An Escape to Rurality, Maybell Romero (Tulane University, USA)
8. The Language of a Place, Michele Statz (University of Minnesota, USA)
9. The Slain South African Police Officer's Legacy Lives on: A Rural Criminologist's History, Witness Maluleke (University of Limpopo, South Africa)
10. Race, Rurality, and Marginalisation in the American South, Lauren Sudeall (Vanderbilt University, USA)
11. 'Do What Has to Be Done': How the Codes We Live By Shape Rural Access to Justice, Hillary Wandler (University of Montana, USA)
12. My Past is My Present: Teaching in and Writing about a Home Community, Hannah Haksgaard (University of South Dakota, USA)
13. Legal Pluralism and Human Rights Concerns, Wilfredo Ardito (Pontifical Catholic University
of Peru)
14. The Importance of Place in Law and Society, Mark Fathi Massoud (University of California, USA)

Legal Services Corporation releases long-awaited report at Rural Reach event

Panel of paraprofessionals who provide assistance to legal aid clients
"Rural Reach" event, Oct. 29, 2025, Madison, Wisconsin 

Here are the broad outlines of this important report, "Justice Where We Live:  Promising Practices from Rural Communities, quoting from the press release: 

For millions of Americans living in rural communities, access to civil legal help is out of reach, according to a report released today by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC). The report, “Justice Where We Live: Promising Practices from Rural Communities,” is a first-of-its-kind exploration of the barriers rural Americans face in accessing legal help – and the community-driven solutions already making a difference.

Across the country, 41% of counties are considered “legal deserts,” with few or no lawyers available to serve residents (source: Legal Evolution). In rural-heavy states like Wisconsin, which ranks among the bottom three nationwide for lawyers per capita, families and individuals often face life-altering legal problems — from housing insecurity to domestic violence — without meaningful access to assistance.

To address this urgent need, LSC convened its Rural Justice Task Force in 2021. Funded in part by Ascendium Education Group, today’s report release marks the Task Force’s work by highlighting four key challenges.

• The shortage of attorneys in rural areas.
• The digital divide limiting access to online resources.
• Geographic and transportation barriers.
• Cultural differences that can hinder trust in the legal system.

Alongside these challenges, the report highlights innovative solutions already underway in rural communities and offers recommendations for lawmakers, courts, legal aid providers, law schools, and others. Promising practices — from technology-enabled legal services to new recruitment pipelines for rural lawyers to expanding opportunities for professionals beyond lawyers to help those facing legal issues — show that progress is possible and replicable.

“If we want to know how to deal with the challenges that face rural Americans, the best thing we can do is talk to rural Americans and the people deeply rooted in those communities,” said Fr. Pius Pietrzyk, LSC Board Vice Chair and co-chair of the Task Force. “In this new report, we've taken a deep look at the reasons families cannot seem to get the civil justice they deserve, and our Constitution promises them, and offers concrete solutions not just for legal services offices, but for all Americans.”

“Access to justice should never depend on where someone lives, but for too many in rural Wisconsin and across the country, that’s the reality,” said Rebecca Rapp, General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer of Ascendium, who serves as co-chair of the LSC Task Force alongside Pietrzyk. “This report shines a critical light on the barriers rural residents face and points to solutions they have developed to close the justice gap in rural areas and beyond.”

The gallery walk at the "Rural Reach"
event featured innovative approaches
to serving rural residents where they
are.  Oct. 29, 2025

For rural residents, the stakes are high. LSC’s research shows that more than three-quarters of rural households face at least one civil legal problem each year, yet 86% receive inadequate help. Without legal assistance, families risk losing homes, veterans struggle to access earned benefits, and seniors face crushing debt with nowhere to turn.

The report emphasizes that while the challenges are steep, progress is possible.

“We know what works to close the rural justice gap,” said Ron Flagg, President of Legal Services Corporation. “We need to invest in programs that bring legal help to where people live — from growing the pipeline of rural attorneys, to supporting licensed legal paraprofessionals and community advocates, to using technology that connects clients to help across long distances.”

These ‘fixes’ only work, though, “with sustained commitment at the local, state, and federal levels,” Flagg added. “Together, we can ensure that geography never determines whether someone can access justice.”

 A big focus of the event--not highlighted here--was a push toward the use of para professionals--sometimes called "justice workers"--to help meet legal needs in rural places.   The final panel of the day featured four such paralegals or justice workers from Montana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Georgia.  Interestingly, a program to empower paraprofessionals in Washington State--there called LLLT (limited license legal technicians)--was shuttered a few years ago.  Now such programs--at least among a few dozen states--are being seen as the future of filling the justice gap.  Two prior posts on the rural justice gap and how paraprofessionals might fill them are here and here.  

Panel of judges and the American Bar Association President 
speaking in support of licensing of paraprofessionals, sometimes
called justice workers. 

Maine Law Review Call for Papers. Rural Perspectives in Law: Challenges and Opportunities

The Maine Law Review is seeking article proposals for our topical issue: Rural Perspectives in Law: Challenges and Opportunities.  This issue will be published in spring 2026 as Volume 78.2 of our legal journal.

