[blindlaw] N.Y. Times Article

Tue Apr 9 20:30:30 UTC 2013

Ha ha ha. It's so true. So exciting to think about. But even if they do become commercial there will have to be at least a decade of demonstrated excellence before they'll be allowed to pilot blind people alone, I think.

Sent from my iPad

On Apr 9, 2013, at 12:20 PM, "Daniel McBride" <dlmlaw at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> Sybren:
> 
> Although I am an advocate of hope, I wouldn't put too many eggs in the
> Google Car basket.  I am 57 years of age.  The average life span of an
> American male is 76 years.
> 
> Within my lifetime, only the very wealthy will be purchasing Google cars.
> 
> However, being an advocate of hope, perhaps you will give me one for my 65th
> birthday. (lol)
> 
> Dan McBride
> Fort Worth, Texas
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blindlaw [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Sybren
> Hoekstra
> Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2013 1:09 PM
> To: Blind Law Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] N.Y. Times Article
> 
> Until the google car gets going and we can drive. its not all that far off.
> 
> 
> 
> On Apr 9, 2013, at 13:59, Mike Fry <mikefry79 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> That is interesting article. One issue that seems to particularly affect
> Visually impaired attorneys is driving. So unless you set up an office right
> next door to the courthouse and your clients would come see you, i think it
> would be very difficult for a visually impaired attorney to thrive in that
> kind of rural environment, due to not being able to drive.
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>> On Apr 9, 2013, at 5:34 AM, "Ross Doerr" <rumpole at roadrunner.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> 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."
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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