Concerned about rural access to justice? Start here first.

Since 2017, we have spent countless hours driving rural roads and speaking with low-income community members, attorneys, tribal and state court judges, health workers, law enforcement, librarians, teachers, students, faith leaders, organizers, and elected personnel. At times, these conversations are intense and heartbreaking. They are often stunningly honest and profound. Sometimes they’re very funny. Most important, each reminds us that we are not the experts in solving the rural access to justice crisis. In fact, many of the solutions already exist; they’ve already been thought of; and they’re often being implemented in important and quiet ways.

We have the good fortune of being witness to them. 

As a result, we also have increasing impatience with A2J “solutions” born not of direct experience but of “expertise.” We wrote this guide in response—an invitation, if you will, to be a part of the conversation rather than to assume you’re starting it. 

1. Rural attorney shortages are well-documented. Publicizing your “discovery” of the rural A2J crisis is unhelpful at best and indulgent at worst.

A better approach? Listen. As the individual above rightly noted, conversations on rural justice are already happening. They have been well-documented, considered, collaborative, and productive. We need to keep building momentum, and your perspective will be invaluable. Join in. 

2. “Rural” is not synonymous with “white,” “conservative,” or “angry.”

Similarly, Indigenous individuals are not inevitably “rural.” And finally—and especially if your focus is on the upper Midwest—please don’t presume someone who is Black or a Person of Color is a “newcomer” from a more urban area or a “newly arrived” im/migrant or refugee. 

Rurality encompasses varied and intersecting age, ability, class, ethnic, gender, generational and ideological identities, legal statuses, and experiences. So if you find yourself using “rural” in place of a particular ethnic, racial, or political identity, please consider:

Could I make the same claim of all urban Americans? (i.e., “Urban Americans believe…”)

As obvious as this sounds, you’d be surprised. 

3. Relatedly, and as the saying goes, “If you’ve seen one rural place, you’ve seen one rural place.”

Rural A2J recommendations based on limited research, popular media representations, or short-term exposure are insufficient and even harmful.

For further reading, start here.

4. Don’t make assumptions about technology and connectivity in rural communities.

Initiatives that center on technological “silver bullets” need to first explore whether or not low-income community members have consistent access to broadband, cellular reception, smart phones, or personal computers. They need to know when libraries are open and what the area’s workforce looks like. Is there a lot of shift work? A dearth of childcare? If so, it might be hard to access a computer at a library or the county courthouse.

As this list shows, even in Minnesota counties with broadband, access can be spotty. Technology is critical, but it can’t neglect these socioeconomic and spatial contexts.

5. There are a lot of other (considerably less sexy but potentially more successful) ways to grow access to justice in rural spaces. Among them:

• Librarians are trusted community members, and they receive a lot of questions involving legal needs and resources. Talk to them. Tell them about your initiative / program / idea. Get ready for some very real feedback. 

• Relatedly, A2J initiatives will not succeed if they don’t draw on the hard-won local expertise of social services, housing, and legal aid providers—and also teachers, health workers, faith leaders, and organizers. These individuals are often already dealing with the ramifications of the A2J crisis, and they can lend insights into what is working and what can be done. 

• Promote existing programs, services, and initiatives directly to the populations they are meant to support. NOTE: This will require your time, energy, and physical presence. Bring your ideas to places where people gather, like community centers, town hall or county board meetings, ceremonies, churches, and other social functions. This direct engagement not only provides publicity and outreach, but it’s a necessary chance for you to hear first-hand about the barriers that people face. You will never know if initiatives are effective if you don’t first know the unique challenges that exist.

6. The problem is never really (or just) distance.

Arguably the most common barrier discussed in rural A2J initiatives is “rural distance.” To overlook or deny the economic and often gendered aspects of this is to perpetuate a crisis. An individual’s ability to traverse rural distance largely depends on available childcare; a reliable vehicle; a driver’s license; a consistent work schedule; the ability to secure time off; dis/ability; age; health; weather; and road infrastructure. Each of these diverse needs deserves attention.

7. Are you particularly interested in rural attorney recruitment and retention? Then don’t forget this:

The prevailing law school wisdom seems to focus on facilitating exposure--i.e., short-term clinics and even bus trips to give more metropolitan JD students a taste of rural practice. Many of these initiatives offer one-off assistance for community members, and we fear that the same critique of “medical missions” may be relevant here.

So what to do? 

• Early pipelines are critical. This is the kind of exposure that matters. If you don’t know anyone who is an attorney, or who is an attorney who looks like you, then you will likely not imagine yourself as one. You will not know the steps necessary to become one. 

  Start young. If you are a lawyer or a law professor, hit the road. Visit elementary school classrooms, meet with middle schoolers and high schoolers, introduce yourself to high school guidance counselors, offer to be a mentor. This would be an incredible, sustainable, and long-term way to address rural justice gaps. 

• Second, there can be no meaningful conversation around recruitment and retention without addressing structural--i.e., political and socioeconomic--issues. This has been particularly clear as researchers in rural WI in the wake of Gov. Walker's Act 10, which resulted in school consolidation and the "brain drain" of educators and medical professionals across a lot of small towns. New JDs who have a partner looking for work and / or school-age kids simply won't move to rural areas with failing school systems and limited or nonexistent healthcare. This has to be part of the conversation. A powerful discussion of this structural context can be found here.

8. Initiatives that work in an urban setting likely won’t work in a rural one. But if your initiative is successful in a rural area, it could be successful everywhere. 

Too many A2J initiatives are based on the presumption that legal aid attorneys, law firms (to take on pro bono or low bono cases), mental health and treatment providers, public transportation, cellular reception, and broadband are simply there. Yet in rural areas, these resources are often not consistently available. They may even be nonexistent. 

The flip side, of course, is that if your suggestion takes these factors into account and meaningfully addresses the legal needs of an under-resourced, spatially diffuse rural area, then you can use that idea anywhere.

This is a working list: Come back often for new ideas.

Our profound thanks to the hundreds of individuals we’ve met with and whose insights have informed this document. Special thanks to Judge Robert Friday for point #8.

© Michele Statz and Jon Bredeson, 2020