Abstracts of 300-500 words will be reviewed on a rolling basis and should be submitted no later than October 1, 2025, at 5:00 PM.  All submission should be sent to mlreditor@maine.edu.

Rural communities across the United States face unique legal challenges that often differ from those in urban and suburban settings.  Issues such as access to justice, scarcity of adequate legal counsel, limitations due to aging infrastructure, and the impact of shifting industries and demographics shape the practice of law in rural America.  Maine is the second most rural state in the country with 62% of its population living in rural areas. However, most of the legal providers are located in the more urban, southern portion of the state.  Rural communities outside of Maine face similar challenges.  

This volume is meant to speak about the challenges and potential opportunities rural communities across the nation face, and contribute to a broader conversation about how the law and policy can better serve rural America. 

Articles published in this upcoming volume of the Maine Law Review have the opportunity to contribute to an evolving area of law and to provide practical guidance and commentary on a pressing issue many rural communities across the nation are facing. Potential article topics could include but are not limited to: 

• Access to legal services in remote communities.
• The rise of virtual court hearings and tele-lawyering, and their impact on legal services.
• Infrastructure challenges in rural communities including broadband, utilities, etc., and legal solutions to them/the role of attorneys in rural economic development. 
• Unique issues to rural communities in areas of interest like family law, criminal law, property law, or impacts to rural economies or heritage industries.
• Property issues including zoning ordinances, land use regulation (farming, fishing, forestry, cannabis, etc.), or the impact of pollution/climate change on economic revitalization.
• The impact of federal funding priorities and the potential disproportionate impact on health or public services. 
• Recruitment, retention, burnout, and retirement of attorneys in rural communities.  

 The editors encourage creative and diverse viewpoints, and encourage interested authors to submit proposals on legal topics of interest that impact rural communities. 

Wisconsin Supreme Court details rural lawyer shortage in matter where criminal trial delayed 46 months

The Wisconsin Supreme Court decided State v. Ramirez last week, a matter about a criminal defendant who experienced a 46-month delay in being tried for an alleged crime. The court upheld his conviction, in part because he waited 32 months to assert his right to a speedy trial. This is one of the first cases in which I've seen a court acknowledge the legal relevance of the rural lawyer shortage.  Some excerpts follow:

¶1 Our federal and state constitutions guarantee criminal defendants the right to a speedy trial. The Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution provides, "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial," and Article I, Section 7 of the Wisconsin Constitution says, "[i]n all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right . . . in prosecutions by indictment, or information, to a speedy public trial." Luis A. Ramirez, as an inmate already serving a lengthy sentence for felony convictions, attacked and injured a corrections officer.  After a series of continuances and rescheduled trial dates, Ramirez was finally tried and convicted by a jury 46 months after he was criminally charged for the attack.

¶2 Ramirez moved for postconviction relief, alleging the 46-month delay violated his constitutional speedy trial right. The postconviction court denied his motion, and Ramirez appealed. The court of appeals reversed and ordered the only remedy available for constitutional speedy trial violations—dismissal of the charges. The State sought this court's review of a single issue: Whether Ramirez's constitutional right to a speedy trial was violated. We conclude it was not and reverse the court of appeals.

What follows is an excerpt from the concurrence by Chief Justice Ann Walsk Bradley, with whom Judge Janet Protasiewicz joined.  

¶80 In this case Ramirez's claim was doomed by his 32-month delay in asserting his speedy trial right and his failure to persuade that the 14-month duration from his assertion of the right to his trial violates the constitution. However, I cannot join the majority's approach because it could give the State a pass in cases involving delays even longer than the 46 months at issue here.

¶81 At a time where defendants are experiencing significant delays in appointment of counsel, this concern is especially acute.[5] Delays due to the lack of available attorneys can stretch into the triple digits. See Lee, 401 Wis. 2d 593, ¶6 (Dallet, J., dissenting) (setting forth that the defendant was held in custody "for 113 days before a preliminary examination, 101 of which were prior to the appointment of counsel").[6] In 2022, the state public defender opined that it would "take several years to clear a backlog of roughly 35,000 cases because of a shortage of public defenders."[7]

¶82 In Wisconsin's vast rural areas, especially in the northern part of the state, the problem has reached crisis levels. Although the data is admittedly at least seven years old, an article published in 2018 describes how "[o]ver 60% of the state's attorneys practice law in major urban areas, leaving some counties in rural Wisconsin with attorney-to-resident ratios as high as 1:4,452." Lisa R. Pruitt et al., Legal Deserts: A Multi-State Perspective on Rural Access to Justice, 13 HARV. L. & POL'Y REV. 15, 81 (2018) (footnotes omitted). In comparison, the statewide ratio is about 1:389.[8]

¶83 Additionally, the population that is practicing law in the rural north is rapidly aging. As of 2018, "[a]cross the northern half of the state, only six of the forty attorneys in Vilas County are under the age of fifty, and Florence and Pepin counties have no lawyers under fifty. Oconto County has two, and no new attorneys have moved into the county in the last decade." Id. at 81-82 (footnotes omitted). In total, as of that time, "[n]ine counties in northern Wisconsin ha[d] ten or fewer active attorneys." Id. at 82 (footnote omitted). Although this data is now seven years old,[9] the problem has certainly not abated. In fact, it has only worsened.[10]

