Rural Law Practice in the News: October 2026
LSAC and partners announce national convening on rural legal deserts
On September 17, 2026, the American Bar Association Journal reported that the Law School Admission Council, the Association of American Law Schools, and the University of Nebraska College of Law are organizing a national convening to address rural legal deserts. The partnership invited law schools, state and Tribal courts, bar associations, and community organizations to participate in a coordinated effort that includes webinars, a survey of law-school initiatives, and a November convening.1
The announcement underscored the scale of the problem: approximately 41 percent of U.S. counties meet the ABA definition of a legal desert, 54 counties have no resident lawyer, and another 182 have only one or two. For rural practitioners, the project is notable because it connects recruitment, legal education, courts, and community-based service delivery rather than treating attorney shortages as a single-program problem.
September webinar focuses on preparing tomorrow’s rural lawyers
LSAC’s September 16 webinar, Preparing Tomorrow’s Rural Lawyers: Student Success and Community Impact, brought together legal-education leaders to discuss how law schools can prepare students for practice in communities with unmet legal needs. The program emphasized experiential education, mentoring, career support, and partnerships among law schools, courts, bar associations, Tribal courts, and local organizations.2
For rural firms and bar leaders, the discussion offers a practical reminder that recruitment is only one part of retention. New lawyers also need professional networks, early exposure to rural practice, structured training, and support after graduation if they are to build sustainable careers in smaller communities.
October webinar will examine service-delivery solutions
The final program in LSAC’s 2026 rural-access webinar series, Closing the Justice Gap: Expanding Legal Services in Rural Communities, is scheduled for October 14 (Editor’s Note: This program has already occurred at the time of publication). The panel will examine barriers to rural legal services and approaches to strengthening the rural legal workforce, modernizing service delivery, and expanding access through policy, regulatory, and community-based solutions.3
The scheduled speakers represent courts, legal education, access-to-justice organizations, and community-justice initiatives. That range is especially relevant to rural practice because durable solutions often require coordination among private attorneys, legal aid providers, courts, law schools, and trusted local institutions.
Legal Services Corporation highlights promising rural practices
The Legal Services Corporation is highlighting Justice Where We Live: Promising Practices from Rural Communities, the final report of its Rural Justice Task Force. The report identifies persistent barriers, including attorney shortages, unreliable broadband, long travel distances, limited transportation, and the importance of community trust.4
The report also collects practical approaches already being used across the country, including rural-attorney recruitment programs, mobile legal clinics, community justice workers, partnerships with medical and faith-based organizations, and expanded use of technology. Rural practitioners can use these examples when developing local partnerships or supporting funding proposals tailored to community needs.
NCSC continues to expand rural-justice and legal-desert resources
The National Center for State Courts continued to feature its rural-justice and legal-desert resource hub in September and October. The collection includes lessons from the Rural Justice Collaborative, geographic-information-system mapping tools, and resources addressing legal education, admissions reform, and rural court innovation.5
The mapping work is particularly useful because it combines attorney availability with distance to courthouses, poverty, limited English proficiency, and broadband access. This gives courts and local bar groups a more complete basis for identifying service gaps and directing resources than attorney counts alone.
Succession planning takes on added importance in rural practice
On September 29, 2026, the American Bar Association published guidance emphasizing that every attorney should develop a succession plan to protect clients and maintain continuity during retirement, incapacity, or other unforeseen events.6 The issue has particular urgency in rural communities, where the departure of a single lawyer may leave clients with few nearby alternatives.
For small and solo rural practices, a workable plan should address client notice, file custody, trust-account responsibilities, deadline management, and arrangements with another attorney who can step in when needed. Succession planning is therefore not only a law-practice management issue, but also an access-to-justice measure for the surrounding community.
- Julianne Hill, LSAC Will Lead National Convening on Solving Rural Legal Deserts, ABA Journal (Sept. 17, 2026), https://www.abajournal.com/web/article/lsac-leads-national-convening-on-solving-rural-legal-deserts.
- Law Sch. Admission Council, Preparing Tomorrow’s Rural Lawyers: Student Success and Community Impact (Sept. 16, 2026), https://www.lsac.org/document-library/1092.
- Law Sch. Admission Council, Closing the Justice Gap: Expanding Legal Services in Rural Communities (scheduled Oct. 14, 2026), https://www.lsac.org/access-and-community-law-school/rural-access-justice/closing-justice-gap-expanding-legal-services-rural-communities.
- Legal Servs. Corp., Justice Where We Live: Promising Practices from Rural Communities (last visited Oct. 5, 2026), https://www.lsc.gov/ruralreport.
- Nat’l Ctr. for State Cts., Rural Justice & Legal Deserts (last visited Oct. 5, 2026), https://www.ncsc.org/resources-courts/access-fairness/rural-justice-legal-deserts.
- Am. Bar Ass’n, What’s Next? Succession Planning in Legal Practice (Sept. 29, 2026), https://www.americanbar.org/groups/tort_trial_insurance_practice/resources/brief/2026-summer/whats-next-succession-planning-legal-practice/.