Legal Deserts in North Carolina

Legal Deserts by the Numbers

There are over 26,000 lawyers in North Carolina. Yet, nearly half of North Carolina’s counties (48) qualify as a “legal desert,” meaning that the county has less than one lawyer per 1,000 residents. Most of the state’s lawyers (63%) are concentrated in just five out of North Carolina’s 100 counties: Wake, Mecklenburg, Guilford, Durham, and Forsyth. This clustering persists despite North Carolina’s population growth of one million people in the last decade, and the presence of seven law schools in the state. 

Causes of Legal Deserts

Several factors contribute to North Carolina’s legal deserts. Population growth in North Carolina has primarily occurred in the state’s urban counties, with cities like Charlotte, Raleigh, and Wilmington experiencing the fastest growth. This is a national trend, as the United States’ urban population continues to grow, with 80% of the U.S. population living in urban areas. 

Additionally, young lawyers seem to be hesitant to establish practices in rural areas. There is expressed concern about limited training and a lower income potential, which is understandable considering the substantial amount of debt most law students leave with upon graduation. 

Impacts of Legal Deserts

The legal field touches almost every aspect of routine life activities – from buying or selling property, to creating a will, to handling financial issues, to dealing with criminal charges. The reality is that most people will need a lawyer at least once in their lifetime, and their access to a lawyer is a direct correlation to their access to justice. 

Rural individuals are oftentimes already disadvantaged due to their socioeconomic status and likely do not have knowledge about the legal system and the ways in which it can assist them. A lack of access to a lawyer directly inhibits their ability to access a system designed to create equality and equity under the law. An inability to seek legal recourse and remedy wrongs exacerbates the issues present in already disadvantaged population groups.  

One stark example is the criminal justice system. In North Carolina, only 40 counties have a public defender office. The counties without an office rely on private attorneys on the court-appointed attorneys list. However, low state compensation rates discourage lawyers from accepting these cases, and many attorneys leave the list as they advance in their careers. In many legal deserts, the lack of incoming young lawyers means the list of court appointed attorneys is becoming shorter. As a result, court dockets are becoming more backlogged, pretrial detention rates are rising, and rural jails are becoming overcrowded.

Potential Solutions 

In North Carolina, Chief Justice Paul Newby has used his Commission on Professionalism to prioritize the issue of legal deserts in the state. His initiatives include an educational campaign with rural lawyer panels in law schools to dispel myths about practicing in rural areas. He advocates rebranding these areas as “legal oases” to emphasize the need for lawyers and the potential for successful practices. Additionally, he has created the “Legal Oasis Fellowship,” a ten-week, paid internship for law students to work in underserved areas across the state, pairing them with host firms, community partners, and courthouse personnel. 

Other proposed solutions include increased funding to establish more public defender offices and partnering recent law graduates with aging attorneys in rural communities so that they can be in a position to purchase the retiring attorney’s practice and obtain experience from him or her before taking over. 

Some states have also attempted to combat their legal desert issue with loan forgiveness programs. While North Carolina offers loan forgiveness for certain public service employees such as public defenders or legal aid attorneys, it does not currently offer any loan forgiveness programs for students practicing in legal deserts. Yet, the College Foundation of North Carolina offers loan forgiveness to certain healthcare professionals, ranging from medical doctors to mental health counselors, for working in underserved areas. The North Carolina Office of Rural Health has also instituted a loan repayment program for mental health providers working in rural areas. For many, student loans are a massive burden and a big consideration for places to live and jobs to take. Targeting this stressor offers a strategic incentivization for many young professionals. In states that have instated a loan forgiveness plan for private, rural attorneys, the funding is sourced from a variety of places, including the county of the practitioner, the State Bar, and the state judicial branch. South Dakota’s Rural Attorney Recruitment Program, which gives attorneys a stipend of $12,500 a year for five years if they agree to work in rural counties, has already seen success, with 26 lawyers currently enrolled in the program since its inception in 2021.  

Moving Forward

North Carolina must confront its legal desert problem to preserve access to justice for all residents. It must do this through strategic intervention, incentivization, and education to law students and the greater community. By prioritizing rural access to legal services, North Carolina can help ensure that all residents—regardless of location—have the legal support they need. 

Beth LeCroy

Class of 2026, Staff Member