¶84 As of 2024, the number of active attorneys in Wisconsin had dropped four percent over the last four years, while the number of attorneys in rural Wisconsin had plummeted by seven percent.[11] Eight counties have no certified private bar attorneys to take cases when the state public defender cannot represent a defendant.[12] Such a shortage "not only impacts the constitutional rights of defendants—it also affects victims and our communities."[13] Despite intervening attempts to address the root causes of the shortage, the problem persists.[14]

¶85 The shortage of lawyers in rural areas is a systemic problem, not an intentional one, putting it at risk of being termed "neutral" in the parlance of the majority's speedy trial analysis.[15] It is possible that a defendant could spend months or even years awaiting the appointment of an attorney, a necessity for any trial, much less a speedy one. And as the majority opinion demonstrates, when a delay is termed neutral, good luck to a defendant in succeeding on a speedy trial claim.

¶86 This court should not give its seal of approval to such an approach. Rather, the court of appeals approached this case the right way by breaking down the periods of delay and determining the reasons behind them and the weight to be given in the Barker analysis. The analysis conducted by the court of appeals represents a more nuanced approach that is better suited to the fact-specific nature of a speedy trial determination. See Urdahl, 286 Wis. 2d 476, ¶11.

CLE on recruiting and retaining rural lawyers sponsored by Virginia Bar Association

See the announcement here for the program on June 26 at 12:00 pm/noon Eastern.  I'm cutting and pasting core details below.   

Recruiting and Retaining Rural Lawyers: Challenges and Incentives

Join the VSB for its new virtual Lunch & Learn series—monthly CLEs and webinars featuring topics of interest to VSB members. Tune in from your office to learn more about the programs and initiates of the VSB and earn free CLE credits (when applicable).

Recruiting and Retaining Rural Lawyers: Challenges and Incentives

Thursday, June 26, 12–1 pm

Join us for a Lunch and Learn webinar sponsored by the Virginia State Bar’s Entry, Growth & Distribution of Virginia Attorneys Study Committee(EGAD VA), on June 26 at noon. Rural legal practice is vital to ensuring access to justice, yet many underserved communities continue to face a shortage of attorneys due to geographic, economic, and professional barriers. Professor Hannah Haksgaard will examine the landscape of rural legal practice and share research-based strategies for recruiting and retaining lawyers in these areas, including insights on effective incentive programs.

On rural legal deserts, this time in the Bench + Bar of Minnesota

Shaun Jamison of Purdue Global Law School writes (excerpting just a little here, but don't miss the full column): 

It won’t come as news to lawyers living and working in rural areas, but many of the people who live there are challenged by a lack of access to solutions to their legal needs. The access to justice issues have grown so acute in many places that a relatively new term of art—“legal deserts”—has grown up in legal aid circles to describe them. This article will offer a brief discussion of some of the key issues as well as possible solutions. 

* * *

There are several reasons for the low ratio of rural lawyers, including a misperception that a lawyer cannot make a living in a rural area, the “graying” of the rural bar, and a paucity of new lawyers coming in to serve rural areas. Some will argue that more lawyers are not the solution, or at least not the only solution, but there still is a minimum number of lawyers needed to ensure the protection of people’s constitutional rights and ensure the functioning of the court system. A criminal case, for example, requires three lawyers in a county to be available—and free of conflicts in the matter at hand—to try a case: a judge, a prosecutor, and a defense lawyer. 

Here's a (nearly) one-stop shop on legal deserts and related aceess to justice issues.  And Jamison refers to Hannah Haksgaard's new book, The Rural Lawyer (Cambridge University Press 2025), an important new resource. 

On the rural lawyer shortage, from the Illinois Supreme Court

Mark Palmer, Chief Counsel to the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism, posted this a few days ago about the enduring rural lawyer shortage.  The item is headlined, "The Disappearing Rural Lawyer, Part IV: The Persistent Legal Desert Crisis."

I'll just include a short excerpt here: 

In previous installments of my “Disappearing Rural Lawyer” series (Part I, Part II, Part III), I have examined the alarming shortage of attorneys in rural Illinois and explored initiatives across the state and country to address this problem to better serve rural communities, from financial incentives for relocating lawyers to technology tools to easier cross geographical divides.

Legal deserts — vast geographical areas with minimal or no access to legal services — remain a reality for many rural Illinois residents. For them, finding legal representation might require traveling significant distances, taking time off work, and incurring additional expenses that make justice effectively inaccessible.

In installment IV of this series, I present the latest data on Illinois’ rural attorney shortage and consider what it means for access to justice in 2025 and beyond.
The numbers: A continuing downward trend

Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (ARDC) data from November 2024 reveals that the rural lawyer shortage in Illinois has shown little improvement.

