Private Law Theory

ABSTRACT
Research on rural access to justice tends to appeal to a romantic conception of rural lawyers as accessible generalists who serve the public through pro bono, low bono, and community service, and some characterize rural private practice as public interest work. Many commentators call for programs to attract law graduates to rural locations and at least fifteen states have implemented such programs. Yet we know very little about modern rural legal markets or the role of rural private practitioners in serving low-income clients. The last statewide study of rural private practice was conducted in the 1980s.

This mixed methods study investigates the contours of private practice in rural South Carolina and has four main findings. First, rural private practitioners play a limited role in serving low-income clients. Less than 25% of South Carolina’s rural practitioners practice in the state’s poorer rural counties and most report doing limited pro bono work. Second, specialization is a key ingredient for successful rural practice. New lawyers may take whatever clients they can get, but most practitioners quickly become more specialized, and some specialties can be lucrative, such as personal injury and real estate. Third, personal injury cases are an important means of subsidizing less profitable work, but personal injury work has become more commoditized as the result of mass market advertising, making local ties less important to plaintiffs, and making low-margin practice sustained by periodic personal injury cases less viable. Finally, family ties play a central role in attracting and sustaining rural private practitioners, raising questions about the scalability of recruiting lawyers without local ties.

Rather than providing incentives for private practitioners based on location, the study suggests that we look for ways to directly subsidize specific types of service based on evidence of legal need. We also should consider new ways of marketing legal services to consumers for the benefit of lawyers as well as clients.

Chambliss, Elizabeth, Rural Legal Markets (December 31, 2024).