Rural America currently faces a crisis regarding the rapidly decreasing numbers of rural lawyers serving these communities. In many states rural areas have been losing lawyers for decades and basic access to justice and legal societal roles have been compromised as a result. There is a deep need to replace these aging rural lawyers and turn the tide back to raising and training young lawyers to be local lawyer leaders in these rural communities.
This panel will bring together a number of externship faculty from across the United States who have seen the problems caused by this lack of lawyers firsthand and have put together programming that has been successful in starting to address the issue. The intent will be to discuss what has worked and what can be done to shift the tide to connect those students that are interested and willing to rural legal work.