Of the 8,327 Illinois resident attorneys admitted to practice in the last four years, a staggering 7,625 (91.6%) are practicing in Cook County or its collar counties (Lake, McHenry, Kane, DuPage, Kendall, Grundy, Will, Kankakee). This leaves only 702 of those newly admitted attorneys to cover the remaining 93 counties in Illinois.

Furthermore, of these 702, only a portion serve in private practice. Many of these lawyers are drawn to essential, non-private roles, such as prosecutors, public defenders, and other government positions.

However, this means the pool of attorneys available for family law, estate planning, business matters, and other civil needs is even smaller than the already stark numbers suggest.

In comparison to previous years, the trend of the disappearing rural lawyer in Illinois is concerning: 

• 75 Illinois counties have five or fewer new attorneys (compared to 72 counties in 2021)
• 32 counties have no new attorneys whatsoever (compared to 33 counties in 2021)

While there’s been a slight improvement in counties with zero new attorneys, the overall concentration of legal talent in and around Chicago continues to intensify.

Readers can, of course, find many resources related to the rural lawyer shortage on this blog. 

1956 article recognizes still existing barriers to rural practice and accidentally makes a good point

It should perhaps surprise no one that many of the systemic barriers that plague rural lawyers are long standing. Many rural lawyers charge less for their services (in order to ensure that local residents can actually afford their services). But yet, young rural lawyers still have to contend with student loan payments, and if they decide to start their own firms, the cost of overhead expenses such as rent, wages, cost of legal databases, insurance...etc. And in many rural communities, starting your own firm might be the only way to actually get legal work. Rural America is dominated by small firms, which do not hire very often. 

This reality is not new, of course. And recognizing it isn't new either. In 1956, the News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina published a series of articles that looked at the income of lawyers and why it had not kept pace with other professions. The central thesis was that lawyers should charge more to accommodate their overhead expenses, and readers were cautioned against lawyers who cut their fees to get their business. 

A screenshot of the relevant section from the November 20, 1956 article is shown below:

. 

The article ignored that incomes in rural North Carolina are appreciably lower than its urban centers, a reality that was even more true in 1956 than it is today. If a lawyer raises his rates too high, he may find himself without the ability to get clients. 

But by ignoring this point, the author accidentally made a really good point: Rural lawyers have to charge less, all while not having appreciably lower overhead expenses. A smaller percentage of what they charge the client ends up in their pocket and thus ends up back in their communities. Simply telling lawyers to raise their fees is not adequate; more must be done to make practicing in rural communities not only financially appealing but feasible.

This article is a good reminder of how long these issues have persisted. 

Ameliorating the rural attorney shortage by amending the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program

Rural communities throughout the United States are experiencing an acute legal crisis: they aren’t home to enough lawyers. One report estimates that only “2% of small law practices in the United States are located in rural places, even though less than one-fifth of the nation’s population lives in rural locales.” 

The consequences of this phenomenon are tangible. Studies indicate that rural Americans living in legal deserts are more likely to be afflicted by a myriad of issues such as a lack of access to health care, housing insecurity, and substance abuse. These consequences are further compounded by the fact that attorney deserts exist more commonly in high poverty areas. 

So what is the primary cause of rural legal deserts? 

Some reports have cited “social isolation” and a “lack of racial/cultural diversity” as driving forces behind the problem, while others have speculated that “[t]ransportation and associated costs are a burden to those living in rural areas.” These factors, and a number of others, certainly play a role perpetuating the rural attorney shortage. However, the problem is more aptly explained by one looking at one factor: money. 

Rural legal deserts, to a great extent, can be understood as a function of the price of law school and the concentration of job opportunities in metropolitan markets. A study conducted by the Education Data Initiative found that “[t]he average law school graduate owes $130,000 in student loan debts” and that “71% of law school students graduate in debt.” The cost of attending law school, in turn, incentivizes junior lawyers to pursue employment opportunities that will give them the best chance to pay back their loans in a reasonable amount of time. 

One way of doing so is securing employment with a large firm offering high first year attorney salaries. Another common route is working in the public sector which then allows debt laden graduates to take advantage of loan forgiveness programs. 

These paths lead to careers that differ greatly in a number of respects. However, they share one characteristic highly relevant to the subject of rural legal deserts. That is, the overwhelming number of job opportunities with both large private firms and government agencies are in centralized metropolitan areas. As a result, most lawyers find themselves establishing roots in urban communities, thereby decreasing the likelihood that they will ever pursue a career in a rural America. 

So what can be done to address the issue? 

The California Commission on Access to Justice (the “Commission”) has proffered a number of state level solutions to alleviate the problem. These solutions include having law schools expand the scope of their loan forgiveness programs (which are typically reserved for those going into public interest work) to include graduates going into private practice in an underserved community. 

While this state-by-state, school-by-school solution would help, it would leave gaps. As noted by the American Bar Association, less than half of the states have their own statewide loan repayment assistance programs. Rather, the national breadth of the issue and the existence of federal loan forgiveness legislation, when considered together, seem to suggest that the best approach to the problem is a federal approach. 

Rather than having law schools expand the scope of their loan forgiveness programs, a more cohesive solution would be to amend the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness (“PSLF”) Program, so that first-year attorneys going to work for a private firm located within a rural legal desert would be eligible for debt relief. 

