[blindlaw] N.Y. Times Article

[Ross Doerr]

I think that this article points out some issues that many blind and
visually impaired lawyers have been trying to bring up for years. But on a
disability level.
I'd read it through twice if I were you.
Then, by all means, go to the South Dakota Bar Association web site and read
those job opportunities. Gods.
Published in April 9, 2013 New York Times
MARTIN, S.D. - Rural Americans are increasingly without lawyers even as law
school graduates are increasingly without jobs. Just 2 percent of small law
practices are in rural areas, where nearly a fifth of the country lives,
recent data show.
Here in Bennett County, which is situated between Indian reservations on the
Nebraska border, Fredric Cozad is retiring after 64 years of property
litigation, school board disputes, tax cases and homicides with no one to
take his place. When he hung out his shingle he was one of half a dozen
lawyers here. Now there is not a working attorney for 120 miles.
"A hospital will not last long with no doctors, and a courthouse and
judicial system with no lawyers faces the same grim future," South Dakota's
chief justice, David E. Gilbertson, said. "We face the very real possibility
of whole sections of this state being without access to legal services."
In South Dakota, 65 percent of the lawyers live in four urban areas. In
Georgia, 70 percent are in the Atlanta area. In Arizona, 94 percent are in
the two largest counties, and in Texas, 83 percent are around Houston,
Dallas, Austin and San Antonio. Last summer, the American Bar Association
called on federal, state and local governments to stem the decline of
lawyers in rural areas.
Last month, South Dakota became the first state to heed the call. It passed
a law that offers lawyers an annual subsidy to live and work in rural areas,
like the national one that doctors, nurses and dentists have had for
decades.
Such moves follow a growing call for legal education to model itself on
medical training to increase practical skills and employability. They also
come amid intense debate on the future of the legal profession, and concerns
about a possible glut of lawyers. In the past two years, only about 55
percent of law school graduates, many with large student loans to repay,
have found full-time jobs as lawyers.
"In some areas we probably do have an oversupply of lawyers, but in others
we have a chronic undersupply, and that problem is getting worse," said
David B. Wilkins, who directs a program on the legal profession at Harvard
Law School. "In the 1970s, lawyers spent about half their time serving
individuals and half on corporations. By the 1990s, it was two-thirds for
corporations. So there has been a skewing toward urban business practice and
neglect of many other legal needs."
Data from LexisNexis showed that in 2012, firms with fewer than 50 lawyers
were heavily concentrated in urban and suburban areas, with only 2 percent
in rural regions.
In June at the annual Jackrabbit Bar Conference, for which delegates from
South Dakota and similar states like Nevada, Montana and Wyoming will gather
near Mount Rushmore, the new South Dakota law is expected to be high on the
agenda.
The South Dakota model has also drawn interest in Iowa, where the 33
counties with the smallest populations, among 99 over all, contain fewer
than 4 percent of the state's lawyers.
"I sent it to our legislators," Philip L. Garland, chairman of the state bar
association's rural practice committee and a lawyer in Garner, Iowa, said of
the South Dakota law. Thirty years ago, he said, there were a dozen lawyers
in his area. Now there are seven, none of them young.
Last year, the Iowa State Bar Association began encouraging law students to
spend summers in rural areas in the hope they might put down roots. In
Nebraska, the bar association organized rural bus tours for law students for
the first time this year.
Here in South Dakota, Mr. Cozad, who is 86 and came as a boy with his
homesteader parents from Iowa, said he had never imagined that younger
lawyers would not follow him. Sitting in his modest paneled office, the
shelves groaning under aging legal volumes, he said: "The needs of the
people are still there. There is plenty of work and opportunity."
That was evident on the day court was in weekly session in this town of
1,100. The lunch place at the Martin Livestock Auction, where 1,000 head of
cattle had been sold the previous day, included a table of lawyers, the ones
in suits, ties and no hats. All had driven more than two hours from Rapid
City and Pierre, paid by Bennett County, which also pays to transport
prisoners 100 miles away because it has no functioning jail.
"Between sending out prisoners to Winner and bringing in lawyers and judges,
we are breaking the county budget," said Rolf Kraft, chairman of the County 
Board of Commissioners.
The new law to lure lawyers passed partly because it requires the rural
counties and the bar association to contribute to the subsidy before the
state pays. Mr. Kraft said the law seemed good, but he worried about finding
the money for his county's share and rental properties for young lawyers.
Mayor Gayle Kocer said that landowners in Martin - 42 miles from the site of
the Wounded Knee massacre and home to wild turkeys and antelopes, winter
wheat and millet - required lawyers for deeds, wills, sales and disputes.
"We need lawyers," she said. "Our state attorney drives down from Rapid
City. It's crazy. We haven't had a full-time city attorney in years. For any
legal issue, we have to look out of town."
Carla Sue Denis, a drug-rehabilitation counselor in town - addiction is a
raging problem - said people seeking a divorce and other legal matters
sometimes consulted her since she knew how to do research on the Internet
and download forms.
Thomas C. Barnett Jr., executive director of the State Bar of South Dakota,
said lawyers serve their towns not only through their professional work but
also on school and community boards. He said that in contrast to an earlier
era, law graduates seemed increasingly drawn to urban life for the better
shopping and dining as well as job opportunities for their spouses. In
addition, he said, young graduates need mentors.
But Mr. Barnett, like Chief Justice Gilbertson, said the possibilities for
satisfying and highly varied legal work were especially great in rural
areas. And the plan is to set up new rural lawyers with mentors and help
spouses find work.
The new law, which will go into effect in June, requires a five-year
commitment from the applicant and sets up a pilot program of up to 16
participants. They will receive an annual subsidy of $12,000, 90 percent of
the cost of a year at the University of South Dakota Law School.
This compares with a 40-year-old federal medical program, the National
Health Service Corps, which offers up to $60,000 in tax-free loan repayment
for two years of service in underserved areas and up to $140,000 for five
years of service. The program consists of nearly 10,000 medical, dental and
mental health professionals serving 10.4 million people, almost half in
rural communities.
A spokesman for the federal program said research had shown that residents
who train in rural settings are two to three times more likely than urban
graduates to practice in rural areas.
"The health care model is unbelievably subsidized, and while I favor finding
some version of it for legal needs, it is never going to be ratcheted up to
that level," Professor Wilkins of Harvard said. "We should think more about
public-private partnerships and loosening up some of the restrictions on law
practice without junking them all. What we need now is experimentation, like
what is happening in South Dakota."