Currently, only those working for U.S.-based government organizations and certain not-for-profit organizations qualify for the PSLF Program. However, in light of the program's underlying purpose -- "to encourage individuals to enter and continue in full-time public service" -- the argument for expanding the statutes employer eligibility carries significant weight. 

Like attorneys performing government services or working for non-profits, private attorneys working out of rural legal deserts perform an important public service.  As noted by UC Davis Law Professor Lisa Pruitt, rural attorneys work with communities suffering "disproportionately from poverty, poor health outcomes, the opioid epidemic, educational deficits, and environmental degradation, among other challenges." 

The argument for expanding the PSLF Program's employer eligibility requirement is further bolstered by the fact the many, if not most, private rural attorneys are paid at similar, or lower, rates than a number of government attorneys. For instance, a district attorney working in San Jose, CA, has an average salary of $127, 518. In contrast, at least one rural legal practice report has found that "[t]he prevalence of indigent clients [in rural communities] contributes to the financial stress that many rural attorneys experience." So, it would not be far fetched to assume that most private rural attorneys make substantially less than other government positions that qualify for the PSLF Program. 

In sum, there exists little basis for excluding private rural attorneys from the PSLF Program. These attorneys offer invaluable services to an often overlooked, highly vulnerable segment of the American population. While amending the PSLF Program might not solve the issue entirely, it may go a long way in helping. 

Nevada Bar takes up matter of legal deserts

The Nevada Lawyer Magazine took up the issue of legal deserts in its June 2024 issue, including a story by Katherine Stocks titled, "The Far-Reaching Consequences of Nevada's Legal Deserts."  She offers a novel and sophisticated means of determining when a place is vulnerable to becoming a legal desert.  That calculation takes into account the age of existing lawyers (or, more precisely, how long they have been practicing) as well as how many are judges, prosecuting attorneys or public defenders, all roles that limit their ability to represent clients.  The study found that southern Clark County (where Las Vegas is located) and Elko County, in north central Nevada, are the places most at risk in terms of legal deserts. The study helpfully differentiates within counties.  So, for example, while parts of both Clark and Elko counties have plenty of lawyers, other regions of the counties, which cover large territories, do not.   

Another story in the June issue addresses what the University of Nevada Las Vegas Law School is doing to address the state's rural lawyer shortage.  Currently, for example, there is a rural summer externship program that is a collaboration of the UNLV Law School and Nevada's Department of Indigent Defense Services (DIDS).  

Australian state proposes student debt relief for lawyers willing to practice in rural places

"Bold new plan to get more lawyers to go to the bush," is the headline for this radio story by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation last week.  That "bold" plan involves helping lawyers pay their student loans if they're practicing in a rural, remote or regional area of Australia.  

Here's the promotional blurb: 

There's a dire shortage of lawyers in regional Australia and it's having devastating impacts on people’s everyday lives. One group is proposing a bold plan to try and entice lawyers to ditch the city and go bush. Brett McGrath is President of the Law Society of New South Wales and he tells ABC Newsradio’s Tom Oriti about how waiving student debt could make a big difference.

Here's a compelling excerpt from the interview, after the interviewee, Brett McGrath, notes the disparity between what solicitors can earn in the city and in the country: 

We have some solicitors in rural and regional New South Wales who are paying admin assistants more than they're paying themselves because they're trying to meet overheads week to week, and we are the most heavily regulated profession in the country.  We have ethical obligations.  We have reporting requirements.  And most [solicitors] are employing people.  They're employers so they have to go through workplace employment legislation.  They have all these obligations so they're really struggling to make  ends meet. ... 

I'm the President of the Law Society.  It took me seven years working full time in southwest Sydney and working as a lecturer at a university--so working a second job--it took me seven years to pay off A$40,000 in Hecs.  So you can imagine... A$70,000 is the average now... so with cost of living pressures and rental and all those sort of things... it's a big problem and that's why we think this is a solution that can address that need, particularly for rural and regional areas and make it really attractive for solicitors to come and set their practices up.  

Interviewer:  

If you're a lawyer who will go to the regions to help ease that shortage you'll get your HECS-help fees waived, and if you've already made contributions, they're refunded.  Is that right? 

McGrath:

So, it has its anchor point from the Commonwealth's own review into legal assistance which called for having solicitors who moved to rural, regional and remote areas as a baseline having 45% of their work legal aid work or they work for a Community Legal Centre ... We say that should be a baseline.  We think at the Law Society of New South Wales that should be taken to the next level because of what we're seeing on the ground in rural and regional areas of New South Wales but also across the country that it should be extended to anyone who wants to move to set their practice up and start their careers in regional areas should have their hex waived.  

There are similar schemes to attract teachers, to attract doctors and nurses to regional areas.... We see law and access to justice as a critical part of our infrastructure and services we provide.  

Lismore (New South Wales) is a great example where in disaster zones people are in trouble ... they reach out.  Who do they turn to?  They turn to their solicitor when they're in need. 

Interviewer: 

Have you put that [expensive proposal for debt relief] to the government?  Have you had any response? 

McGrath:  

We've suggested that it'll cost about A$6 million in the first year, and that's ... for the base program.  The first port of call is to have those with 45% of their work in legal aid and in Community Legal Centres so that's about A$6 million and we've put that to the federal government and the Law Council of Australia has ... put that forward as a proposal to the commonwealth.  

Interviewer:  

Any Response?  

McGrath:  

We're waiting on a response.  

On the distinction between the rural lawyer shortage and the rural ATJ crisis

Daria Fisher Page and Brian Farrell of the University of Iowa wrote recently in Law 360 under the headline, "Behind The Unique Hurdles Of Rural Access To Justice."  Here's the gist of their argument, which is a shorter version of their recently published article in the Washington Law Review.  

We argue, however, that rural access to justice challenges and the rural attorney decline have become conflated and viewed as a single crisis in which the declining number of attorneys is understood to be the cause of the rural access to justice problem, and recruiting new attorneys is therefore the preferred solution.

Moreover, these conclusions have often been reached in the absence of agreed-upon definitions of "rural" or "access to justice." We view the rural attorney shortage and rural access to justice as distinct but related phenomena.

Much of the entanglement comes from the fact that access to justice has often been, quite simplistically, measured by reference to attorneys per capita or attorneys per county.

This usage reflects both a narrow understanding of what access to justice means and the fact that, unlike other potential metrics, data on licensed attorneys has been cheaply and readily available from regulating authorities.

The romantic view of the accessible, though generalist, Main Street lawyer may persist. But research shows a growing gap between the needs of low-income rural clients and available private legal services in rural communities.

An attorney is a poor measure of access to justice if their skills and expertise don't match the needs of the community or their services aren't affordable.

Increasingly, access to justice scholars and policymakers have recognized that access to justice is not synonymous with access to lawyers.

Instead, the focus has been to better understand the likelihood individuals in a given location will encounter justice problems and their actual legal needs when they do. An inquiry into rural access to justice focused on people's needs, the outcomes they're looking for and how they want to be treated will allow for the implementation of interventions that best match these needs.

Rural women attorneys comment on work-life balance

Danielle C. Forseth and Melissa Luna wrote in the Advocate, the Idaho State Bar Magazine, last fall about "Women Attorneys and Achieving Work/Life Balance in Rural Idaho."  Here's an excerpt about Idaho State Bar geo-demographics generally:

Idaho has a total of 5,474 active attorneys of which 4,005 reside or have an office in-state.  Idaho’s Fourth Judicial District represents 2,226 of these active and in-state attorneys, leaving 1,779 attorneys to serve the remainder of Idaho. In comparison, Idaho’s Sixth Judicial District claims 189 active, in-state attorneys. In 2020, the ABA reported “two-thirds of [Idaho] counties (29 of 44) have less than one lawyer per 1,000 residents, including three counties with no lawyers at all and two counties with only one lawyer.”For every 1,000 residents, Idaho has 2.2 attorneys. The number of attorneys available to enter into attorney-client relationships with local residents shrinks once prosecutors, city attorneys, and county attorneys are subtracted from available attorneys. Further, the “graying of the bar,” or many attorneys who are older and nearing retirement or retiring within the ISB, adds to the scarcity of rural attorneys. 

And this is what the authors wrote about opportunities in the state's rural-ish counties.  They both practice in Moscow, population 24,000, and home to the University of Idaho.  Moscow is the county seat of Latah County, with a population of nearly 40,000.

Danelle Forseth joined long-time Moscow attorney Ronald Landeck in 2011 full-time after having worked part-time for several years to care for two children until they reached school-age. Melissa Luna joined the law firm in 2015 after working as an in-house civil rights investigator for colleges and universities. She landed in Moscow when her spouse took a position in the region. Danelle recalls:

“Melissa and I graduated from law school together. We had been chatting about job opportunities in Idaho when she said she would be moving to Moscow. I urged her to meet with Ron and me and consider coming to work with us as we had a tremendous need for another attorney to serve our clients. In my experience, there is never a shortage of people or businesses in need of legal assistance in our community.”

Another rural attorney, Susan Wilson, who has mostly practiced as a solo practitioner, also enjoys working in small towns in Idaho.  She states:

“I have more than enough clients to support my lifestyle. I think attorneys in small towns will always be busy – just the nature of having a general practice and conflicts of interest with other attorneys – the whole supply and demand model is very much applicable to attorneys and just like any other market restriction, we have conflicts of interests that force involving other counsel. I’m not even talking about litigation – even transactional attorneys, estate planning attorneys, probates, etc. Every area of law.”

In the authors’ practices, there are enough billable hours to cover expenses and pay themselves salaries above the annual mean wage earned by all attorneys in Idaho. In fact, at different times of the year, they must decline cases to keep their caseloads at a manageable level. In addition, author Melissa has also qualified as a Parenting Coordinator under the Family Law Rules of Procedure and works with parents to make decisions after the entry of a custody decree. 

Another local attorney, solo practitioner Jennifer Ewers, offers other types of legal services to the community, such as mediation services. She comments, “As a mediator, I hope I am helping the community by providing a service that allows parties to resolve family law and other disputes in a less contentious and costly forum than court, and that leaves the outcome of the process in their hands.”.

So little has been written about female lawyers practicing in the rural United States.  That made me especially happy to see these reflections recorded, even though the authors are not writing much that is explicitly gendered.  As much as anything, the story seems to confirm that there's plenty of business for small-town attorneys--at least in "small towns" the size of Moscow, which isn't all that small.  

Judge in rural-ish county censured, partly for failure to disclose relationships with attorneys, litigants

This week, California's Commission on Judicial Performance censured and removed a judge from the Humboldt County California Superior Court.  Jackson Guilfoil reports for the Times-Standard, Eureka on the matter involving Gregory Kreis, who admitted 17 of 21 counts against him.  The former judge has also agreed never again to serve as a judicial officer.  (A prior post with background on the allegations against Kreis is here).

The Commission on Judicial Performance stated:  

The commission issued a censure and bar to Judge Kreis as a result of multiple acts of misconduct. In at least 44 cases over which he presided, Judge Kreis failed to disclose his relationships with seven attorneys; his familiarity with individuals involved in matters before him; or the extent of his relationships with the individuals. The extent and type of this misconduct is serious. Also, the commission commented that it took particularly seriously the judge's sexual misconduct with a female acquaintance. Further, the commission based the censure and bar on Judge Kreis's conduct in treating attorneys and litigants poorly, including making inappropriate, sarcastic, and gratuitous comments to them.

This familiarity among litigants, attorneys and judges reflects a challenge for administration of justice in rural-ish places:  the lack of anonymity or "high density of acquaintanceship" that marks these communities.   That is no excuse, however, for Kreis' failure to disclose these relationships.   

The Guilfoil story includes this summary, which touches on the conflict issue, as well as other more salacious charges levied at Kreis: 

Most of the CJP's initial accusations remained in the stipulated agreement, including a moment when Kreis touched the butt of a mutual friend after being told not to, though the majority of the counts stemmed from hearings where Kreis either did not disclose a conflict or would not recuse himself. Several cases cited in the decision were litigated by Kreis' personal friends, former friends or attorneys representing him in other cases.

Kreis' attorney, James Murphy, said Kreis agreed to these terms because he lost his recent bid for re-election.  Murphy is quoted, "He lost the re-election bid, so he was going to be a short-timer. No sense staying on."  Murphy also commented that he "believes the CJP interfered in the election by announcing their disciplinary inquiry into Kreis during campaign season." 

Here is a story about Kreis' appointment to the bench, by Governor Jerry Brown, in 2017.  He was previously a public defender in Humboldt County.  Kreis is an alumnus of CSU Humboldt, which suggests he may have grown up in the region.  

Solving a rural county's public defender shortage one (or two) lawyer(s) at a time

The Methow Valley News reported earlier this month on an expansion of the public defender staff in Okanogan County, Washington (population 42,000).  (A prior post about the situation in this county that straddles the Cascades, on the Canadian border, is here).  The story is by Marcy Stamper, and the lede follows: 

The situation for people in Okanogan County who can’t afford a lawyer — and for the attorneys who represent them in court — has improved, with two lawyers joining the county’s public defense team and more money for indigent defense available through the end of the year.

One attorney started at the end of April and the other starts next week, Anna Burica of Burica Law, who holds the contract for public defense work for Okanogan County, said last week. One lawyer will work full-time on cases in Okanogan County Superior Court, and the other will work a 75% schedule in District Court. Neither attorney is based in Okanogan County, so both will handle many cases remotely, traveling to the county as needed for trials, certain hearings, and to meet with clients, Burica said.

The additional attorneys and money from the county “will keep us afloat a little longer,” Burica said. Because the state places limits on the number of cases each attorney can handle, Burica and another attorney expect to reach their limit by August, she said.

The story then describes new standards regarding case load limits for public defenders.  These standards that will be implemented over the next four years: 

The new numbers mean that Okanogan County will need 10 full-time attorneys for Superior Court cases, another 10 in District Court, and two in juvenile court. That’s a huge increase, since current contracts (a mix of full- and part-time) add up to just over three attorneys, Burica said. Burica handles some cases as well as administrative duties.

It’s going to be very difficult to find 22 attorneys to do full-time criminal work, Burica said. The pool for new attorneys is not encouraging — right now, there aren’t even 10 attorneys in Okanogan County, including those in private practice, who practice criminal law on the defense side, she said.

Okanogan County will also need 17 legal assistants to help with investigations and mitigation, Burica said. Mitigation specialists look at a defendant’s entire history — such as family issues or abuse — and can help build a case that avoids the maximum penalty, she said.

Stamper also includes some data I've not seen before regarding law school enrollment nationally: 

The situation is complicated by a drop in law-school enrollment nationwide. There was an average of 43,000 first-year students from 1988 through 2000, but then enrollment grew, peaking at 52,400 in 2010. After that, there was a steep drop for four years, ultimately stabilizing at about 38,000 new law students annually.

These data ignore the fact that most law students desire to work in metropolitan areas rather than rural ones, a bigger issue than the sheer number of those earning J.D. degrees.  Read more on these issues here.

Stamper quotes Okanogan County Commissioner Andy Hover as saying that that the state's failure to fund indigent defense makes it an "unfunded mandate, which counties struggle to afford.  He says the cost of providing indigent defense, which will rise with the new standards, could be "in the millions."  Here's some additional context from Stamper: 

The state Legislature has also appropriated a small amount of money for public defense. That includes $900,000 (split between cities and counties) to improve the quality of public defense services.

Hover called that additional state money “a drop in the hat.”  Stamper continues: 

Another $1.86 million will go toward internships and training, in part with the aim of encouraging attorneys to practice in rural areas. Some appropriations are specifically for representation connected with drug crimes, parents programs, and cases involving the insanity defense.

Read more about what is happening at the state level from Daniel Beekman in the Seattle Times, here and here.  

Rural Legal Scholarship: Magassa and Friedman's "Toward Inclusive Justice"

 Lassana Magassa and Batya Friedman of the University of Washington just published "Toward inclusive justice: Applying the Diverse Voices design method to improve the Washington State Access to Justice Technology Principles" in the ACM Journal on Responsible Computing.  Here's part of the abstract: 

We situate our work in literature on inclusive justice, public interest technology in the courts, value sensitive design, and experiential experts. Then we present our research context, the Washington State ATJ-TPrinc, and our method, the Diverse Voices. We provide details on our methods, including our project genesis and implementation of the Diverse Voices process. We conducted experiential expert panels with four stakeholder groups: legal professionals, currently/formerly incarcerated people, immigrant communities, and rural communities. We then report key concerns and insights which surfaced during the panels as well as the review process and adoption of the revised Principles by the Washington State Supreme Court.

Here is what the authors say about why they chose to include rural stakeholders as one of the four groups of stakeholders in their study:

Panel 4: Rural Communities. Selected to balance the historical leaning for urban communities to be at the center of discussions about technology in the courts [35, 68]; the needs of people in rural areas, their distance from judicial bodies, their digital capabilities, and other factors are likely to differ from those who live in urban areas in Washington State.

This is from the Rural Communities Panel, which features the subhead "Experiential Experts" 

We recruited three experiential experts from rural Western Washington state with the help of public librarians and held the panel in a local public library. Panelists included: (1) an attorney who practiced family law, counseling, and mediation; (2) the city attorney in a town with a population less than 5,000; and (3) a legal assistant who worked as a parenting coach.

Panelists were concerned about bias in the justice system – both bias introduced by technology and bias introduced by human actors. The Scope and Access to Justice for All principles state that technology should not create unfairness or bias. Panelists concurred but also felt that it was important to acknowledge that technology could keep human bias in check.

From "Key Concerns and Insights"

“Human beings are massively biased too, so it's really balancing ... maybe using the two [humans and technology] to help balance out.” – Rural communities panelist

Panelists insisted that having the technology available is useless if the judicial system's actors are not sure how or when the technology can or should be used.

“Oh, one thing before I forget, on phones ... I don‟t know if they still do, but I did a trial down there two years ago, and they have a hard and fast rule that you cannot use a phone in the courtroom. I did a trial, and my assistant was doing research on her phone. The judge said, put that phone away. I said, wait a minute, that‟s impairing my ability to represent my client. The judge said, f**k you, you put that phone away.” – Rural communities panelist

The panelists went on to say that when they used a laptop for the same purpose, the judge had no objections. To this end, panelists proposed that the Maximizing Public Awareness and Use principle should advocate for training for those who interact with or are a part of the justice system.

Panelists also questioned the ATJ-TPrinc focus on "high-tech." They countered with the term "high-touch" to bring the focus back to the people who carry out activities in the judicial system.

“High-tech is great, but this is human beings we're dealing with and relationships. People need to be heard to feel justice. When I see people talking about tech stuff, that rarely comes in.” – Rural communities panelist

The panelists expressed disappointment with the focus on technology over people. While acknowledging that the ATJ-TPrinc went some distance to affirm the justice system's users are people with human problems, nonetheless, panelists believed that if justice is to be experienced and felt, more could be done.

Elsewhere, the article notes the difficulty in recruiting rural informants for the study: 

The time and effort to recruit and schedule panelists varied by community, with some being more challenging than others: Legal Professionals (10 hr), Currently/Formerly Incarcerated (15 hr), Immigrant Communities (20 hr); and RuralCommunities (30 hr).

Table 2 shows the location, duration, and panelist composition for each panel. Panels were held in physical locations convenient for panelists, either at an urban university or at a rural library.

Here are some of the rural findings: 

Rural Communities experts maintained that humans are an essential part of the rural justice system and were concerned that as more technologies are introduced, the rural courts might consider humans less important, in turn having a negative impact on rural court users.

* * * 

Rural Communities experts were concerned that lack of access to adequate translation services could result in people having no or inaccurate representation.

I recommend this article in its entirety to those interested in access-to-justice broadly speaking, as well as those interested in formerly incarcerated individuals and rural communities.